Buying a Chimaera

[swisstony11]

Hi all, in the market for a Chimaera , any advice on what to look out for apart from the obvious chassis condition would be appreciated, my budget will be around the £15,000 mark , thanks in advance
Chris

[Classic Chim]

Transmission looseness. Condition condition condition..
All of these cars are getting on in years, expect to see a bit of rust here or there on the chassis but in the scheme of things this is now easy to have repaired and if it’s a good chassis with just aging outriggers they can be replaced for not much more than the price of a good set of shocks,, it’s no rocket science.

It depends on your personal criteria as to what car you should buy. If it’s purely an investment tool then low miles and original is likely to still command the best prices( god knows why ) as anyone that knows Tvr also know they are usually the ones that have done very few miles each year so often the most unreliable when put to test.
If you want a good car and at that sort of money you should get one it’s important to see regular use and maintenance that catches and replaces the now old and worn or problematic parts so a good file of receipts is usually a sign of a loved/ cherished car and no expense spared sort of owner. It’s no good getting cars that have been stood about, you’ll have issues.
Known issues that can effect these cars
Immobiliser relay fault,,, can be replaced or by passed.
Alarm but usually they seem ok.
Battery drain if left for long periods unused. Big engine and electrical system requires a strong battery or rough running can appear.
Outriggers and in some cases chassis parts need replacing or repairing. All the good Tvr Garages offer this service.
Can be done at home if your a decent welder, a few tubes of steel!
Engine condition and usually cam wear if over 50,000 miles but some last longer. High lift cams = slightly faster wear but worth it for the extra power.
Shunting caused by poor electrical/ engine management/ stepper motor faulty.
Under neath these are great little and fairly simple cars so the expensive stuff is engine rebuilds/ new engine management/ Diffs/ clutches full chassis repairs,, rare in reality
If you want a car thats reliable buy one with a modern engine management system.
It’s likely to run very well and feel slightly more urgent
All just one mans view.
Buy one that’s well maintained and you should be fine.
If you can stretch a bit further on budget this car might be available soon. It has all the good things I’ve already mentioned and more
New windscreen too that’s abut £1000 alone

Enjoy the search and look at as many as you can and try finding your local Tvr meet and go talk to the owners and get some free rides and honest opinion. They are great great cars with a good owner at the helme.

[Belle427]

I’d agree about buying a car with all the important bits done, as you can just get in it and drive instead of worrying about things that may go wrong or need doing.
The extra money spent will be worth it in the long run.
Certainly looks one hell of a car mentioned above, especially with the extra grunt of the 4.6.

[Shorty4291]

Thanks that’s really helpful , I’m selling a triumph at the moment so that wil go towards buying a TVR , I’m not in a massive rush just want to find the right car. It’s not something I’m going to use every day so want the newest , best car I can find for the money , your car looks really nice , my dad had a 2001 450 and I loved it , I’ve always wanted a TVR since I was a kid and now I’m in a fortunate position I can own one , I’m based in County Durham so will have a search and see if there is a club locally i can get involved with ,
I’ll keep you posted and would certainly consider your car subject to price 😜

[Classic Chim]

I think that’s slightly cheeky of me to advertise but it’s not actually forsale yet as it’s such a wrench to part with her.its more an example of what some owners do or what you can get for the right money.
If you take an old one and do these things it can run into many thousands, 10’s of thousands
So buying the best car could actually save you a small fortune.

The brakes are poor for a car that’s so fast for example.
A decent brake set up will cost around £1000 alone and can cost more than that.
It’s all down to what you wish to do with the car.
If it’s to tour or cruise about get a car that’s heavily maintained and known problem areas removed.
Saying all that there are many examples of the cars working very well as standard but you only have to read these or Facebook pages to see what the usual problems are.

Cars like mine and many others simply remove some of the old electrics and bits that are known to fail on a regular basis,,, the ignition system being one of them.

Good luck and try a few as that will or should confirm the differences these changes can make. All for the better too

[Classic Chim]

Shorty4291 said:

Thanks that’s really helpful , I’m selling a triumph at the moment so that wil go towards buying a TVR , I’m not in a massive rush just want to find the right car. It’s not something I’m going to use every day so want the newest , best car I can find for the money , your car looks really nice , my dad had a 2001 450 and I loved it , I’ve always wanted a TVR since I was a kid and now I’m in a fortunate position I can own one , I’m based in County Durham so will have a search and see if there is a club locally i can get involved with ,
I’ll keep you posted and would certainly consider your car subject to price ??

