K Series query from prospective purchaser

[Emily's dad]

Hello one and all

Long time "lurker" but first time poster on the forum.

I'm in the market for a Caterham. I've followed the advice on here and have been to a couple of local meetings, spoken to a couple of owners and more importantly got the OK from the wife to indulge.

I'm after an SV bodied car, doesn't have to be the most powerful thing on the road and using all the best principles of "man maths" have a maximum of £20,000 to buy and insure my new toy. This puts me into K series cars.

I've seen a couple on line I like the look of/can afford and the serious business of test driving and buying will begin in April when the funds are all together.
These are the sort of cars I'll be looking at
http://www.caterham.co.uk/assets/html/preowned/pre...
http://www.premiumclassiccars.com/carlistings/2004...
or at a push
http://www.caterham.co.uk/assets/html/preowned/pre...

I'm looking for a car that'll be fun on the road, few blats to the coast or country pub, I'm not after a car to set the lap record at the track or be the fastest at the local hillclimb.

I've seen and read numerous articles about the sweet revving nature of the K series and how much fun it is, however for every positive article there's a negative, mainly about head gaskets and the "K series click" with starting.

My query is, do these problems crop up with every K series car. Is the headgasket an issue that develops with mileage, age or type of use?
Is there anything that can be done to prevent it, or if it goes is it expensive to rectify.
Similarly I've read that there's a relatively easy fix for the starter issue, but do all K series cars suffer, or is this again down to use.

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time and effort to reply.

All the best
Dave.

[EFA]

HGF occurred on early cars which had some design flaws, corrected on most when the HG was replaced. Today HGF generally only occurs on cars which are not allowed to warm up properly or where they have overheated due to air locks in the cooling system from poor servicing.

The starter click is only with one type of starter motor which seams to draw a much higher current for the solenoid. Its easily overcome with a few simple wiring mods.

Only buy an SV if you need the size. They are dynamically not as "tight" as the S3. SV's seem to carry a premium on price too.

[Toaster]

Having owned a couple of K series over the past 15 years no HG failures, 1600 super sport that was upgraded twice to super sport R and now own an R400K I did have a starter click on the earlier car which was associated with the solenoid but a later variant fixed this.

[viper blue]

I assume from your posts that you are interested in a SV rather than the series3 body?

For £20k you can pick up a nice ford zetec. I noticed that CC have a SV 150 bhp on their site at the moment (black).
I am a fan of the ford duratec, I have one (csr). May be a bit more money though. The ford zetec is a modern reliable engine.

I haven't had experience of the K series personally but would probably go for a more modern ford for £20k to spend. There are a fair few now available on the market, the 1.6 litre comes in 125. 150 and now 140 bhp options.

Happy hunting

Rob

Edited by viper blue on Tuesday 19th February 20:03

[Dr Slotter]

I started off in a similar postion to the OP and then completely blew my budget by buying a Duratec... absolutely don't regret it, but my bank account is still not speaking to me

That black Sigma 150 SV that's at CC South has a 6-speed gearbox which might not be suitable for mostly roadwork, as 6th is the same ratio as 4th on the 5-speed. It might be worth giving CC Midlands a call because when I was in there the other day they were actively buying stock and they might be able to find something for you.

[Emily's dad]

Thanks for all the replies so far.

I'd like to ask a couple of questions in response.

EFA- you say that the head gasket problem generally occurred on earlier cars. Is there a particular date when the design was changed or updated to sort this problem, or do you mean that if a problem occurred it should have been dealt with by the necessary repairs/upgrade.
Likewise is it easy to check the starter motor to see if its the type that may give problems or has been modified.

Toaster- Thats put my mind at rest, you can the impression on line that a k series car will fail you at some point.

Viper Blue- I am after an SV and so far I've only seen a couple for sale with Ford engines within my budget, one at Millwood last year, but I didn't have the money then and one on for sale privately that seemed be a non standard CSR that was roundly criticised on several forums.

Dr Slotter- I've already blown my original budget by going up to £20,000. I've had a look at the black SV at Caterham south. It's a well specced car and I've spoken to the sales staff about it. It's an ex experience car and apparently would cost in excess of £36,000 new with all its options. What the photographs don't show is its cosmetic state. The nose cone is broken, the paint is damaged in several places, the seats look like they need replacing, all easy stuff I'm sure but they all just add to the cost plus £535 to put iton the road. Too much for my budget I'm afraid.

I'll ring both Caterham Cars showrooms and Millwood to see what they've got coming in and keep my eyes on the classifieds.

[EFA]

All cars with the bad head gaskets and dowels will have had HGF by now and replacement with updated parts.

The starter motors are the symptom, not the cause. The corrective action is to either bypass the MFU relay with a better quality relay, or if you have a starter button, just run a new simple feed from the battery, via the button.

[Steve Campbell]

I owned a 97 1.6k supersport for 10 years (2000-2010). No HGF (and yes I hit the limiter many times on track :-)).

I did have the "dreaded" click but it's easily fixed with minimal tinkering time.

Now moved over to a Duratec.