The Little Run About Thread

[Fab Foodie]

No further issues with the car. Always a risk with any second hand car, especially a cheap 10 year old one.

Precautionary run round with sealant on the rear hatch rubbers, doubled up on the rubber strips round the rear light electrical panel hole, and sealed round the high level brake light. Boot is dry. It's a known area for water to get in on the 107, C1 and Aygo, as the car ages and rubbers start to 'age' and loose their sealing.

Changed to plugs and air filter as I didn't know when they's been done. Plugs looked fine, but the gap was more like 3mm and not 1.1mm although it ran fine. Air filter dirty. Less than £20 for these bits. Popped the extra foam panels I'd bought for the boot floor into the bottom of the spare tyre well, and that's reduced road noise even further - these cars aren't very sound proofed for 'weight and cost'.

Pollen filter checked and given a good hoover - looked fine, but debris hoovered out.

Touching 'wood' there should be nothing else to do to this now.

I've doubled the value of my C1 by washing it and fitting an old bedsheet over the rear seats to keep it cleaner while transporting the dogs for walkies as Wimpers is between cars.
I love my roller-skate....


Is your Son allowed the keys back yet?

 

[fossyant]

I've doubled the value of my C1 by washing it and fitting an old bedsheet over the rear seats to keep it cleaner while transporting the dogs for walkies as Wimpers is between cars.
I love my roller-skate....


Is your Son allowed the keys back yet?

Yes, with a warning

With specific instructions not to rag it nor leave any rubbish in it. The plan is my daughter uses it when she passes her test, and or we commute into Manchester in it when were working (I'm mainly cycling in, but if the weather is bad, I'll take this as it does more than double the MPG than mine in traffic.

Seems to be running much better and quieter than when we got it with the extra work.

I just keep doing little jobs on it - bit of underseal here and there, coating any rusty bolts and I've cleaned up the engine bay a bit (screwfix degreaser is great). I'm making sure everything is done so it's got nothing to be concerned about if daughter starts driving it.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Wife’s just had the ‘works van’ decalled up with company logo/email/phone number
(‘65’ Toyota Yaris ‘hybrid’)

 

[fossyant]

The car has been running fine - well basically now't to do to it other than wash it. It will need two rear tyres shortly (rotated front-rear, as rears were 4 years old with little wear - fronts were nearly worn) so new rears will be going on soon, as son has racked up 4000 miles since the end of November (he's paying). Leaving the hardly worn tyres on the rear would have meant running very old tyres, so hopefully these will wear out in 18 months ! These small cars just don't wear rear tyres at all - had this issue with the Yaris we had.

I had a bit of time yesterday so removed the rear lights, heat gunned them to dry out any condensation (another known issue due to age) and silicon sealed the joint between the light lens and the casing. Refitted and jobs a good 'en'. The boot has remained bone dry since the re-sealing of high level brake light, rear lights and boot hatch seal. Economy seems good, although not 'measured it yet' - just sips fuel.

My son has changed jobs for one with less hours (four long days vs 6 full days) so he has had time to work on his car. It's now up and running and MOT'ed - yay. Still got a few jobs to do on it but the 'shopping trolly' will be available at least 3 days a week - saves me moving the 'bike hauler' !

 

[fossyant]

Aygo is getting an upgrade today.

A glove box. Yep, they are extra. It just clips onto the 'shelf' and becomes a glove box so your bits and bobs aren't on show. It also got a cheap dash cam yesterday which is hardwired with a fuse piggy back connector (easy job).

Unfortunately this has gone in after my son was assaulted whilst doing deliveries on Saturday evening. Unhinged motorist cut him up, son beeped, driver got out and dived in passenger side and pinned son against window. Police are checking CCTV as it was near a local bus station.

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

The problem is with little runabouts is that they're not that cheap to fix wear and tear items, depending on the brand. The exhaust just went on my Mazda 2. It's a 2011 and very similar to a Mk7 Fiesta, but most mechanical things aren't. Luckily the exhaust was just the back box not the middle section. The middle section on this car has a secondary cat welded into it and as such was £380 for a replacement pattern part. Just a total rip-off when older cars had flanges, flexi-pipes or whatever around a cat, but I guess they just had the one, unlike modern cars.