Thanks Shorty. Mine is a late car 2000 and as you will find they are very good. The later Chassis can be an issue as they were not coated so good but it’s important to look at each car on its merits and regardless of age really.

Because of the changes made you’ll find mine and many others cars are now quite a bit. faster and better than when new. This is just down to the huge amount of effort we put into the cars.
A love affair is never cheap if she needs surgery

As your not in a hurry that’s good to hear sodo yourself and your basic knowledge a favour and defo find your local TVR owners. Check via the TVRCC for your local meets, tyre kicking/ sound checking and general good fun amongst owners and they will talk straight.
Join the club and get the magazine once a month, lots of info/ dealer/ parts suppliers etc advertise so you can start finding out there’s actually pretty good support for the cars and the owners help each other hugely.
Tvr people are great and often very hands on engineers.
Great people indeed.

[Squirrelofwoe]

Classic Chim said:

If you can stretch a bit further on budget this car might be available soon. It has all the good things I’ve already mentioned and more

You selling up Alun?!


I would echo all of the above points regarding things to look out for.

As an idea, when I purchased mine in 2016 it had recently had;

-New clutch
-New outriggers
-New hood
-Interior re-trim
-New Gax Gold Pro adjustable dampers fitted

I paid just under £12,000 for it.

Since then it has also had;

-New camshaft (at 78,500 miles)
-New radiator
-New fuel pump
-New water pump
-New battery, cabling, and had fusebox relocated

Which, along with servicing takes my cost to not far off £15,000

So for that budget I would be looking for signs that quite a bit of that stuff had been done, or if not, offset by low mileage & originality. Personally I would always prefer a higher mileage car with a stack of receipts over a low mileage original garage queen (I firmly subscribe to the belief the so many of the niggles that these cars have a reputation for are the product of extended layups), but the market still seemingly disagrees with original low mileage cars commanding a premium.

But then it depends whether you want a car to use regularly or just take out on a few sunny weekends a year and not lose value.

[Classic Chim]

See this Shorty, it’s a brand new old stock Differential That I or should I say friends and I installed into my car about a year ago now.
Very heavy and a difficult job.
A Tvr friend offered to help me and use his car lift,,,,, he’s also done the job before.
I’d still be underneath it on ramps at home trying to get it in otherwise.
Thanks Peter

There’s a good reason for this picture.
This area can cause a crappy ride. Loose as they wear or have been treated poorly by previous owners.
It’s often said shunting is caused by the ignition/ fuelling system which is absolutely true but it’s made far worse by a loose Diff. Check this operation on all cars your interested in, if it feels a bit loose between the engine and this Diff when coming on/ off throttle suspect this to be showing its age internally.
I was not happy when my diff started whining but this replacement makes the car drive really well and acceleration is easier to control. Being limited slip when they are worn one wheel will often break traction on acceleration much to easily, a new Dif both rear wheels stay sort of clamped so grip much better. Really pleased I did it now.

You need to learn all you can about these cars and you’ll get a good one

[Classic Chim]

Squirrelofwoe said:

You selling up Alun?!


I would echo all of the above points regarding things to look out for.

As an idea, when I purchased mine in 2016 it had recently had;

-New clutch
-New outriggers
-New hood
-Interior re-trim
-New Gax Gold Pro adjustable dampers fitted

I paid just under £12,000 for it.

Since then it has also had;

-New camshaft (at 78,500 miles)
-New radiator
-New fuel pump
-New water pump
-New battery, cabling, and had fusebox relocated

Which, along with servicing takes my cost to not far off £15,000

So for that budget I would be looking for signs that quite a bit of that stuff had been done, or if not, offset by low mileage & originality. Personally I would always prefer a higher mileage car with a stack of receipts over a low mileage original garage queen (I firmly subscribe to the belief the so many of the niggles that these cars have a reputation for are the product of extended layups), but the market still seemingly disagrees with original low mileage cars commanding a premium.

But then it depends whether you want a car to use regularly or just take out on a few sunny weekends a year and not lose value.

