I like exchanging stories of nightmare car buys.
Has anyone out there got good stories of nightmare car buys, either due to condition or some other reason?
Come on - we;ve all done it!
My worst car buy was a Pug 104. When I bought it the previous owner told me he couldn't open the boot cos the previous seller said one key does all. A claim that I still believe to be true - he was a student type, and circumstances supported this.
I bought it for my girlfriend at the time (now my wife), but she never got to drive it.
It had 6 months MOT and was taxed till the end of the month. The engine sounded dead sweet and had only done 44,000, some docs to support this were available. The condition didn't look too bad so I offered £150, which was duly accepted.
I picked up said car and drove it home.
I took it to a friendly garage to get it checked over and MOT inspector identified leaky rear cylinders, less than adequate floorpan, needing patching and oneor two other bits, nothing too major.
Found key number for boot and ordered Key from dealer. Got boot open.
So - spend £30 on two new cylinders and fluid, £5 for a new wing and front valance from the breakers and drove it some 30 miles to Rugby to get my friend to do some welding on it.
As he was trying to weld the floor, I removed the trim from above the N/S rear suspension strut (this had coil suspension springs with the shocks running through). As the trim cam away, the car sank by about 1 inch! Well I was glad I got to Rugby safely. On closer inspection one of the 3 bolt holes had completely rusted away and the suspension was being kept in place by a small flap of rotting steel.
Car went back on AA transporter. Duly sold for spares for £180! The buyer needed an engine and box for a Talbot Samba (Same car).
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All in all though, it only cost you a fiver. Not bad for a day's car rental.
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DON'T read this if you are having your breakfast but, similar to Hugo's posting, many years ago, a colleague bought a Standard 14 which had stood for a couple of weeks, in the height of summer. The seller explained that the boot could not be opened, due to some minor rear end damage. When my friend got the car home, he was concerned about the continual buzzing sound, coming from the boot! What he later discovered, when the boot was forced open, was that the seller of the car was a keen fisherman and his large box of maggots had turned into about nine million bluebottles.
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I've got two - but trust me Im a bit better now...
I bought a Mini Cooper looky likey as my first car, saved up for nearly two years and spent £2000 - A30 RUS, Racing green, minilite alloys with a steering wheel no bigger than a leather bound shirt button. In my haste however I forgot to either open the bonnet, boot or look at the wheel arches. I absolutely loved it, handled like a roller skate and could top 75 in the right conditions (downhill, and with a tailwind). I could hear hte exhaust blowing when I went to pick it up, and the garage kindly knocked £200 off for hte trouble.
I took it about a week later to an exhaust dealer, and drove it onto the ramps. The fitter took his light under to have a look, and returned quickly and ashen faced. He asked me to come under and look with him. Under the car, there was a one inch gap running the width of the car, which when looked through, gave the not altogether welcome vista of the head lining. I took it to a Mini specialist, who managed to split the car almost in half by bouncing in the drivers seat. Cue a visit to the breakers...
Then about two years later, as a student, I bought a Metro (there is a definite pattern btw) in sickly beige for £120. It drove well for about a year, whence i took it for an MOT. It was with some dramatic aplomb that the mechanic returned from a journey into the inner wing with a sock which had been painted beige and stuffed into a sizable hole.
I buy new nowadays...
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Hugo
I thought it was you! That story rang a bell way back in the mists of time!
Hope you're well, I'll be sending a Xmas card soon.
All the best
Charles
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Honest John (a branch of Friends Re-United) :-)
Happy Motoring Phil I
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Hello Charles! How are you?
Yes that disgusting orange car saga still preys on my mind!
Let me have your address and phone number and e mail etc when you send the card.
We'll send you one back.
All the best
Hugo
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Hello Charles! How are you?
Yes that disgusting orange car saga still preys on my mind!
Let me have your address and phone number and e mail etc when you send the card.
We'll send you one back.
All the best
Hugo
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Ford Explorer - bought to replace Nissan Terrano as a more luxurious caravan tug. 18 months and two nightmare tows to the south of France later I sold it at VAST loss. This 4x4 is highly dangerous and completely useless as a towcar, and pretty scary solo. IMO there are serious suspension geometry problems - basic truck chassis softened up to make it feel comfortable - it don't work. There is no knowledge or support for the car in the U.K. I spent loads of time on the internet trying to find info to sort it, I replaced springs and shock abosrbers imported from Australia via Seattle at vast expense - all to no serious avail. All in all, it was a motoring period that still brings me out in a cold sweat when I think about it and think what I could have spent the dosh on. I consider myself fortunate that my caravan and family are still in one piece.
