Cheap Cerberas

[trooper1212]

Time for a little chronicle for all you avid readers, as I've got the Cerb back from the garage and everything has been fixed that needed fixing.
I've done 250 miles without a breakdown (which is something of a bonus ) this weekend and she is feeling better than ever.

For those of you that don't know, around early November of last year I bought a cheap Cerb to replace my NSX.
I paid £15500 for a 1996 N reg Cerb with 28,000 miles on the clock and FSH including almost every receipt.
It was a good prospect but I knew it needed some work, even if the history said it was fine.

In the past 4 months I have done the following to get the car perfect.

Garage visit 1:
Replaced the NS rack gaiter
Tracking adjusted
Changed the oil pressure relief valve spring
Welded up a broken engine mount
New spark plugs
Replace front anti-roll bar rubbers
Fitted a set of Nitrons
Changed a broken throttle return spring and balls.
Changed oil
Setup engine.

Garage visit 2(and 3 if you count a 500 yard journey as being out of the garage):
Replace 16 valve springs, of which 15 were broken!
Replace valve stem seals.
Reset throttle pots.
Replace clutch master cylinder
Replace clutch slave cylinder seals
Fix cam timing
Re-setup engine.

Garage visit 4:
Replace alternator fuse.
Replace air con manifold pipe.
Re-charge air con system

Total cost for all this work:
£3310.49

I initally thought that it would cost me around £1500 to get the car perfect, but I wasn't budgeting for a set of nitrons and I didn't bank on every single valve spring being shattered.

The moral of the story? A good Cerb will probably cost you about £19k, whether you buy cheap and do the work yourself, or buy at £19k and trust the work has been done, it'll all come out the same

I suppose it's possible to buy a £16k Cerb and get lucky, but then it's also possible to buy a £19k Cerb and get unlucky.

Me? I'm now happy with my car and satisfied with the cost, it would have been nice to not need any work doing, but that was a fools dream.

At least I know exactly what work has been done on my car, and to what standard!

Roll on the ECU upgrade, i'm ready for you now...


>>> Edited by trooper1212 on Sunday 15th February 22:35

[GCerbera]

Good post Neil.

I'd say you were close to the mark cost wise.

I spent about the same on my '96 4.2 in terms of work
(excluding a service) but much of the extra money loss
was down to the negligence of others.

Either way, I had a sound, reliable and stunning car
once the work was completed.

Expect to pay 17 - 19k for a great 96 model and you
will get what you want from the car, but choose what
you buy carefully.

[davidd]

That makes interesting reading, is the car perfect now or are there other things you want to do with it (apart from the ECU)?

Also would you have been happier paying £19k for a car thinking that everything had been done?

Has the clutch been done?

I'm on a similar sort of journey with my Cerbera..

D.

[trooper1212]

davidd said:

That makes interesting reading, is the car perfect now or are there other things you want to do with it (apart from the ECU)? Also would you have been happier paying £19k for a car thinking that everything had been done? Has the clutch been done? I'm on a similar sort of journey with my Cerbera.. D.

There are always a couple of things that need doing
The outside temperature light on the dash doesn't work and the boot light doesn't work. That's pretty much it now, apart from the hesitant at light throttle coming back with a vengeance on the way up to work this morning. Replacing the throttle pots and cleaning the injectors will sort that out at some point.

Now, I'm happier that I know the work has been done, but if you'd asked me last month I would have told you that I should have bought a brand new one
Buying a known car at £19k should be ok, but if no-one on here knew about a particular car, i'd buy cheaper and do the work myself again.

Clutch has been done as far as i'm aware, I wasn't told that it needed doing while Topcats were digging around with the slave cylinder, and I trust that they would have mentioned it.