Hi Dave Looks like it doesn’t it

Cars sales is,,, a form of insanity.....
the wrong cars are priced the highest when we all know the truth when coming to use them.
Every owner with passion will have spent way more than he’ll ever get back but if we all slowly look after and better them the newer owners can only benefit. We are Tvr now as we are the investors in these cars so the future of them too.

[Classic Chim]

One final thing I’d look for is continuity in who’s worked on the car. Many cars now are generally looked after by the owner themselves as much of the work etc can be done at home.
I’d look to see how many owners and how many garages have been involved over the years which is now bound to be a number.
It might be more expensive than your local garage but a good Tvr specialist is important to me at least when it comes to big jobs.
I used Powers Performance for parts and repairs pretty much exclusively throughout my ownership which I think has lent itself to better reliability if slightly more expensive at times but in the scale of specialist cars still remarkably cheap.

My cars had effectively 3 owners from new
1st for 3 months ( dealer)
2nd 10 years
3rd me, 8 years

Edited by Classic Chim on Wednesday 16th May 09:11

[Litcoat]

The north Cumbria branch of the tvrcc are heading down to the car show at Kendal on Sunday if you fancy a ride out, it's supposed to be a really good show, my chimaera and a couple of others will be there.

Cheers Mark

[Classic Chim]

Litcoat said:

The north Cumbria branch of the tvrcc are heading down to the car show at Kendal on Sunday if you fancy a ride out, it's supposed to be a really good show, my chimaera and a couple of others will be there.

Cheers Mark

That looks proper with those darkened lenses, it’s not often you get a Chim behind you on the road, I had a run out with other Tvr owners one sunny afternoon and I was soooo impressed with the Chims stance and look in my mirrors, these lenses would send shivers down the spine
Looks really cool.

[Litcoat]

Thanks for that, filling in the light recesses makes the car look much more sleeker and the body lines flow better from the front into the wings

[LLantrisant]

for 15k you should expect a car with a replacement chassis, incl. new suspension parts....all nice and shiney WITHOUT this awfull thing called "waxoyl" applied...obviously with a replacement camshaft, replacement clutch and all the typical things replaced / repaired. paintwork, interior and hood in very, very good condition.

i would rather buy a sorted 400 than a half decent 430,450 or 500

[citizen smith]

LLantrisant said:

for 15k you should expect a car with a replacement chassis, incl. new suspension parts....all nice and shiney WITHOUT this awfull thing called "waxoyl" applied...obviously with a replacement camshaft, replacement clutch and all the typical things replaced / repaired. paintwork, interior and hood in very, very good condition.

i would rather buy a sorted 400 than a half decent 430,450 or 500

What sort of mileage would you expect, say 40k.miles - it would then be an absolute bargain.

[Squirrelofwoe]

citizen smith said:

LLantrisant said:

for 15k you should expect a car with a replacement chassis, incl. new suspension parts....all nice and shiney WITHOUT this awfull thing called "waxoyl" applied...obviously with a replacement camshaft, replacement clutch and all the typical things replaced / repaired. paintwork, interior and hood in very, very good condition.

i would rather buy a sorted 400 than a half decent 430,450 or 500

What sort of mileage would you expect, say 40k.miles - it would then be an absolute bargain.

If it had all of those things done then I'd have thought the mileage becomes pretty irrelevant as it's got more in common with a 'new' car (in a Trigger's broom sense of course).

I'd have thought £15k would get you an average miles, private sale 400 with all of those bits done, or it would get you a low miles dealer car with a couple of those things addressed.

I'm repeating myself but I would always choose a car that has been used regularly and had receipts showing the important stuff being replaced as when needed, than a low mileage 'original' car. To me, if a Chim has been averaging 3k+ miles a year in recent years, it suggests it's probably had most of it's niggles sorted!

Adverts seem to highlight either point (low mileage & original vs high mileage & regular use) as a positive even though they are seemingly at odds with each other- although a personal favourite of mine was an ad for a car that had done circa 1,000 miles in 5 years being described as "regular, light use"... I presume that means it was driven out of the garage and straight back in again every other Sunday...

Although I can understand that a late, low mileage, original car might appeal more to a 'collector', whilst a higher mileage, well-used example would appeal more to someone intending to drive across Europe regularly.