Who has run a car till it's died?

[cptsideways]

A doctor friend of mine had a Volvo 740 Turbo from new, kept it 15 years & delivered it to the scrappy himself with 340k on it. He reckoned he had excellent value for money out of it!

[toon10]

The only one was a Vauxhall Calibra 16v. The engine died, crack in the cylinder head and I was quoted 1700 to fix it! It had only done about 90,000 miles although a lot of them were hard miles.

[billzeebub]

My Dad had a Montego Vanden Plas from new, and when it was 10 years old passed it on to my brother as a car for getting him to Uni and back. It was on about 115k miles when my bro took ownership of it. It wasn't exactly a 19year olds car, and I felt it was too pensionable even for my then 45 year old Dad. He obviously agreed as Dads next car was a brand new Bora V5, which was night and day over a 10 year old Montego..

..my bro christened his 'new' car as 'the Beast' and ferried the chaps around to rugby etc for a few months before it blew up spectacularly on the M2 one afternoon. The AA guy who attended scratched his head and said 'Ive never seen that before'!..my bro was quite proud of how he had killed the old barge in such an unusual way!..

[mister.t]

My Land Rover Ninety was pretty much dead when I sold it on. It ran on 3 cylinders, gearbox wasn't in a good way, there was rot in every conceivable place, and I'm not sure it had ever been cleaned in its life! It only had 82k on it, but 2k were with me and that was mostly being thrashed off road!

My new to me 2001 Discovery is a car I plan to keep running until it dies. It's on 133k and running sweet, I look forward to seeing how far I get

[PaulG40]

Not from new, but my parents bought my sister a 30k miles W reg Fiat Punto 1.2 8v, that throughout its life went through their hands again and then finally onto me. I did about 45k miles in it, to 140k miles total when after a succession of hg failures and fixes, no1 cyl piston ring knackered and using 5litres of oil every 1000miles (fortnightly), it eventually died on the way to work once. Knocking from bottom end, no power, just dead. Scrapped it and got £160 for it!!

[98elise]

We tried and failed.

we bought my old company 1.3 Astra for peanuts, with just over 80k hard miles on it. We serviced it until 100k, at which point we decided to drive it until it died.

We stopped servicing it, but at 150k it was still running well. We got bored waiting for it to die so sold it for 150 . It was still going a couple of years later.

[duckers26]

Not me but my mum has a G reg 325 auto convertible which she has owned since new. It has only 29,000 miles and kept in garage since new. Plan is to keep it forever but at this rate not sure when that will be!

[Gargamel]

Love a bit of bangernomics

Had a rover Sterling 2.0l coupe, replaced the clutch when I bought it, then ran it for two and a hlaf years, just with oil changes, eventually the immobiliser went, then some more electrics, then the exhaust needed doing then a couple of tyres were looking bad.... cost of repairs were looking like nearly 2000. I only paid 400 for it.

11000 miles - for about 700.

Scrapped for 100

[corvus]

Liquid Knight said:

corvus said:

The only car I've sent to the scrapyard was a black Escort Mk2 with 2.0 Pinto engine conversion. The car was bloody good fun to drive. Fast, snappy rear drive handling* and noisy. But it was a crap conversion and the whole drivetrain shunted when changing gear due to a dodgy gearbox mount. The valve stems leaked oil, the floor was rusty and it had about 5 layers of hammerite covering the inner front wings. It had thirteen owners, which didn't bode well.

I decided not to inflict it on anyone else and sold the Corbeau fishnet recliners, boot spoiler, Bilsteins and RS alloys before sending the rest of the car to it's final resting place.

• Take a bend fast enough in the dry and the live rear axle would move sideways creating a nice oversteering effect. Ah, the days of crude leaf spring suspension

Is that you Dave?

Negative.

v8will, did you ever sort out the fuel pump on your diesel Yaris?

