The grossly excessive exhaust back pressure, at first sporadic but latterly more or less constant, that has progressively rendered my car undriveable except in town has been caused not by the cat breaking up but the rear silencer box, its outlet filled with a wodge of blackened fibreglass and its swollen condition testifying to the pressures it has suffered. Trouble is, the car needs an MoT and no emission figures can be measured without the exhaust being fixed, 50 quid plus fitting at least. So if, as seems quite possible, running in that state has damaged or cooked the cat, that will be another hundred plus fitting more or less, plus any other bits and bobs it may need for the MoT.
Fortunately my garage man is an intelligent and sympathetic individual who understands my needs and doesn't see me as a cash cow. Even so I am beginning to look forward to a slightly embarrassing but newer and more comfortable jalopy I have been promised, but that has not yet materialised.
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If you're skint and you know the car is good then its worth spending to find out of it will pass the emissions, if you don't know the car is good then maybe its time to scrap. How old is it?
I know my dads Escort was a very reliable car but suffered from a lot of wheel beraring sort of problems. The engine lasted for ever as the rest of the car fell apart with things like failed central locking, damaged window wiring etc.
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It's a good motor Rattle. I believe in maintenance in such cases rather than switching cars with all the hassle that entails. But it's getting quite long in the tooth now and is on the cusp of hardly being worth keeping. If it gets through this MoT fairly cheaply perhaps there's another year in it. You never know.
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I always think do you know the history in this case? My infamous fiesta needed £300 of work to get it through the MOT, so I sold it for £250 its hassle and I may get more hassle back from the DVLA etc but at the end of the day 9 previous owners and a car I did not know the history of it was only ever a short term thing.
My dad had a similar thing with his last Escort, it needed all sorts of welding and a lot of other things sorting like excessive play in steering etc, we were told the work would be £300 but then the MOT man may find things he has missed so there was no gaurentee. A sad moment but a genuine and good motor was scrapped.
How old is it btw? My dads was a 95 N new shape 1.6 LX, it rotted ebcause it was stored garage while my dad was too ill to drive. If you think the engine is ok then it should pass the exhaust, just get that back box replaced and see what happens when you take it to the MOT.
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How do you know it's blocked by a wadge of blackened fibreglass - are you just assuming that, or is it already dismantled?
Can you try poking wire or flexi drain-unblocker up the back end while reving it?
What about a reversed vacuum cleaner, followed by a powerful suck?
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Dismantled, and totally foutu.
Rattle: I paid £250 for mine four years ago or more. Must have spent two or three times that maintaining it. Not bad spread over four or five years. Of course the horrendous London overheads are too posh for it really...
:o}
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A friend will be taking his early 90s 110,000 mile Escort on a 'banger rally' to southern Italy in September. He's owned it since it was two years old and spends whatever it needs on it - even a £500 bill is cheaper than a new car - he only does about 5,000 a year now.
Before the rally he'll be having a full overhaul of the induction system, new MAF etc etc, and some steel wheels as the alloys are failing so the tyres go flat. Needless to say he's confident it will take the trip in it's stride.
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Mrs. DP's uncle ran a G-reg Sierra 2.0i Ghia (Twin Cam) until 18 months ago. He'd bought it as an ex-demo at three months old, and would swallow repair bills beyond the value of the car because it was a reliable car that he knew the history of, and that a replacement car at ten times the cost of repair would come with no guarantees.
It went when the MOT man finally shook his head at the rust underneath. The engine management/fuel injection system was starting to go senile as well, giving starting and rough running problems that servicing wasn't fixing, and when it was all added up, it was decided to cut losses and go and buy a late mk1 Focus. Which they duly did.
The point being, Lud, your Escort could well be worth spending a couple of hundred quid on if you're still happy smoking about in it, and it's otherwise reliable. If you get another year out of it, that's very cheap motoring.
Cheers
DP
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Same attitude as I had with the Polo... it needed £100 worth of welding for its MOT but rest was ok, so it was worth keeping for another year...
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Just being nosey Lud so feel free to ignore this......
What manner of comfortable jalopy is lurking just out of reach ? Surely it can't be all that embarrasing ?
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I'll tell you when it materialises...
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The Escort is legal again having passed what will surely be its last MoT in my ownership. The exhaust back box it needed was a type fitted only for six months back in the mid-nineties, and it took a couple of days to get the right part. The jalopy needed a couple of small patches on the sill, one on the inside being noticed by the MoT tester. It also failed emissions first time around, but my man said he thought it just needed an Italian tune-up to get rid of all the gunge in the exhaust. Meanwhile he cleaned and fiddled with the idle control valve and inlet tract. I went down and got it just now. It feels a bit loose in the joints after all the newer cars I've driven over the last couple of months, and the new back box is noisier than the blocked old one, hardly surprisingly, but now it goes properly.
The MoT cost £56 I think. For the silencer - 50 quid more or less - and fitting, patches and welding, idle control valve fiddling, and having to juggle a truly filthy old Escort - it had sat in the main road in front of the house for six weeks without moving through all the cold weather - on and around his premises and back and forth to the MoT man for nearly a week, my Aussie garage man has charged me £174. Not bad for central London I would say (North Kensington actually, between David Cameron, some sort of police garage, a newly opened VAG indy and a bunch of Transit-wielding gipsies down a muddy lane).
When I said 'That's extremely reasonable', he looked a bit bashful but said 'Yes, it is.'
Pure gold.
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