I need to sell my Wedge - what's it worth?
Discussion
Hello All. It's been a long time since I posted or saw any of you at BBWF. Unfortunately work has had to take preference over enjoyment recently. Anyway enough of the excuses. We've decided to move house and to downsize, and the one we're moving to only has a single garage and limited parking. So the Wedge has to go. The big question is how much is it worth, and so I thought I'd pick your collective brains to get an idea, as I neither want to undersell it or wait for ages to get an offer (we need to move out soon!!).
The spec is a bog standard (as far as I am aware) 350i in black. I've owened if for six years and its been used as my company car so I've had the benefit of gettting VAT relief on repairs and parts. I've also used it a great deal for pleasure so it's had a good mixture of long distance and general diddling about. The body has the usual crazing but no scratches and the chassis is fine. The wooden dash has obviously been replaced in the past and is now a matt black affair. There are no water leaks. It has an MOT till next Spring and six months tax.
Now for the drawbacks. The car was a Category C write-off in 1997 but repaired to Footman-James A1 condition - so it's probably in better shape than the original! It's now covered 114,000 miles of which 24,000 have been done by me.
At the moment it is suffering from loss of power under hard acceleration, which I've put down to a faulty fuel pressure regulator, but I don't have the time to repair it before the house sale.
The car (amazingly for a TVR) has let me down only once when some crud got into the fuel pump.
I've seen cars advertised for as little as £1500 and as much as £4500, which seems a huge range. What's it really worth? Are the £1500 cars wrecks and the £4500 cars in concours condition or does the range of prices merely reflect the optimism of the current owner. A pint of beer awaits the one who gives and estimate closest to the final selling price.
The spec is a bog standard (as far as I am aware) 350i in black. I've owened if for six years and its been used as my company car so I've had the benefit of gettting VAT relief on repairs and parts. I've also used it a great deal for pleasure so it's had a good mixture of long distance and general diddling about. The body has the usual crazing but no scratches and the chassis is fine. The wooden dash has obviously been replaced in the past and is now a matt black affair. There are no water leaks. It has an MOT till next Spring and six months tax.
Now for the drawbacks. The car was a Category C write-off in 1997 but repaired to Footman-James A1 condition - so it's probably in better shape than the original! It's now covered 114,000 miles of which 24,000 have been done by me.
At the moment it is suffering from loss of power under hard acceleration, which I've put down to a faulty fuel pressure regulator, but I don't have the time to repair it before the house sale.
The car (amazingly for a TVR) has let me down only once when some crud got into the fuel pump.
I've seen cars advertised for as little as £1500 and as much as £4500, which seems a huge range. What's it really worth? Are the £1500 cars wrecks and the £4500 cars in concours condition or does the range of prices merely reflect the optimism of the current owner. A pint of beer awaits the one who gives and estimate closest to the final selling price.
Gerry Attrick said:
has let me down only once
This is the thing, if you use them regularly then they are very reliable.The price depends somewhat on how desperate you are to sell. Prices are usually better in the spring so you might want to store it until then, or get a good car cover.
Do you have an engineer's report about the repairs? If so I'd guess at about 2 - 2.5k for a good runner in reasonable nick.
The Wedges for me at the mo are far more desirable than these...........
http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/list.asp?s=253
Somehow other people don't see it.
I don't think it'll be long before they do, shirly........
http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/list.asp?s=253
Somehow other people don't see it.
I don't think it'll be long before they do, shirly........
Gerry Attrick said:
At the moment it is suffering from loss of power under hard acceleration, which I've put down to a faulty fuel pressure regulator, but I don't have the time to repair it before the house sale.
Problem is it may not be the pressure regulator, it could be the camshaft esp. with the mileage it has done.Leigh. Thanks for the info. I'll need to look into this before I put it up for sale. Why do you think it could be the camshaft? What are the symptoms? The car runs fine at constant throttle at all speeds up to 70 mph, but stutters badly when I floor the throttle. I assumed that the pressure regulator was open all the time and not maintaining a high enough pressure when the fuel flow requirement was high. The fuel requirement at 70 mph is considerably lower than WOT at 30 mph. The problem also appeared quite quickly over a period of only a few hundred miles, which I would find hard to believe if it was wear in the camshaft. Nonetheless, I'd appreciate your views, as you have far more experience of these engines than me. Don
Gerry Attrick said:
Leigh. Thanks for the info. I'll need to look into this before I put it up for sale. Why do you think it could be the camshaft? What are the symptoms? The car runs fine at constant throttle at all speeds up to 70 mph, but stutters badly when I floor the throttle. I assumed that the pressure regulator was open all the time and not maintaining a high enough pressure when the fuel flow requirement was high. The fuel requirement at 70 mph is considerably lower than WOT at 30 mph. The problem also appeared quite quickly over a period of only a few hundred miles, which I would find hard to believe if it was wear in the camshaft. Nonetheless, I'd appreciate your views, as you have far more experience of these engines than me. Don
Can you get full revs, only said camshaft as its a common fault, plus the car will work fine even with a very bad camshaft, but your not get full power, but full power is very rarely used. I had a camshaft with only 3 full lobes but would get 3500 RPM then it would start to suffer, as said this was extreme, but would pull fine upto 3500. as you say it may just be the FPR, but it could hinder a sale though, as they customer as got to look at worst case scenario. so worth putting a new one on or known ok one they are not that expensive or hard to change.Hello Leigh. Thanks for the information. I'll dig a little further. The problem I have is that I don't really have the time to do much work on it as I have to move out of our house in a few weeks, and I was hoping to sell it with its current faults. What would you reckon it's worth if it needed a new camshaft? Don.