Edited by corvus on Monday 19th March 13:12

[djdestiny]

My Dad had a mk3 Escort 1.6 Ghia years and years ago as a work runabout, which was generally treated as a van (he was a builder) which was basically run into the ground. Towards the end it was leaking so much oil you had to put about 5 litres in a week, it was knocking itself to death before it warmed up!
I remember taking it on its final ever drive to the scrap yard and half way there one of the front brake discs shattered. Its fair to say it pulled to one side quite a lot when braking for the rest of the trip

[Nursing a hemi]

Yes, in about 2003 took over my Mum's 1998 Clio and ran it until it would have cost more to get it through an MoT than it was worth. In about 2005. It had done about 60k.

God that thing was a pos.

Throughout its life the sunroof leaked into the immobiliser electricals. It was "throw a 6 to start" to even get the bloody thing unlocked.

[Greg_D]

i saw an old boy in a cap pootling round in a fundamentally sound C reg E30 316 with hubcaps the other day.

i got the distinct impression it was his only car, and had been since 1986

It looked just fine.

eta: as an aside, my uncle managed to scrap a brand spanking new car in under 12 months just through general abuse. He utterly and completely ruined every panel, knackered suspension, exhaust, everything. i think the engine letting go was the final straw and he just scrapped it - nutter...

Edited by Greg_D on Monday 19th March 13:25

[gr1m reaper]

Way back in 1997 my mother purchased a new VW Golf

In 2005 I took if off her hands and used it mainly as a second car/run around for 5 years up until 2010, When I sold it to my younger cousin who had just passed his test

The car still remains in the family with over 220k on the clock and is still going strong!

[irish boy]

Mum has a 1990 Mercedes w124 estate she's had from new and dad drives a Volvo 240 estate, almost new when he bought it. Both well looked after, exceptionally clean and still running perfectly.

[Johnboy Mac]

My Dad ran an Opel Senator 3.0E CD (his third) from new till 180k over thirteen years, he loved it and was very sad to see go - sold at acution for pennies. Only issue was a recon box at 150k in all that time!
I ran a W124 Merc 300E from 260K to 305k, truly a great car requiring one head, g/box & diff o/haul in all that time & mileage. It's dead now thanks to somebody running up it's arse, otherwise it would be still on active duty no doubt.

[v8will]

corvus said:

Negative.

v8will, did you ever sort out the fuel pump on your diesel Yaris?

Edited by corvus on Monday 19th March 13:12

Yup, turned out the pickup was blocked with sludge (I'm blaming supermarket fuel). Bit of a faff opening the tank, draining, cleaning the sender unit and pickup (around 300ml of crap removed from the tank) but normal service has now resumed. Funny how the Yaris has been the most unreliable reliable car I've owned to date - No issues with the borkful Saab or Lexus.

Actually in relation to my own thread the Yaris is the car we'll be holding onto to until it falls apart. I've had it just over 2 years but can't find anything similar that I would want to replace it with.

Edited by v8will on Monday 19th March 14:04

[DavidY]

Ran a Saab 9-5 from 7000 miles to 223000 miles, only got rid of it as it had an aircon fault, which meant that it was permanently hot inside! Intend to run it's replacement (another Saab) well into 200k miles (and beyond hopefully!)

[Sarkmeister]

My dad ran a T reg Fiat Punto from brand new up to about 150,000 miles when it was scrapped (last year). Went through 7 or 8 head gaskets in that time. By the end it was going through one every 6k or 7k miles.

[mini me]

My first car was a mk1 golf 1.1 formal E in Lemmon yellow. How I miss it! Bought on 82,000 miles and ran it for probably 8 yrs. at 280,000 miles the gearbox died and I scrapped it. Wish I hadn't now but at the time it was a no brainier.

[rossub]

My Dad bought a brand new 309 GTI in 1987 and owned it until 2003 with about 150k miles on it. He sold it for a few hundred quid as it was completely shagged.

Over its life it was written off twice and bought back from the insurance company by him and fixed.