The centre section on mine is rusted on the pipe sections but the cat is fine. So what I'm planning on doing is getting the centre section off an earlier 1.3 Mazda 2 (2008 or something) that were more expensive to tax (mines £30 a year), this has a mid silencer instead of secondary cat, cutting the cat out and getting it welded in-place of the mid silencer. I'll have to cross reference parts to make sure the earlier car has the same manifold downpipes with cat in to make sure it fits. The part for the earlier car was £40 after looking online. Failing that theres a local exhaust fabricator that is pretty reasonable whom I'll ask to make up a stainless mid section, either re-using the same cat or aftermarket. If I'm going to have to pay a bit of money would rather get something that lasts instead of the crap that mild steel pattern exhausts usually are.

Shouldn't complain as this is the downside of modern cars that are cheap to tax (should I say used to be cheap to tax). Apparently the Fiesta is way cheaper for parts like this. Whether it is as good mechanically I wouldn't know.

Just need to rust proof the thing this summer as I want to keep it as it's so good mechanically, cheap to run, good to drive, and modern cars really don't float my boat anymore, I'm overpaying my mortgage instead of owning one. That's the main issue with Mazda's, I've had 2 now, they're brilliant mechanically (petrols) but the corrosion protection is truly dire on them. It's just whether to suffer doing this, as if I don't I'm sure it will need welding maybe a couple of years or so down the line, or get shot and get an old Civic, the thing is I know this car.

I shouldn't really grumble, just if there's a cheaper way around an issue like this it makes sense to do it.

 

[fossyant]

Parts on the Aygo, C1, 107 are dirt cheap as its basically the same car with the Toyota having different panels. The rest is the same. They are basic though, and not as swish as my 20 year old top of the range Nissan saloon.

 

[fossyant]

Must say, that Toyota prices for parts are steep. My mum had an Aygo from new, but they took it to the dealers and the prices were steep. My dads a mechanic so did put up an argument, but he no longer climbs under them nowadays.

Anyway,

Little Aygo now has a glove box. Super posh 🤣😀.

 

[Rusty Nails]

We have an 06 Panda which we bought for £2K seven years ago. To date it has cost us nothing each year other than tax, MOT, insurance and fuel and 3-yearly services. It had 15k on the clock when we bought it (genuine mileage, all service notes and MOTs provided) and we have just put an extra 8K miles on it.

This week it has cost us just under a couple of hundred extra because it failed MOT on front shock absorber leaking (I changed them both).

I know it is not really essential to have this car at around 100 miles per month, but It is worth it if it means I get out of going to the supermarket or taxi driving my wife, and I like taking it into town because it gets into parking gaps my Yeti won't.

I'll keep it until it starts becoming a money pit.

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

The Aygo is a great little car. My Dad used to have a 2008 Peugeot 107. Often used it and thought it was fantastic, the stereo was a waste of time and it was noisy inside, which added to the character. It always felt like driving a bigger car than it actually was and handled really well. The only negative was when driving it on a good local bypass dual carriageway, that was downhill and just about everbody goes the speed limit or over, but it was like a bit of a wind corridor or something and often has crazy crosswinds, I found the car a bit scary in these situations. The answer was to obviously slow down when it was windy on there. Apart from that they're fantastic cars, just too small for me.

 

[KneesUp]

The centre section on mine is rusted on the pipe sections but the cat is fine. So what I'm planning on doing is getting the centre section off an earlier 1.3 Mazda 2 (2008 or something) that were more expensive to tax (mines £30 a year), this has a mid silencer instead of secondary cat, cutting the cat out and getting it welded in-place of the mid silencer.

Given that tax is based on emissions, is the second cat not the reason yours is cheaper to tax?

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Saturday 5th


Spotted in one of the car-parks at work this afternoon
I used to have the badge-engineered Bedford version (of the flat-fronted, earlier models)

It was handy for MTB racing, as it also made a mobile changing-room
Scary as hell on the motorways though, & they'd want to 'swap ends' on a damp roundabout
Plus, of course, thinking about a head-on collision was the stuff of nightmares!!

The Hospital also used to have a few as 'runabouts', mainly used by;
- the Postie, for delivering internal mail & medical notes between sites
- catering, for taking food to the Creche, & outlying buildings that had meetings taking place

My old one

The dents in the front panel were from over-enthusiastic pushing out on a muddy field

 

[midlife]

Is that a Rascal?

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Is that a Rascal?

Yes, it was

The Suzuki was a ‘Super Carry’ (l think)

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

Given that tax is based on emissions, is the second cat not the reason yours is cheaper to tax?

Yes it is, sorry for the late reply. It's just £30, I was told if I tried to fit the part from an earlier car with a silencer replacing the cat it would fail. So I'll try to engineer it out cheapily. I guess even if I do pay £400 it's still cheap motoring these days, as many people pay that a month, obviously for something nicer than 2011 Mazda 2, but they both do the same get from A to B.