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My Corsa is fully comp anyway I don't think it will make much difference, I don't want to check though until I know if I can gt a loan. Repair costs I seem to getting from google is around £500-£600 if the jobs done properly.
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Repair costs I seem to getting from google is around £500-£600 if the jobs done properly.
Seems somewhat expensive to me, a head gasket change on a 2litre 16V Omega at a Vauxhall main dealer 4 years ago cost me 400 quid, local mechanic would've cost a day's labour +parts + head skim which would've been about 50quid cheaper.
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Well, my suggestion is an ex-BG Kangoo van. Cheap to buy, service history, low miles. Will take signwriting, dirt cheap to run, very secure, great around town, comfy to drive in. I have had mine (03 reg) for 3 years now and apart from fuel ( 50+ per gallon) , tax(standard) and insurance(cheap) it has cost me under £200 in routine repairs, maintenance etc.
A new car/van is great but you take the depreciation hit, pre-owned somebody else does.
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But then you fall into the issues that Rattle has just now in that if you get the wrong used car/van, its going to cost you in repairs.
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I agree, but you can also get a naff new car too. I think the Panda is a nice little car, I had a couple of FIRE Uno's years ago and they were smashing little cars. Older and wiser now, I don't buy new any more. However, as someone said at the top of the thread, everyone *has* to do the new car thing at least once.
My experience of the BG Kangoo, it's great, I would have another, but yes it could be a dog if you're unlucky. You can get a BG 05/06 with 30k miles for not much.
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A new car/van is great but you take the depreciation hit
plus you get to worry about where to park it overnight and getting your first ding.
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Rats...You know Ian's OK at the MOT station. Why not pop down and ask him if he would fit you in between tests and just do an emissions test for you. He's done it for me.
Slip him a crisp tenner and you'll know how bad it is....or not !
Ted
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My tuppence worth....never borrow money to buy a car. A home yes, a business yes, but not a lump of depreciating metal.
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Funnily enough legacylad, I was just re-reading some of this as it kind of reminds me of the early days of my business when I / it genuinely needed a decent large car. I've been a bit of a hypocrite further back up the thread in advising Rattle to "Go for it". I never did and always paid for my cars from savings for the reasons you highlight.
Even when things got a lot easier and I / the business could easily afford a posh car I always only spent an amount of money I could afford to ignore.
Having said that, a Panda is not exactly self indulgent and as Rattle has pointed out it looks pretty affordable even when stacked up against his current bangernomics strategy. So in summary......
Yeah....go for it !
;-)
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Fair enough.
I went for it in '91 with a 3 year old URquattro (my first MLC) and again in '97 with a new Elise (my second MLC). Somehow I missed the 6 year cycle in '03 but am now back on course with the 330Ci Convertible.
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I guess most people who regularly frequent car forums might admit to having occasionally bought things they shouldn't have and while regreting some of them being quite glad they did in other cases.....
Have I ever told you about my Westfield ? Thing is, it was back in......
;-)
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If the scrappage scheme is a genuine plus to the buyer, it might make borrowing to fund the deal a wise move.
A Panda is a sensible enough choice, but I would be concerned about leaving a shiny new car parked outside in a big city overnight.
I get the impression Rattle Towers is not situate in the best of areas.
Cosmetic damage costs a lot fix, and can leave the car permanently tainted in the eyes of its owner.
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That is exactly the point I don't want another old banger, I would rather keep my Corsa as least I know it and apart from the HG issue its not a too bad car.
I will get getting a high pecentage off from scrappage, 36% off to be exact on an already cheap car. Small cars also keep their value very well. In ten years time it will still be worth £1k.
In four years time I will easily be able to get £3k for it, meaning the total cost has been around £2500 for four years motoring. I also do low milleage so servicing issues like brakes etc shoudln't be a problem for quite some years, I may well have to buy a few new back boxes though.
Having said all that this thread is a little premature because I don't know if I can even get a loan yet.
Ifithelps I actually live in one of the better areas of Manchester, however car crime in general in Manchester is very high. My mate parks his in a rather average part and has never had problems being on the street. It is an issue though, luckily my jobs also tend to be in the better areas too.
Ted thats a good idea about the MOT man, I will ask him tomorrow, the print out on the emissions should show exactly what the problem is even if it passes.
Edited by Rattle on 09/02/2010 at 21:55
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Legacylad, why not borrow? I may not have £5k cash for a car but I might be able to afford £100 a month for the loan - so why not? Obviously taking into account sensible interest rates and depreciation via outstanding loan.
I am not advocating the "Bright House" type of finance where every penny of your benefits are accounted for to repay your tv, etc that you could have done without. But if you are in a steady job, with steady income, know your limitations then why not?
Everything I buy depreciates, my shopping, my TV, my cd's and dvd's , and even my house may have.
Yes in an ideal state have money saved up for any purchase but the problem is everyone would be sitting around till their 40 before they can afford to buy anything!
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Borrowing is a very personal choice.
Borrowing to invest can make you more money - as with buying houses, or capitalising a business.
Borrowing to get 'stuff' just adds to the cost so loses you money. The monthly commitments make you poorer and more vulnerable to a drop in income.
I borrowed £500 to buy a car when I was 24 - the interest rate was very low and the payments were only £21 a month, but I resented every payment and never did it again, and I've been happier for it I think.
