October 2007
Does anyone know of a good garage in the Cambridge area where I can get a new cam belt fitted for areasonable price please?
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I wasn't thinking of such gifts between close family members, but I have often seen cars offered or asked for via Freecycle. I have even seen some cars (in ropey condition)offered for 1p first come first served on E bay - not even covering the listing fee!
So, have any of you given, or received a car, and was it on balance of benefit to the recipient or was it a white elephant?
If you gave a car away, what caused you to do this? Was it out of MOT or a non runner, or was it just 'in the way'?
I myself have been given a non running Citroen Xantia by an ex colleague. I had to pay someone to drop it off to my house, then made the mistake of thinking it was worth putting back on the road.
By the time I had changed the engine, sorted out the cooling problem and got it through the MOT it cost more than the car was worth/eventually sold for on e bay. I lost around £150 on the deal. This only happened a few years ago but I learned a sober lesson in that free cars can be very exensive, unless you're quick to recognise their real worth. This car was only 7 years old!
Suddenly the piles 7 to 10 year old cars in the local scrappy made perfect sense. I realised that I should have simply sold it for spares or repair and I would probably have made a small profit.
Having said that, I know that several people have been given cars that they have gone on to run for anything from the rest of the MOT to several years. Read more
I haven't been sacked (yet) from my new job and my business interests appear to be thriving, so I am actively investigating the Jaguar XK8 market; expecting to spend between £10-20K.
I am regularly visiting e-bay and Autotrader to get a feel for the market. Almost all cars are sold as in 'excellent' condition with FJSH and nice photos to back the claims up. Most adverts admit to minor shopping trolley dents and worn drivers seat etc: fairy nuff.
What surprises me is the variation in age and mileage versus price.
Examples include:
17350 miles, 6 years old, £16995
21000 miles, 9 years old, £14445
42950 miles, 6 years old £28,995
86000 miles, 9 years old, £17995
148000 miles, 8 years old, £11850
I decided to spend a hang-over recovery morning typing in all the XK8s for sale on Autotrader (250 so far, more to come) into a data-base and see if I could find a relationship between Price, Mileage and Age.
In the end I came up with the following formula:
Price = ((log((1 / (M x A)) / 1000000)) + 0.5051) / 0.000058
Where:
Price = Advertised price in pounds
M = Mileage
A = Age in years
Would anyone like to comment on whether I should get a girlfriend?
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If you're interesting in hiring an XK8 to get a feel for one, I'm pretty sure Hertz and Europcar (among others) have so-called 'prestige' ranges that include them.
I looked into the possibility of hiring an XJ6 for a visit to East Midlands earlier this year - one of the hire fleets had everything up to Bentleys and Porsches, but only from certain towns/airports (not EMA). The four-figure deposit also raised an eyebrow, so check the small print on the collision damage wavier/insurance form carefully!
Hi all,
I have a 2000(W) 306 HDi, which i purchased recently. I was after a car that would be very fuel efficient and after reading that the 306 HDi can return on average an impressive 55.4mpg.
I was concerned when i found my fuel needle was approaching reserve a lot earlier than expected. I calculated that i was getting on average a very poor 30mpg!!!
Can anyone please help me to find what is going wrong or if there are any other 'tell tale' signs that i should be looking for?
Thanks in advance
SLT Read more
Hi
drop in miles per gallon can be a number of things, simple first dirty air filter, leak in fuel supply line, poor quality fuel.
it may also indicate that your AC unit needs serviced.
your HDI should return 55 m.g easy
CAN A CAT C COME OF THE REGISTER
Stop Shouting for a start ! and wait for answers in the post you've already made Read more
tinyurl.com/2e5ggc
not much to be said really is there?
wonder if they all live in one of those trailer things and are behind on the mortgage payements?
these are the views of an idiot and are not the views of this site ;-) Read more
Yes, I remember reading a magazine article about that several years ago. They interviewed a 12 year old girl who had special permission to drive, and drove her dads V8 Jeep 50 miles to school & back every day !
I bought a Cat C car for my wife, I had it fully checked and the car is perfect, it was checked by VOSA and then by the AA so if I ever sell it on, do I have to tell the buyer of its history and will it always be a Cat C Write off ?
Shouting ammended Read more
no
yes
these are the views of an idiot and are not the views of this site ;-)
I've the opportunity to purchase quite cheap a 2 litre petrol Audi 100 with low mileage (under 80k). I don't know much about Audis of this age. Does anyone have experience of owning one of these?
SLT Read more
Smart move at this budget range
hi I have a 2001 2l petrol facelift GLX Family 406 estate .has anyone any idea if you can change the bulbs in the instrument panel. Haynes manual say that there are no bulbs just soldered leds. Other people say that there are capless bulbs that can be replaced. Could it be that the later 406 has these LEDs instead of bulbs Please help.
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hi took instrument panel out of dash it has bulb holders for the warning lights fog main beam etc but nothing on the speedo or temp fuel gauges.Any ideas please
Is anyone aware of the possible cause of the auto selector getting stiff i.e from drive to reverse. The hotter the engine the stiffer it gets. I don't believe it is the cable as it can be seen to move quite freely until the slack is taken up. Read more
Browse
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Back in 89 my mothers bloke gave me his Capri 2 litre GL !, 21 and had just past my test, insurance was £400, car worth much less due to numerous faults, mostly rust related, luckily sold the Reg (JHP 59V) for £350 which was just about enough to keep it on the road for a year, flogged it for a couple of hundred a year later and moved on to a Metro !?!
Cheers
CBG
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Drink Lager, Talk Piffle,