My First Proper Car
Discussion
I have been lurking here for quite a while now but finally got round to making an account as I've got a car that I can be proud to own!
My first car was a Citroen Saxo, which have an absolutely terrible reputation in regards to young drivers. But this was somewhat offset by the fact this wasn't any normal 1.1litre saxo but instead the 1.5 liter normally aspirated diesel, putting out a whopping 58hp! Came across this car from a family friend so got a good price on it and was immaculately kept as can be seen below. Never had any issues over 10k miles and ~1 year and averaged 58mpg brim to brim over those miles and even got 70mpg brim to brim on a run up to the peak district! But it was just too slow and wasn't really 'me'.
So at Christmas this year during uni break I started looking for an MX5 after wanting one for ages and at first when 17 expecting to have to wait until ~20 ish due to insurance but bunged my details in and managed to find a reasonable quote aged 18, so why not I thought.
After looking around quite a while and not really finding any that enticed me and weren't rust buckets (harder than expected due to being limited to UK cars rather than eunos's). But eventually found one, went to look at it and bought it. And here she is (excuse the dirtiness):
It's a 1996 UK spec Merlot 1.8
I fell in love right up until breaking down on the M25 on the journey home! Car overheated, boiling over its coolant. Haven't felt my heart sink quite as quickly ever before. It was gutting. Diagnosed as a suspect dodgy thermostat, gave it a tap and managed to limp it home via A roads.
Once home changed over the thermostat, then got it running...revved it a bit and yet more steam! This time from one of the heater matrix pipes leaking. So ordered replacement heater matrix pipes, drained the coolant yet again and set about changing these over which was a very fiddly job especially in a small garage.
Then once all this one done, tested it again and all seemed to be okay apart from what seemed like a bit of smoke and water from tailpipe. After googling people are either saying just CAT + condensation + sitting for a while, while others are saying head gasket/cracked head. I think the smoke and water was worsened by it being started inside the garage so looked worse. However the car was no longer on the road and I had to be back to uni so still don't know for sure and paranoia setting in!
So that's where I am with it currently, waiting until easter so I can make sure its nothing too serious then setabout the endless list of other work I want to do to it! Sitting in Uni halls hoping the engine isn't kaput.
My first car was a Citroen Saxo, which have an absolutely terrible reputation in regards to young drivers. But this was somewhat offset by the fact this wasn't any normal 1.1litre saxo but instead the 1.5 liter normally aspirated diesel, putting out a whopping 58hp! Came across this car from a family friend so got a good price on it and was immaculately kept as can be seen below. Never had any issues over 10k miles and ~1 year and averaged 58mpg brim to brim over those miles and even got 70mpg brim to brim on a run up to the peak district! But it was just too slow and wasn't really 'me'.
So at Christmas this year during uni break I started looking for an MX5 after wanting one for ages and at first when 17 expecting to have to wait until ~20 ish due to insurance but bunged my details in and managed to find a reasonable quote aged 18, so why not I thought.
After looking around quite a while and not really finding any that enticed me and weren't rust buckets (harder than expected due to being limited to UK cars rather than eunos's). But eventually found one, went to look at it and bought it. And here she is (excuse the dirtiness):
It's a 1996 UK spec Merlot 1.8
I fell in love right up until breaking down on the M25 on the journey home! Car overheated, boiling over its coolant. Haven't felt my heart sink quite as quickly ever before. It was gutting. Diagnosed as a suspect dodgy thermostat, gave it a tap and managed to limp it home via A roads.
Once home changed over the thermostat, then got it running...revved it a bit and yet more steam! This time from one of the heater matrix pipes leaking. So ordered replacement heater matrix pipes, drained the coolant yet again and set about changing these over which was a very fiddly job especially in a small garage.
Then once all this one done, tested it again and all seemed to be okay apart from what seemed like a bit of smoke and water from tailpipe. After googling people are either saying just CAT + condensation + sitting for a while, while others are saying head gasket/cracked head. I think the smoke and water was worsened by it being started inside the garage so looked worse. However the car was no longer on the road and I had to be back to uni so still don't know for sure and paranoia setting in!
So that's where I am with it currently, waiting until easter so I can make sure its nothing too serious then setabout the endless list of other work I want to do to it! Sitting in Uni halls hoping the engine isn't kaput.
The water from the exhaust doesn't seem to be coolant, haven't driven it enough to know for sure its not using coolant but on the 80 miles journey it overheated it still didn't seem to loose any. Fingers crossed not the head gasket. Cam belt, water pump, a good wash and polish finished with the piston head smiley are on my list of things to do next time I'm home. Will upload some better photos then and will document all the mods i carry out. 
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