The Joy of Running an Old Shed (Vol 2)
Discussion
santona1937 said:
For the right motor, I am very much of the better the devil you know brigade. .... Unless it explodes I cannot see not keeping it to 300/400K miles.
The minor downside with shedding is the end creeps up on you, usually from left field.I have just retired my 12 year old, 165K mile Mondeo. Injector seat erosion is what killed it.
I was on the third attempt at replacing the injector seals, but they kept leaking because the seats were eroded. The first two ‘fixes’ were by professionals and the final time by me, as the professional opinion was a new top end, which wasn’t happening.
Now doing the job myself, I fixed it (3K miles and counting), but I knew it was a bodge. Knowing injector number 2 was held in with ingenuity and hope held me back on investing in other fixes.
The gearbox seal was leaking, the front top mount bearings were dead and Ford no longer make the special tool to remove the front structs and they like to rust in place, it needed new front discs, the alignment was out and causing it to eat tyres because all the adjusters were seized solid and no doubt it would need new dampers when the uprights were broken down to change the top mount bearings. It had 12 months MOT though.
That little lot was the wrong side £1.5K to sort, which would have been fine, had it not been for an injector held in with Sellotape and string.
I part-exed it the other week for a very non-shed.
Sheds are great, but there is some luck involved into how long they last! Happy shedding.
Davie said:
Not sure if you're referring to my last comment, though a bigger bill wouldn't se me calling the nearest scrappy... my train of thought is that if presented with a bigger bill, at shedding levels I'd be looking to go over the car with a fine tooth comb first and just get an idea if said big bill is that start of things to come or if that bill should (luck permitting) see it through for a while longer.
I had a semi-sheddy XC70 up until April last year, a fantastic machine that cost me next to nothing in three years / 50,000 miles however it started to develop heavy steering at idle... basic checks suggested it could be the pump (not too bad) but may also be the rack (more bad..) and so before jumping in with both feet, I had to be utterly brutal and assess what else it may need down the line - flywheel was starting to chatter and it had an oil leak, looked to be cam cover which in turn is injectors out etc etc.
So ultimately, I decided that was probably time to cut my losses... putting maybe £2500 into a car worth maybe £2000 as it sat, at the time it didn't make sense. Though it's a bit catch 22 as I sold it for £1800, so my £1800 plus the £2500 "saved" is £4300 and buying another one at £4300 may have been out the fire, into the frying pan to start over again... so in some ways, pat of me thinks I should have had it fixed and kept going for another year or two. It's a tricky one to call at times, sadly motoring doesn't come with a chrystal ball so you just have to do what's right now... whilst being aware of what might lie ahead, but without being defeatist. I think... maybe...
Tbf you said 'would have me questioning the future of said shed' or something along the lines which in my eyes is about right, at shed money £600 is a lot to be spending on a shed but because I keep typing and waffling then deleting because I'm waffling, I'll reply when there's less gin in my system I had a semi-sheddy XC70 up until April last year, a fantastic machine that cost me next to nothing in three years / 50,000 miles however it started to develop heavy steering at idle... basic checks suggested it could be the pump (not too bad) but may also be the rack (more bad..) and so before jumping in with both feet, I had to be utterly brutal and assess what else it may need down the line - flywheel was starting to chatter and it had an oil leak, looked to be cam cover which in turn is injectors out etc etc.
So ultimately, I decided that was probably time to cut my losses... putting maybe £2500 into a car worth maybe £2000 as it sat, at the time it didn't make sense. Though it's a bit catch 22 as I sold it for £1800, so my £1800 plus the £2500 "saved" is £4300 and buying another one at £4300 may have been out the fire, into the frying pan to start over again... so in some ways, pat of me thinks I should have had it fixed and kept going for another year or two. It's a tricky one to call at times, sadly motoring doesn't come with a chrystal ball so you just have to do what's right now... whilst being aware of what might lie ahead, but without being defeatist. I think... maybe...
Ultimately, some sheds are worth spending £600 on and can accept some aren't. Even if my insignia was £600 at mot time I'd have been contemplating it's future. It wasn't, it was more. Threw in the towel. It's never for ever
cwis said:
Has anyone here ever had an engine actually fail due to not changing the oil?
Yes, not me personally but a friends 2014 BMW turbo diesel 3 series, blew its engine and ancillaries by neglecting oil changes, leaving it for 40,000 miles!!!Engine got rebuilt as it still had reasonable value in it as a repair, so made sense than "spares/repair" jobby, but when the engine was opened up it was like tar!
