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[Dano2k0]

Bucko,

You did the right thing if the car wasn't in great shape you should always walk away unless you have good plans.

Like ive always said though, if your looking at cars priced at approx £1000-1500 you could spend quite some time looking around untill you do actually find a somewhat good example.

When my brother was looking for a Corsa, bearing in mind this was a few years back now, he looked long and hard and viewed many cars up and down the country untill he found one he was happy with.

If your looking at cars under a grand, you can't be too picky, they are generally priced as such because of their age and condition.

The corsa you looked at must have been in a somewhat poor state by the sounds of things, if the clutch didn't feel right it was probably on its way out, which could be due to a few things. If it had engine issues and the body work was tatty, would describe a car that no one has looked after and probably needs more work than its worth unless its going for the right ammount of cash.

I agree a T reg car for 2k seems abit high, within reason of course, i mean for a Fiesta it seems high priced.

In todays market alot of cars have come down so much, you can get a Astra GSI MK4 now for about 4-5k, go back a year or so and they were more like 8k+

If you know anyone mechanically minded, you would be far better off taking that person with you when looking to buy a car, although its not a guarantee it will be good for your own piece of mind for someone with knowledge to give it a quick look over and possibly find faults and give you good advice.

Good luck though, let us know how you get on.

Oh and i agree 100% with you on the pictures, photos of cars are completely different to seeing them in real life.

[yaazz]

QUOTE

Oh and the car you posted is the MK4 fiesta, i personally liked the MK5 much better, its a cracking little car for a first car, the 1.25 zetec model is quite nippy, low insurance / tax, most models come with factory fitted alloys, aircon etc etc.

I find it interesting what a difference there is in perceived "nippiness" in different areas of the world.  
Where you people are, a 1.25 litre is a decent engine. Here, most first cars are, on average, 3 - 5 litres!  
I had a freind move here from Manchester when I was younger, and he couldn't believe that even high school students could afford to drive around in a v8 engine.  Even when gas was 1.50 a litre, he said it was still a bargain!

Sorry this was sort of off topic, just something I found neat.

[bucko]

Ok this is completely lower than my budget but I might go see this 1996 CITROEN AX 1.0 Elation 3dr Special Editions it is £250 lol but looks quite good in the Pics

    *  54,000 miles
    * Manual
    * Red
    * Petrol
    * Hatchback
    * 954 cc


3 Do or Hatchback, Red, Petrol, Manual,Tax Jun09,MOT jun 09. £250.

I've been advised to join a saxo club for £10 and apparently I can get cheap fire and theft insurance and I might go with adrian flux gonna ring them up tomoz..I got a really good check list to see about rust and stuff so may go see.

It's good that it has MOT until June, which is a good sign that the car is ok but of course I will look thoroughly over.



Thanks for all the advice it's helped a lot..what you think of this..I heard saxo's can rust a lot..is this a major problem?? I mean I know old cars rust a lot anyway. It's N reg 1996

[lostboyz]

gross

[Dano2k0]

QUOTE(yaazz @ Jan 15 2009, 06:08 PM)

I find it interesting what a difference there is in perceived "nippiness" in different areas of the world.  
Where you people are, a 1.25 litre is a decent engine. Here, most first cars are, on average, 3 - 5 litres!  
I had a freind move here from Manchester when I was younger, and he couldn't believe that even high school students could afford to drive around in a v8 engine.  Even when gas was 1.50 a litre, he said it was still a bargain!

Sorry this was sort of off topic, just something I found neat.

Very true, but you also have to take into account the fiesta is so small and light, and as such doesn't need a huge engine for it to feel abit nippy, and nippy in my opinion is in comparison to smillar spec cars, for the engine it is, its quite reasonable.

Don't forget most of your 3-5 litre cars probably weigh the equivelant to about 5 of mine, not that i'm saying all american cars are slow, but ive seen a few imports in the past that are far from erm fast.. Theyve got all the burbling noises, but no go sadly.

Obviously depends on what specific car your talking about, some are fast i know that.

Also don't forget engine size doesn't always mean much, my brothers corsa has a 2litre engine, and i can guarantee it would walk all over the majority of cars you could consider putting it up against, its on throttle boddies running approx 250bhp in such a small light car, its very quick.

QUOTE(bucko @ Jan 17 2009, 01:55 AM)

Ok this is completely lower than my budget but I might go see this 1996 CITROEN AX 1.0 Elation 3dr Special Editions it is £250 lol but looks quite good in the Pics

    *  54,000 miles
    * Manual
    * Red
    * Petrol
    * Hatchback
    * 954 cc
3 Do or Hatchback, Red, Petrol, Manual,Tax Jun09,MOT jun 09. £250.

I've been advised to join a saxo club for £10 and apparently I can get cheap fire and theft insurance and I might go with adrian flux gonna ring them up tomoz..I got a really good check list to see about rust and stuff so may go see.

It's good that it has MOT until June, which is a good sign that the car is ok but of course I will look thoroughly over.

Thanks for all the advice it's helped a lot..what you think of this..I heard saxo's can rust a lot..is this a major problem?? I mean I know old cars rust a lot anyway. It's N reg 1996

My advice would be stay clear, but of course your decision completely.

Old cars are valued as such, because they are (in my opinion) crap.

MOT at the moment doesn't mean anything, putting it through an MOT is where you'll soon see if the car is much good. Depending on its faults (which it will have some, guaranteed a car this age and price) it may not be worth repairing such a old car thats worth so little, sadly thats the reality of it.

Your likely to find it may need welding up in areas, it'll deffinatly be rusting in many areas, probably a good few of which will be quite bad and may not be so easy to spot just off a quick look around.

Also don't forget dodgy MOT's i know a few people who are more than happy to pay the little 'extra' and go down that road, in particular those with older cars that won't pass an MOT easily.

I think in basic, you get what you pay for with a car, some people get unlucky and obviously don't go paying for an obvious rip off or a car full of problems unless the price is right. If you pay £250 for a car thats got a short MOT, chances are its got a short life unless your willing to throw alot of money at it.

At the end of the day, its your decision and you buy what you feel is right at the time, but just be warned about old cheap cars, seen enough people buy them then be gutted.

[Chancer]

Stay clear of the AX. The front bumper is already falling off

Hey Dano Bet your brother couldn't keep with this

http://uk.youtube.co...h?v=XLTsmf2NfQ8

[lostboyz]

damn, that is ridiculous

[Chancer]

Just bought the wife this







It was cheap because of the economy at present. It is going for a Jam Sport Supercharger  conversion  in the summer if I can save enough cash.

A T plate fiesta at 2K is far too much. I would look at Fiat Punto or something similar as you will get more for your cash.
If you go for a Corsa it will most likely have been ragged, have a silly size exhaust on it etc, unless you can find one from a mature owner.
Shame you are not yet at the cheap insurance stage. I just let my A4 go for 670 quid. Crusie control, heated seats, immaculate and remapped to 220.
Keep looking and walk away from anything you are not sure on.

[Dano2k0]

Nice looking ST chancer, looks in mint condition in the photos.

That Fiesta looks pretty damn quick, you got any idea of its specs? or 0-60? or 1/4 mile? Problem with my brothers Corsa is if you keep killing it, it eats the gearbox alive, fitting new gearboxes all the time isn't much fun.

Hes getting limited slip diff and a quaf gearkit to build a new box for it in the future.

The car hasn't released its fully potential yet either, currently limited at 7250rpm hes going to raise the red line to 8500rpm i think, the cams hes got fitted are just getting into there better power band at approx 6krpm so you don't get long before you have to change gear at the moment, once hes got abit further with it and its mapped out more and the limiter raised it'll be flying.

The Fiesta you linked to looks like it must be 4wd?

My brother struggles some off the line, especially with no LSD in, but once youve got it somewhat rolling you can give it some then.

I honestly think you'd be shocked at just how fast it is, no one ever expects it, hes hoping to take it and run it down santa pod at some point (hopefully this year) so all will be revealed if he does get to take it.

Bearing in mind it will fall into front wheel drive category, got to be one of the fastest front wheel drive cars in the UK in my opinion, although no one yet knows what it will be able to do on the day, hes hoping to make improovements and tweek it more especially once hes got the LSD and hes hoping to be coming in with some records for FWD at santa pod.

Also something else worth remembering (though i'm sure you will already have thought about it) is that with it being N/A there is instant power and on this engine, not like a turbo car having to have the turbo spool up and then drive it keeping it on boost and then having to cope with turbo lag aswell.

Sadly i don't have a video clip to show you of the beast running, but heres a photo i once took while we were coming back from being on holiday. Bearing in mind this was not at all long after it was somewhat completed and was only just been run in, the engine at this point had covered probably approx 1000miles, the engine bay has since been sorted abit more, as you can see the wiring etc was just thrown together to get the car completed in time, and sadly for me my brother and my dad, we ended up doing an all nighter on the car one night to get it ready in time to go for its exhaust making up the next morning, no sleep for us that night, i was well knackered.



When we do eventually get abit further with it and it runs down the strip etc, i'll try to remember to come back and post some vid clips if you fancy seeing them Chancer.

Cheers

[Chancer]

I would love to see the clips.
You can't beat some huge HP in a small car.
 Not sure on the specs on the modded Fiesta. It would take one hell of a budget to build it. Way beyond most peoples reach. It's quick though, but not sure on the specs. Someone sent me the link.

[Dano2k0]

I'll try and remember to post you some clips up Chancer, hopefully it'll be at the pod a time or two this year, probably be upsetting some people aswell  

Shame you don't know the specs i'd have liked to have known. I won't go into all the exact specs or how much it cost to build my brothers Corsa to its current spec, but hes lucky enough in the fact between the three of us (me my dad and my brother himself) we have a good knowledge of cars, my dad has worked on them for many years (not his profession) so we built his whole engine etc and did the complete conversion ourself. Something that in total will have saved litteraly many thousands.

The engine is virtually top race spec for its class, forged crank, conrods, pistons, high lift long duration cams, oversized valves, high ported and polished head (which we also did ourself) uprated oil pump etc etc the list spec is somewhat huge, the throttle boddies and stand alone ecu cost crazy money in my opinion, but at the end of the day unless your willing to spend the right money, you can't expect to get the results he does.

I can appreciate the Fiesta will have cost quite an ammount, especially if the work was done by a garage, they'd have charged a small fortune for the conversion alone. If the engine is a big spec then that too would get pricey. Though to be perfectly fair, if the engine is somewhat standard, and your capable of doing the conversion yourself then i'd guess it probably doesn't cost quite as much as you may think, you can pick up a nice cosworth engine for not so much now days.

Something i always did find quite funny was how many people say on a Corsa put a 2litre 150bhp engine in, totally standard internals, maybe a few small mods but they kill them day in and day out and they don't last two minutes, bounce them off the red line on standard rods and bolts cause they can rip it up all the way through 1st and one day mr rod comes through the side of the block to say hello    there don't seem to actually be too many go to all the trouble and great expense to do everything right the first time round, guess its the same for all the lads with the 2litre turbos in such cars, most run standard internals etc with high boost and abuse them every day.

I tried to find the photos we took when we built the engine up from scratch in the garage, but none of the pictures are on this computer, must be on another one or on a disk somewhere, i might post them up sometime, some custom parts we had to make on the lathe to get the bottom pulley onto the end of the crank, the forged crank it is was to suit the 8v pulley, the 16v pulley is different so some bits and pieces had to be machined up.

While i was searching, i did however come accross another couple of pics from our holiday, this was on the way there, all 3 cars in all their glory at the time, obviously my brothers corsa, my car (which now looks alot different   ) and at the end my dads Astra GSI





Just thought i'd post them up for you all to see, don't know if anyone is interested...

Cheers guys.

PS Sorry Bucko, didn't mean to thread hi-jack, someone feel free to move our posts to a new topic if someone feels its necessary.

[bucko]

Well looks like I might be getting insured as a name driver on the family van at the end of the month , so I think I'm just gonna save money, probably the right thing since I will be working abroad for 4 months this year. However I found this and I ordered a broacher, http://www.kia.co.uk/picantohome.asp £5995 brand new!

And band B road tax which means £35 a year! Instead of £120. 56MPG on a good run and £1200 a year to insure fully comp (not bad if I get a full time job when I come back). Looks pretty nice inside, just can't believe how cheap it is brand new! And you get a 3 year warranty to as with all cars...

[hamwbone]

Is it just me or do European cars look funny?  It's like they are all really happy looking. Can't quite figure it out.

[bucko]

QUOTE(hamwbone @ Jan 27 2009, 09:01 AM)

Is it just me or do European cars look funny?  It's like they are all really happy looking. Can't quite figure it out.

It's because they are not gas guzzlers like yours lol.

Well happy news I've been insured on the family van (as provisional) and it doesn't go up when I pass, we just have to let them know . I can start driving it on tuesday, it's a renault kangoo 1.5TDI blue '08. Only problem is no rear windows so I aint gonna do my manoeuvres in that.

So I've decided I'm just gonna keep saving (hard with the shitty interest rates here), and see what the market does to around Fall '09. Hopefully I can snap up a bargain, been looking at the Chevrolet Mantiz and the Citroen C1 as well both look nice cars. But who knows maybe at the end of the year I can snap up a beauty second and car for almost nothing. So no need to rush now . Thanks for all the advise, it's been helpful even though I haven't got a car yet.

[grim_d]

QUOTE(bucko @ Feb 1 2009, 02:33 PM)

Only problem is no rear windows so I aint gonna do my manoeuvres in that.

you should once you pass, make you much better at them.

i only have rear view in my car, local scrotes have kicked my door mirrors off