Bear with me on this...
Youngest future DiL passed her test 18 months ago so i spent several weeks finding several nice 'first' cars. None meet the criteria so a rust bucket KA was bought without my knowledge. It was the 'right' colour, so after £750 plus £1k of repairs 9 months later it was written off after colliding with the back of a taxi. Middle future DiL passes on her old Clio, lovingly looked after for 6 years, and I recommend a full service and belt change. I took my eye off the ball and this was not done, so as a result, the belt snaps tonight and the cost of repair is uneconomical.
Desperate phone call from future Mrs L...can I source another £500 banger for future DiL?
Erm, what with scrappage, what do you think. My suggestion of a pushbike for the next 12months did not go down well so I am keeping a very low profile.
Any suggestions, apart from emigration..
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>> Desperate phone call from future Mrs L...can I source another £500 banger for future DiL?
>> Erm, what with scrappage, what do you think.
There are enough still around.
bit.ly/aXtxKN
Do a search in Autotrader with minimum specified parameters. Look on the notice-board in shops, and peruse the local paper. That sort of thing.
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>> bit.ly/dzRi5e
>> bit.ly/bRFHsk
>>
Never realised you lived in Bloomsbury!
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There are cheap cars about, despite the scrapping of many.
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A new engine would be less than £350 delivered if the rest of it's still square. Only leaves 150 for fitting though. Being French im guessing it's not a quick job :-(
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Not as easy as you would think...future DiL still at school but doing, now past tense, was doing, a part time job, visiting old folks. So has to be Gp 1 insurance. Especially bearing in mind recently writing off her original Ka!
My wonderfully reliable old S plate Mazda 626 was sold recently for only £900 (after I spent £250 on it) after dozens (literally) of people wanted to buy it then found they could not afford the insurance for their offspring!
Last edited by: legacylad on Tue 11 May 10 at 22:52
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Within the next couple of weeks I will be selling my brother-in-law's Suzuki Swift. Silver, 51 plate GLS with the little 3-pot engine, new battery + 2 new front tyres, full test being done this week, regrettably no service history but it's pretty tidy and has about 51k on the clock.
Soon as it's tested I'll put it up in Classifieds.
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Sorry cannot help, legacylad, but to make your tale easy to follow, can you clarify whether you really mean DiLs or are they your future step-Ds.
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Brave man LL, or did you fail to engage brain before opening trap...my usual method of putting my size 11's in it....bicycle indeed, you'll need to do some back pedaling...i put peddling at first..maybe that was a better term..;)
It's a difficult one to balance, we try to help them but do we make it a bit too easy, trouble is when it's a car we find for them we carry a moral burden to gurantee the thing.
When i need to carry out some work on the daughters car(s) i make sure she gives a helping hand and show her whats involved...them getting increasingly cold and dirty because the 20 minute job has turned into a 4 hour one because of neglect helps concentrate their mind.
Find a reasonable one and 106/Saxo take some beating, you have to get high spec to get power steering, but they are one of the best for corrosion resistance.
Older Micra too, i tried to suggest one of those to my daughter...not keen to put it mildly.
Yaris hold their price too well in this market.
Last edited by: gordonbennet on Wed 12 May 10 at 07:26
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Hmm - that is what I was thinking as well. Makes much more sense.
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I was just thinking how your future DiL sounds like my MiL. They don't change :-(
:-)
JH
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MK1 Panda is a bit of a classic now and I have seen some of the 4x4s fetch nearly £2k. I think that one posted will fetch £500+.
The difficulty here is insurance and the need for something half safe.
If you can find a none rusting Fiesta MK3 for about £300-£400 that will make a very good buy, the MK4 is a lot better but you can't get a decent one for £400 these days.
The Corsa with the 8v engine in it is very good but again for £500 most of them have terminal chasis rot.
A Punto MK1 won't rust but suffer HG problems and just look tatty.
You might also be able to get a good MK1 Clio for £500 if you don't mind an early plate.
I think a 106 will be too hard to find in your budget as a lot of them which are still on the road are in great condition.
The AX is probably too unsafe to consider.
You might find an early MK2 Nissan Micra in base spec for £500, there is quite a very tatty ones round here going very cheap, they should be machanicaly decent if you can live with a few dents etc.
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I will soon have to find a £500 motor in August no doubt, and I am not doing it. I think that Mazda might be heading my dads way but I can never convince him to buy something that old.
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>> The AX is probably too unsafe to consider.
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They are only unsafe if you have a bad accident in one. There was still a lot left of my son's AX after it was punted off the road from stationary by a Freelander doing 40mph. Eg both doors still opened.
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Perhaps a bus pass would be better?!
The repair might be uneconomical but if DIL has to pay for it, it might be a salutory lesson in preventative maintenance...
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Aarg...future DiL and tales of woe - Stuu