Safe to say he learnt his lesson not to be so neglectful of machines.
I would be very very wary running a highly strung modern turbo diesel on long intervals, maybe a NA petrol could take it, but not the former as they absolutely pummel the oil into glue eventually.
Dave99 said:
Contemplating a 2013 1.6 diesel Kia Ceed for £2k, good idea or am I jumping into a bad hole? Has about 110k miles.
These are known for timing chain issues and having clutch issues whereby the pedal bites really close to the floor.Someone may expand further on this, just basing off what I've heard and also seen cars described as spares or repairs, with the aforementioned issues.
This of course doesn't mean every single car will have these problems, it's best to have a look, really.
A500leroy said:
Tuesday afternoon the additional beastie should be with me, if it's working long enough, it has a reputation, least it has a towbar, and may be useful if the weather turns.
Updates to follow..
MAYBE I should have checked this before purchase, but my ved is in the 400 quid bracket for this one Updates to follow..
A500leroy said:
A500leroy said:
Tuesday afternoon the additional beastie should be with me, if it's working long enough, it has a reputation, least it has a towbar, and may be useful if the weather turns.
Updates to follow..
MAYBE I should have checked this before purchase, but my ved is in the 400 quid bracket for this one Updates to follow..
BenS94 said:
A500leroy said:
A500leroy said:
Tuesday afternoon the additional beastie should be with me, if it's working long enough, it has a reputation, least it has a towbar, and may be useful if the weather turns.
Updates to follow..
MAYBE I should have checked this before purchase, but my ved is in the 400 quid bracket for this one Updates to follow..
Then you'll hear some moaning when u see what it is.
DKS said:
My other was my beloved 1.3L Mk2 Astra that I owned for a quarter of a century.
Great write up.I also had what I also describe as my beloved 1.3L Mk2 Astra.
Brilliant thing.
Bought in great condition at 8 years old for £2k it did everything brilliantly, took me all around the UK and lots of Europe; folding the rear seat squabs only up it could take 2 adult mountain bikes without using any boot space; alternativly I also had decent size fridge freezer in there; several hundred mile runs without stopping or go-karting to work along country lanes. Just brilliant.
Retired it at 21 years old mainly as it was cheaper than the divorce that would have ensued if I didn't - and also I thought I'd pushed my luck with the company car allowance / 5 year rule!
Edited by C-J on Sunday 1st December 11:16
Well, I reckon I can beat most of you for the number of sheds bought. - I have 96 here at the moment, and I've sold or scrapped another 70 in the last few years.
Very few breakdowns in that lot actually - on average I'd say about 7 a year, and many of those are user induced.
One of the trickiest decisions is to know when to say goodbye to a shed. It's very easy to get involved in the sunk cost fallacy. But as a general rule, if it's relaible, it gets fixed, even if the cost of th repair exceeds the purchase price of the car. Sometimes even if the repair cost exceeds the market value of the car. Hence fitting a clutch and master cylinder to a Honda Civic the other day. In a garage, where I needed to pay for labour, including the DMF at nearly £500, plus a master cylinder. <shudder>. Still not convinced about the merits or otherwise of that.
One the other hand, my final V50 has just been scrapped due to intermittent electrical issues that I just couldn't be othered with.
But I had a lucky call on that, in that I hired it to an impoverished customer with the full understanding it was dodgy, and there was no back up plan. And lo and behold, 4 days later, someone ran into the back of it, so I had an insurance payout on it as well. (And then I scrapped it).
Sometimes bangernomics works
Very few breakdowns in that lot actually - on average I'd say about 7 a year, and many of those are user induced.
One of the trickiest decisions is to know when to say goodbye to a shed. It's very easy to get involved in the sunk cost fallacy. But as a general rule, if it's relaible, it gets fixed, even if the cost of th repair exceeds the purchase price of the car. Sometimes even if the repair cost exceeds the market value of the car. Hence fitting a clutch and master cylinder to a Honda Civic the other day. In a garage, where I needed to pay for labour, including the DMF at nearly £500, plus a master cylinder. <shudder>. Still not convinced about the merits or otherwise of that.
One the other hand, my final V50 has just been scrapped due to intermittent electrical issues that I just couldn't be othered with.
But I had a lucky call on that, in that I hired it to an impoverished customer with the full understanding it was dodgy, and there was no back up plan. And lo and behold, 4 days later, someone ran into the back of it, so I had an insurance payout on it as well. (And then I scrapped it).
Sometimes bangernomics works
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff