[Rant] Buying used cars [/Rant]

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Gunk

Guru
Location
Oxford
Indeed - can't argue with the aesthetic and stock (have you tried the sourdough?) but for those who turn up past 16:01 on a Sunday that all suddenly becomes irrelevant!

Unfortunately because of the square footage it is now classed a larger store and is limited to shorter Sunday opening hours.

not tried the Sourdough, we buy ours from Country Grains on the Botley road.
 
OP
OP
wafter

wafter

I like steel bikes and I cannot lie..
Location
Oxford
Unfortunately because of the square footage it is now classed a larger store and is limited to shorter Sunday opening hours.

not tried the Sourdough, we buy ours from Country Grains on the Botley road.
Indeed. Upon a quick cursory inspection earlier it seems that the new Tesco is still an express (so will still provide overpriced Sunday-evening wares via disinterested staff) but I'd rather patronise the co-op..

The sourdough is good and also local as it's from the Natural Bread Company who are based in Botley. That said the stuff from Country Grains is great too - before we both stopped eating bread (mostly) we used to buy from there as we lived two minutes walk away. I liked the San Fran, her indoors liked the Wholemeal - typical :laugh:
 

Cavalol

Guru
Location
Chester
Went to view a car the other day, actually opening my door and about to swing my leg out and the vendor's said 'I'm not taking any offers on it'. No greetings, no cheery hello, just that as an opening statement. I simply shut my door, started my car and drove away.
 

MarkF

Guru
Location
Yorkshire
Piggybacking on the OP again....

The £800 Honda HR-V has been well used and no major issues have come to light. I've changed the fuids and replaced the drivers frayed seat belt with a new unit, £30 Ebay. The interior is very clean but the exterior well scratched & scruffy, it's done 600 (very quiet) miles and done a lot of tip runs, it is huge inside with the seats down. New front discs and all 4 tyres have a load of life left, at the moment I have £860 in it, amazing I couldn't get a decent moped for that! But I don't like it, don't know why, I just don't, think I will see what the November MOT costs, if it flies through I'll move it on, if it costs me good money then I think I will make it into a weekend Dales camper/bike carrier, 2 could sleep in it easy, maybe a canoe on the top too.:okay:

06-honda-fr-v-2-0-i-vtec-sport-5dr-noir_7368415383.jpg
 
OP
OP
wafter

wafter

I like steel bikes and I cannot lie..
Location
Oxford
Speaking of updates...

A while ago we pikey'd up a mate's cul-de-sac by replacing the discs and pads outside his house, which generally went OK although I couldn't get the anti-squeal backers behind the pads on one side for some reason.. all seems good though and I no longer get that warpy-warpy shimmy under braking present with the old knackered disks.

On the way back from his house my smugness evapourated when the battery warning light came on.. it seemed engine speed dependent though; giving no ill effects in use and going out at higher revs, only to come back on at idle. The battery has an inbuilt health indicator which suggested it was good, and I gave the clamps on the terminals a bit of a wiggle in case there was a contact issue there. It still happened but potentially less..

Given the engine speed sensitivity I figured it might have been the alternator voltage reg at fault, so looked at replacement items (cheaper than doing the whole alternator). In preparation for rebuilding the alternator I did a dummy removal run; lubing and freeing off all of the fixings and tensioner to make it easier when the time came. Since then I've had no battery light; so I'm wondering if it was down to a slipping belt that's since been sorted (seemed alright before though), or maybe a poor connection at the alternator that I've disturbed. Either way I'm not complaining!

When playing with the battery I also removed the crusty retaining setup and freed all that off with some heat from the gas ring, oil and brute force - assembling with lashings of copper grease so it won't seize again. Feels good to be doing something productive / pragmatic :smile:

Other than all that I've grown to quite like the car; the steering's still cack but I'm getting used to it to an extent, while it has enough poke to be useful / fun (when I can set aside my anxiety about the gearbox) has a nice gearshift, corners nicely and is generally fairly pleasant to drive. I filled the tank today so once that's run down (hopefully in a very long time!) I'll be able to calculate some fuel economy figures; which I've ballparked at around 40mpg currently.

:smile:
 
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OP
OP
wafter

wafter

I like steel bikes and I cannot lie..
Location
Oxford
Another crap and inconsequential update; originally to kill time while I waited for my lunch to cook but it's overspilled and now I feel committed :rolleyes:

The car had its MOT about a month ago and did me well; passing with the only small advisories being stuff I was already aware of :smile:

I'm now on my 2nd tank of fuel and what few miles I've done in the car had thankfully been mostly free from the ominous flickering of the battery warning light I'd experienced a while ago, however recently it started coming on if left idling for any length of time and a few weeks ago I took the piss somewhat by (unsuccessfully) trying to jump start my old knackered, yet to be got rid of car from the Honda.

This resulted in the warning light coming on again; only going off when it was revved beyond 3500rpm. I decided to go out for a "spirited" drive to recharge the battery, however this proved to be a terrible idea and I limped home 10 minutes later with hardly any headlights, no power steering, no instrument cluster lights.. :rolleyes:

From the symptoms I was pretty sure it was the alternator so dropped £140-odd on a new one; and after charging the battery off-car an hour and a half in the rain last weekend saw it fitted with the car so far having behaved itself.

Apart from the cack steering I've grown to quite like it as it's fairly enthusiastic and fun to drive. The last full tank recorded around 42-43mpg, which I hope might be improved upon further since that will have included a fair bit of idling during the MOT.

Sadly since I'm moving home in less than a week I'll be riding a lot less and driving a lot more; which I guess will be the acid test of the car's ongoing reliability..
 

rogerzilla

Legendary Member
I drove all the way to Weymouth once (200 miles round trip) to see a "garaged, summer use only" Mk1 MX-5. Since nearly all these have rotten sills, I insisted on the phone that the seller got his head under and looked for rust bubbles. All clean, he said.

Arrived and it was one of the most rusty ones I've ever seen.
 

BoldonLad

Not part of the Elite
Location
South Tyneside
.....
The trip down there was integrated into a ride so I probably only wasted 20 minutes in the presence of the unscrupulous individual attempting to sell this poor abused little turd of a car; however otherwise I've pretty much devoted a day to researching the vehicle, on hold with my waste-of-space insurance company getting a quote / putting a policy change in place - wasted time I really resent. This, along with being treated as if my mental capacity is inferior to that of a root vegetable. Finally I'm angry at myself for treating the guy with civility despite his evident attempt to screw me; although I did tactfully "point out" many of these issues to him.

The "gentleman seller" had at least one more potential hapless buyer lined up after me, but two hours after I visited the ad's still up so finger's crossed nobody's been stupid enough to get sucked in by his little ploy. I hope his greed and dishonesty earn him many more wasted evenings. :rolleyes:

Be reasonable, perhaps, his day job is an Estate Agent? ;)
 

BoldonLad

Not part of the Elite
Location
South Tyneside
You cant afford to narrow the field with such a low budget. View each vehicle on its merits, and if the best maintained, best condition best driving car you can for for a bag of sand is a Perodua then that's liable to be better than a tired Nissan, which was probably not made in Japan anyway.

We have a Nissan Factory about two miles away. Not sure which models they are turning out, and, not sure how much longer it will be operating, with Br***t looming. ;)
 

Drago

Legendary Member
The b word is the least of its problems - they did well here because successive governments have given them lots of money to stay. Now they're stuck becuase when they threatened to up sticks if the vote didn't go the way they wanted the Government threatened to invoke the repayment clauses that were part of the condition of them receiving the subsidies. They can't afford to do that, so they're here whether they like it or not.

Of more concern is the collapse in car sales due to covid, and Nissan being so far behind the curve with electeification compared to its rivals. Theyve tottered from one crisis to another since the early 80's, and now theyre out of the protective shadow of Renault I reckon the company will either be defunct by 2030, or bought out by another firm and absorbed into their operations. You heard it here first, people.
 

oldwheels

Legendary Member
Location
Isle of Mull
Never trust the term 'lady owner'. It's either a peach, banged up, or treated like a girl racers car, just like any 'lads' car might be. No wonder there were no pictures.
I was at university with the son of a well known car dealer. They had a nice Morris Minor for sale with one lady owner who only drove it to church on Sundays. This was quite correct but they never told anyone that the bulk of the mileage had been done by her madcap son who thrashed the car practically to death.
 

gbb

Legendary Member
Location
Peterborough
Went to view a car the other day, actually opening my door and about to swing my leg out and the vendor's said 'I'm not taking any offers on it'. No greetings, no cheery hello, just that as an opening statement. I simply shut my door, started my car and drove away.
Reminds me of an occasion years ago, my SIL asked if I'd once over a car (Renault 5, that's how long ago). We drove over town to the address, eagerly looking for the car at the side of the road. My SIL suddenly said..
'You've just driven right past it !!!! '
'I know'....I replied
She seemed confused, I continued....
'Not even going to bother, it's a pile of carp'
'Oh'.......
 

Cavalol

Guru
Location
Chester
Every time I see an R5 I'm reminded of the time I put a new wiper blade on mine, went home down the bypass in torrential rain and switched the wipers on. The driver's side parted company and flew across the other side of the road, possibly straight into/onto someone else's car. The rest of the drive home was a bit lairy.
 
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