If Rattle can get over the immediate transport problem, maybe he could invest a fraction of the £100 in new kit to make him more productive or enable him to do other types of fix - that would make him money, not make him poorer, and he might get a better car in a year or two without the borrowings.
What think Rattle? Or do you have all the kit you need for your business?
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Rattle. Please, please buy a new car, and then we shall be spared all these hypothetical threads.
For the record, I haven't heard of anybody (in real life; obviously on a motoring forum you only hear of the problems) with a head gasket problem otherwise than on a K series Rover.
Yet if you search the forums for posts by Rattle including "head gasket" there are 48 hits, likely HGF being attributed to virtually every small car on the streets.
Frankly, I just don't believe a word of it.
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It has become a bit of a Carry On film. I swear Im just waiting for a 'my car has a rust spot so I have to re-shell it' thread.
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Don't be so hard on Rattle. The BR would be a lot less interesting without him and his funny tales.
:)
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Please, please buy a new car, and then we shall be spared all these hypothetical threads. >>
I shouldn't bet on it. Just think, the Fiat Panda will give hundreds of opportunities for various questions and a Hyundai with 7 years warranty will lead to 7 years of constant queries on whether a speck of dust qualifies for repair under warranty.
Frankly, I just don't believe a word of it. >>
I guess that if everyone followed the advice in the first sticky in discussions in response to certain paranoid people, the number of daily posts and hits to this website would halve (and so could possibly impact on HJ's income).
p.s. BTW, I think the HG failed because he started his car when it was kept unused for days/nights outdoors at temperatures reaching minus 17 degrees Celsius.
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That thought had crossed my mind too, but the water out the tailpipe has been a problem before I realised I was loosing water. It is always dripped a bit but it usualy cleared up after a few miles but now its not clearing up and I am loosing coolent. There is a very slight sweet smell from the rear tailpipe although its not very strong.
I did not start the car in extremes of -17c, it was always above freezing and I only it twice and left the engine running for 20 minutes or so.
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I did not start the car in extremes of -17c it was always above freezing and I only it twice and left the engine running for 20 minutes or so.
I'm not sure what this is asserting, but I think it is asserting that whilst Rattle was ill (swine 'flu?) he only started the car twice. Yet here
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=81658&...f
he was starting it every few days.
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Years ago my 7 year old Mk2 Ford Escort was misfiring badly and the temperature gauge shot up into the red. Topping up the radiator brought only temporary relief. Eventually the engine stopped and wouldn't restart so I trudged to a phone box and phoned a mate who towed me home. The dipstick indicated a significant amount of water in the sump and removing the cylinder head revealed 2 of the pistons to actually be completely submerged in several centimetres of water. Ah, that'll be the head gasket then. Half a days work and the car was roadworthy again (or as roadworthy as one of these underengineered rotboxes was ever going to be).
That was the only car I've ever owned that has suffered head gasket failure. Maybe I've been lucky.
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I will film it if you want but I really cannot be bothered. If you don't like my threads you do not need to reply to them. I've known a few people who had HG problems and one of them was a K series.
There is no signs of any leaks, I am using coolent, I have mayo, there is smoke like a steam train, there is a lot of water dripping out the back. But of course its just my imagination. Its perfectly normal for cars to use a lot of coolent and have rust in its header tank.
I've had cars long enough now to know the difference between condensation (e.g a bit of steam when the engine is cold).
I am going to book my car in to a bigger garage which Ted uses later just to get a proper check done to confirm it is the HG for 100% certaincy.
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"If you don't like my threads you do not need to reply to them"
Well said Rattle
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When I worked at the garage in the 1970s we did a lot of head gaskets.
So many that we had our own cylinder head grinder/refacer.
We also kept a stock of about a dozen rebuilt cylinder heads - the popular models at the time.
Breakdown customers were quite impressed because we could do a head gasket in about an hour by fitting one of the 'stock' cylinder heads.
We kept their old one, and rebuilt that when it was quiet.
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When the HG failed on the Mondeo, the symptoms were a slow loss of coolant and increased steam from the exhaust - even when the engine was warmed up. THE method for verififying HG failure was a 'pressure' test - which proved beyond doubt that the HG had indeed packed up.
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Rattle wrote:
the gearbox has a bit of a wine
so Ted wrote:
Stop giving it the wine and it might change easier
and GB wrote
Tee hee, I love it here, can't make the slightest mistake without someone spotting it.
Then Rattle wrote
Just having a long hard thing.
And no-one said a word. Quite right too, of course.
Sven, Samantha! Stop that at once! The kindly old gramophone archivist can dust off that seven-incher without your help.
};---)
Incidentally, could we perhaps have a précis version of these threads for those readers with - ahem - lives? Perhaps it could go up on Sunday morning and be called Rattle Redux. }:---)
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£95 a month for a new Panda that'll depreciate?
Find a friendly, experienced, mechanically minded person to buy you a car for a budget you can afford and give him £250.
In the last 10 years I must have bought half a dozen cars for me and Mrs GarethJ, only 1 ever left me stranded (that 1961 throttle cable wasn't covered under VW's warranty). No breakdowns, no carrying tools around, nothing except servicing and repairs that were done when it was convenient. I'm sure most people's story is the same, is Rattle using up everyone else's bad luck?
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is Rattle using up everyone else's bad luck?
Drat! If I'd known that beforehand I would have finally took the plunge and bought myself an Alfa!
;)
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