Gerry Attrick said:
Hello Leigh. Thanks for the information. I'll dig a little further. The problem I have is that I don't really have the time to do much work on it as I have to move out of our house in a few weeks, and I was hoping to sell it with its current faults. What would you reckon it's worth if it needed a new camshaft? Don.
Problem is a new camshaft is going to be about £1000 inc fitting, hence saying that it could greatly affect price, if the car is not working 100%, a car that not perfect is one issue, but having problems, could mean you can't sell or would loose a lot of money.It would take less than an hour to change the FPR, either that get it booked for a power run on a Rolling road to check fuelling.
i ve booked my car in for a tune on a rolling road £60 for a hour (hopefully will sort my problem)
i found it difficult to find a rolling road tuner though, but if you do, it may help you sell yours if you find that the problem is small.
then that should increase you confidence and the cars value.
hotty
i found it difficult to find a rolling road tuner though, but if you do, it may help you sell yours if you find that the problem is small.
then that should increase you confidence and the cars value.
hotty
It would be well worth it to get it on something like a Crypton tuning machine, which will identify any electrical weaknesses..cost maybe 30 or 40 quid, or a R/Road even better if you can. About £60 per hour, which should be enough.
Saves messing about replacing bits here there and everywhere when probably not needed.
At the very least you'll have a printout of what is needed to fix the car, so that a potential buyer can be aware, and buy with confidence.
Saves messing about replacing bits here there and everywhere when probably not needed.
At the very least you'll have a printout of what is needed to fix the car, so that a potential buyer can be aware, and buy with confidence.
Cracked it; even if there were two problems. A definite case of Sod's Laws. There was no voltage to the throttle pot, which I tracked down to the connection to the ECU. The heel end of the connector had come loose leaving some of the connections OK and some disconnected. As the throttle pot connection is number 2, this was not providing voltage to the throttle pot but there was presumably enough other good connections to keep the rest of the engine running. Fault number 2 was only apparent when I got it into the garage in the dark. There were many places where the coil and spark plug leads were breaking down producing more sparks than last night's Guy Fawkes display.
For those who aren't aware, here are the I. Mech. E (official ???) version of Sod's Laws:-
1. If it can break, it will.
2. Mother Nature is a b
h.
3. In any system, where more than one thing can go wrong, that which goes wrong will be that which causes most inconvenience.
4. If everything is going well, you've forgotten something.
5. Bullst baffles brains.
6. Nature sides with the hidden flaw.
7. The number of possible failure modes equals "n+1", where n is the number of failures found after exhaustive prototype testing.
When I've replaced the leads and this problem fixed I can now put it up for sale. I'm bouyed by the £1650 recently obtained. I'll keep you all up to date. Any more suggestions for the value???
For those who aren't aware, here are the I. Mech. E (official ???) version of Sod's Laws:-
1. If it can break, it will.
2. Mother Nature is a b
h.3. In any system, where more than one thing can go wrong, that which goes wrong will be that which causes most inconvenience.
4. If everything is going well, you've forgotten something.
5. Bulls
t baffles brains.6. Nature sides with the hidden flaw.
7. The number of possible failure modes equals "n+1", where n is the number of failures found after exhaustive prototype testing.
When I've replaced the leads and this problem fixed I can now put it up for sale. I'm bouyed by the £1650 recently obtained. I'll keep you all up to date. Any more suggestions for the value???
Hello Stu. Sounds an interesting offer but my wife (who's sitting next to me) says. "No". One of the real benefits to a Wedge for ladies is the highly sloping windscreen, which ensures their hair does not get any backdraft when the hood's down. If the ladies are happy then we men are too!!!
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