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Take a look at this article about why SUVs are more dangerous (inside or out) than anything else on the road.
www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0212.menci...l
Chris
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I wish I'd read that before my Explorer experience, Chris. In fact it is a salutory experience to anyone buying a car - research it properly - I didn't and I paid the price.
BTW I hate the association with SUVers (and its the same for 4x4ers over here) I will never by another 4x4 (American, European or Jap)in any circumstances. I drive an Omega now, which is much more me, and a superb towcar.
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Ford (Fraud) Fiesta XR2 from new.
Engine knock, driver's door out of alignment - it rubbed on the front wing causing the wing to buckle (very unsatisfactory fix by Ford - dreadful paint job and 'A' pillar crushed to make door fit), front crossmember loose, four sets of disc brakes in 17,000 miles (they were run-in carefully), paint on the roof flaking off, rear seats could only be latched back by repeated slamming. I'm sure there's more, but time has faded the memory, but I part-exchanged it for a new VW after 18 months - phew!
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1960 Mini estate bought for £30..
Rear subframe was rusty when I bought it: hence price. When I came to replace it I discovered that the panel to which the front of the subframe was bolted to the body .. was rusted through.
A tyre had a slow puncture. Took it off to discover a split on the inside rear wall mended by a patch on the inside of the (tubeless) tyre.
On long uphills, the engine would boil and coolant run down the inside of the passenger compartment: the thermostat was jammed partially shut. Because it was an early estate and there were no dimples in the roof, the body flexed alarmingly and the rear doors would twist open on rough roads. A fuel pipe split over the exhaust on a bumpy road and it caught fire (saved with the help of a passing motorist with an extinguisher)
Not as bad as a NEW Allegro. Suspension depressurised on day 2.. and took 5 attempt by garage to fix it finally involving undoing ALL pipework and refixing it. Engine sump plug fell out after 450 miles. And the Quartic steering wheel cut my hands as the moulding had sharp edges - fixed with a file. The windscreen washer pump failed after 2000 miles - and then again at 5000.
Fortunately I never jacked it up so the windscreen did not fall out as it did to a colleague who had one. The paint on the roof pitted. The passenger armrest split in two after 6 months.
A truly apalling car.
madf
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Thanks for the link ChrisR.
Confirms that my SUV prejudice is not mere bigotry.
"For every one life saved by driving an SUV, five others will be taken."
It's surely time some pressure was brought to bear on the Government's laissez-faire attitude to vehicle size, before it's too late and everyone has to get one out of 'self defence'.
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Hugo,
Have you noticed that there are no Japanese cars in this thread other than the one to replace a British motor.
Bill
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Mercedes C Class in about 1997. Gearbox failed on the way home. Needed a new PAS pump, dealer scratched in while in for repair. The box went again.
There was also a Nova GTE when I was young and foolish. Serves me right for buying a new model at launch time. You name it, it went wrong. Lost patience when I braked for a roundabout and the centre section of the grille didn't.
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When I launched this thread, I really expected it to be full of £200 car stories, not cars bought from new or nearly new.
Are we saying that manufacturers and dealers really haven't got there act together??
On that note, some friends of ours bought a brand new Fiat Multipla. Suffice to day there were so many problems that it had to go in on its several times to get them sorted out.
One one occation they were given a slightly newer Multipla as a loan car, which was perfect.
So when he went back to collect his old car again, he told them that he was keeping the good one and the other could go back. After some debate the dealer agreed.
Hugo
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See "Dealer advice re naff Vauxhall" post.
And this was also a nearly new motor.
Never, never again will I line the pockets of Vauxhall or my local dealership with my hard earned. Life presents many challenges and I don't for one see why one of mine should be trying to get an expensive car forever sorted out!
Interesting re the Jap comments - Just had a work colleague extolling the virtues of his 4th 200k miler Honda Accord, a hapy experience after a nervous breakdown caused by a Fiat Tempra.
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