Can you give me some good advice please

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Tue 6 Jan 2004 19:33
Can you give me some good advice please - welshy
Hi all , im fairly new here and i would like some advice if thats ok ? I have an "M" plate Cavalier sri saloon in white , obviously its a 16v with an ecotec engine . There is absolutally nothing wrong with the car , further more the body is in excellent condition . The car has along mot till oct this year . Basically im a little bored with it , so its for sale at around £1300. I have been offered a Mazda 323f gti on an "H" plate , in exchange straight swap . The guy said that the mazda is one of only a few that came over from Japan for One year only , apparently its the one that has 150bhp. Should I do this swap , or would I be very foolish ? Please people can you give me some good advice as to what to do ?
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Tue 6 Jan 2004 20:24
Can you give me some good advice please - Ivor E Tower
Depends on how long you intend to keep it and how much you want to spend on motoring. I kept my last car for 18 years - it too was Japanese - a rare Honda Civic Shuttle. You tend to need few bits to keep a Japanese car going, but they can cost an arm and a leg when you do need them - example I paid nearly £300 for one brake calliper for the Honda, and that was about ten years ago. Comparable price for a european car was around £30. On the other hand, over 18 years I only had to but a handful of non-consumable bits, and this calliper was the most expensive!
I too got bored with the car after a few years, but it was reliable, didn't rust significantly until about 2 years ago and was reasonable fun to drive. After initial purchase it cost next to nothing to run apart from insurance and the odd few spares.
In the same time, I could have bought several other cars, spend a fortune on depreciation and goodness knows what on repairs.
Personally unless you have loads of cash to keep a potential new purchase on the road, I'd stick to what you have and save up for something that you'd really like to drive around in.
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Tue 6 Jan 2004 20:37
Can you give me some good advice please - welshy
Ivor , thanks very much for the advice . Seems silly to some people that I want to change the Cavalier allready . People comment as to how nice it is , people say how nice it is to see a cavalier sri that has not been molested by boy racers . But then again , im bored with it .
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