My £400 Winter Shed - Escort GTI

[Roastie ITR]

I wanted to use my VX220 & Integra Type R as little as possible over the winter, so I started my scouring Ebay & Gumtree for a suitable winter shed that was local to me within my £1k budget. Every car that I have ever bought over the last 12 years has been red, so that was the main criteria to keep my record going

Looked at a couple of cars, but they all needed too much money spending on them (cambelts, wheelbearings etc)

I then found this Escort on Gumtree last weekend for £450, 84k miles & the current owner has had the car for the last 13 years. Looking through the receipts for the last 3 years, it's had about £2k spent on it. Hopefully that means everthing has been done, rather than the fact that it's a money pit

I had an Escort GTI for a couple of years before I got the ITR, I used to think it was so fast

Only one photo at the moment, as you can see it's not red



Unfortunately, both arches are a little rusty and there is a crack in the back bumper, but then it is a 14 year old Ford

Everything seems to work as it should apart from the temerature guage, but I'm hoping that it is just going to be a new temerature sender.

[rallycross]

Good plan, it might sound a bit daft to some people not using your ITR over winter but its a good idea as the salt eats into them and they are just getting to the point now of even the best Dc2's are starting to have rust issues

[danjama]

First dibs when youre done with it?

[mrtwisty]

What does it handle and grip like?

I ask because a freind had a cooking spec one years ago, and we used to call it 'the katamaran' It was shockingly bad!

[Viperz888]

OP, these have separate temperature senders for the fans and gauge, so you can quite easily find out whats wrong.
Pretty sure there's a really easy test you can do with the sender too, but I can't remember what, sorry!
Looks lovely, my old Si looked just the same, sometimes I really miss that car.

And as I wasn't fast enough, second dibs on it when you're done

[Roastie ITR]

danjama said:

First dibs when youre done with it?

I have already had family and friends say exactly the same thing, but if they decline then I'll drop you a PM

mrtwisty said:

What does it handle and grip like?

I ask because a freind had a cooking spec one years ago, and we used to call it 'the katamaran' It was shockingly bad!

It seems to grip really well, even though I've only driven it in the wet so far. It came with 4 new Pirelli P6000's which makes the price even better

Handling though isn't the best, very soft in the corners with lots of body roll & it's probably because I'm used to the VX & ITR but I really struggle for feel through the steering wheel.

Viperz888 said:

OP, these have separate temperature senders for the fans and gauge, so you can quite easily find out whats wrong.
Pretty sure there's a really easy test you can do with the sender too, but I can't remember what, sorry!

Cheers, I'll have to do a bit of research, if anyone has any ideas then please let me know. Although I don't think it will be too expensive to buy one to try.

Viperz888 said:

And as I wasn't fast enough, second dibs on it when you're done

As above

[Roastie ITR]

Thought that I would just update this to confirm that I finally got to the bottom of the temperature gauge issue a couple of weeks ago. First I tried a new temperature sender





This unfortunately made no difference, so thought that I would try a new thermostat



Luckily it now works



Realised on Friday, that I was driving around in true shed fashion with my drivers side head light out New bulb fitted yesterday

It does feel very liberating to drive a car on salted roads and not too feel gulity

[dozydavenport]

Don't know if I should be but I'm quite ashamed to admit I would love one of these!

[y2blade]

Have not seen one of these for years

[bazza1000]

Nice bargain buy, looks alright, don't see many of these around

[Roastie ITR]

Just a small update, was fed up of my parking space looking like a saudi oil field. I managed to trace the oil leak back to this little bad boy



It's the oil pressure switch, which was luckily only £6-7 to replace

Whilst I was at it I also gave her a little mini service



Also took her along to the Sunday Service at Silverstone as my other cars are off the road, can be quite confident in saying it was the worst car there

MOT time next week though

[Viperz888]

Let us know how the MOT goes

[piers1]

We had one of these for 5 years from 6 months old, we loved it, nice amount of kit added to a reliable escort.

[Roastie ITR]

It passed it's MOT

The only advisories were corrosion on the rear arches and an oil leak (Which I'm 99% sure is because I didn't clean up after I changed the oil pressure sensor )

Big thumbs up to the Grange Jaguar & Aston Martin Garage in Brentwood, not only was the MOT only £29.99 but I came back and found they had valeted it inside and out

[bennyboydurham]

Nice. I bought the last new one in the country (fact!) from Blakes Ford on the Wirral. I had the stereo upgraded to a 7000 and a multi change CD player dealer-fitted under the seat. Sadly a chav relieved me of it only a few months later and when it was finally discovered in a disused lock up it had been stripped back to the body shell. Ford Insure paid me out retail minus 10% iirc. I bought it on the Ford family discount scheme and it was heavily discounted by then anyway as the Focus had arrived so I walked away with a three grand profit.

[Roastie ITR]

bennyboydurham said:

I walked away with a three grand profit.

Every cloud and all that

Just out of curiosity, what plate was the car on?

[y2blade]

Roastie ITR said:

It passed it's MOT

The only advisories were corrosion on the rear arches and an oil leak (Which I'm 99% sure is because I didn't clean up after I changed the oil pressure sensor )

Big thumbs up to the Grange Jaguar & Aston Martin Garage in Brentwood, not only was the MOT only £29.99 but I came back and found they had valeted it inside and out

Congrats on the Pass.

Have a good weekend

[DanielJames]

Nice one Roastie

I always fancied one of these growing up, don't they have a "fancy ish" (for ford) zetec engine?

[Matt777]

For £450 thats excellent - nice one

[bennyboydurham]

Roastie ITR said:

Every cloud and all that

Just out of curiosity, what plate was the car on?

It was on an 'S' plate. Halewood did carry on making the 'Flight' model Escort for a year or so afterwards until they switched entirely to the X Type Jag. I had plenty of warm Fords on the discount scheme - a Fiesta Si, an Escort Si, Ghia X and GTI, a Focus Ghia and finally a Puma Black. 33% off retail iirc. You had to keep them for 9 months, that was the only rule. Most of them also came with a year's free insurance, too. Most of my first 10 years of no claims were on Ford's ticket!