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I've had a ton of cars and been pretty lucky overall finding stuff for sensible money but a couple of bargains spring to mind.
Quite a few years back a neighbour had a very tidy Mk1 Golf GTi. One night someone nicked the wheels off it. He jacked it up and left it on bricks while he wondered what to do. The next night the little bar-stewards came back, smashed the tailgate window and pinched the spare as well! Then to add to his problems the cops told him it was too dangerous to leave on the street and had to be moved. He had no-where to put it so joking I said "I'll buy it for all the money I have on me". He took the gamble and said "yes" and I bought it for £40! I went to the scrapyard and got a tailgate and 5 GTi wheels for about £150, went back, put them on and drove it home. The next day I sold it to my boss for £750!
Another bargain was a lovely Merc 190. I had a shed of a Rover 214 I'd bought at the auctions for a couple of hundred quid. A chap I work with had this lovely, low mileage, immaculate Mercedes 190 but wanted something more economical and approached me one day and asked me if I'd swap the Rover for his Merc as he thought it would save him money in petrol. I nearly ripped his arm off getting the keys from him, drove the Merc for about 6 moths of trouble free motoring then sold it for £1500!
Sadly those sort of deals don't happen often!
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Currently driving a 1972 BMW 1602 as my daily. Don't ask about previous cars - there have been way too many and I stopped counting at 160!
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vertex
Part of things
Posts: 918
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Feb 21, 2016 16:06:34 GMT
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Feb 21, 2016 18:33:35 GMT
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ive had a couple over the years
mk1 fiesta 1.1l £10 one owner
mk1 fiesta xr2 with a tuned 1700 crossflow £500 that thing was quick
mk2 escort 1.3l two door one owner £600
mk3 vw polo 1.3i coupe £30 with blown headgasket, repaired it through two dinner hours
mk1 ford focus 1.4 two door swapped with the polo. worst car ive ever had, focus' are normally good, this one wasnt
1990 volvo 240gl saloon 2.3 £380 one owner, full dealer service history up till about a month before i bought it, T&T and a full tank of juice, my current daily with added turbo
mk1 escort 1.3deluxe two door £4500 my latest purchase, ok not so cheap but is decked out in police colours and was used for filming heartbeat and possibly the royal, for a two door mk1 thats been on the telly, i think it was a bargain
mk1 escort 1.6 mexico two door £500 got offered this in 2003 and even back then i can remember thinking "500 quid for a mk1 mex?, its got to be a lookalike" turns out it wasnt a lookalike, the owner was using it to commute down south so he'd taken the 1.6 crossflow out and fitted a 2.0 pinto and 5 speed box. but even that was struggling. He decided to drop a zetec turbo in it and lost interest in the middle of the swap and after being offered to all the local classic car guys with no interest it got round to me
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"holy fack thats greasy"
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BMW E46 318ci M-Sport... Apparently with the engine gone for €550. Had part service history, 2 keys, Recent test etc... 1 coil pack and leads later running fine. Sold for €1600.
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BT
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,772
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You hear some people get some right bargains in a regular basis which makes me feel a little unsuccessful, but then again it could all be fairy tales.
Two of my best were a GTIR pulsar, paid £150 for it but it was a mess.
I think the best though was my prelude.
H22A2 engine, same as the type R accord, MT4 or something gearbox, had a LSD as standard. Ktec coilovers, R888's Nur Spec exhaust, big cage, Cusco bars, MoMo seats and Williams harnesses and a load of other little bits.
My friend had bought a EP3 to replace the prelude as it was too brash and uncomfortable for him and his partner. He brought the EP3 round and we got it up on the ramps to discover it had two miss match coilovers on the front and KWVariant coilovers on the rear, all were shagged. He asked me to return it to standard, strangely I found someone who wanted a set off odd coilovers in exchange for standard items. The deal was done and I installed the standard suspension on the EP3. When I gave it back the owner gave me the prelude in form of payment. So technically it cost me 4 hours labour.
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I have not had any great bargains with cars, although I suppose £270 for a car that I still have 21 years later is not too bad! It has of course cost me many times that to keep it going over the years.
I did once buy a moped for £17 though! My colleague had a moped that nobody wanted (and I think that she thought was completely knackered) I needed cheap transport as the car kept being vandalised while I was at work. We ended up agreeing on a bottle of Jack Daniels as the price. At the time, I could get a litre for about £20, so took that to the till. They would not sell me it as I didn't have ID (I was in my late 20's) so we compromised and I bought the 750ml! I still don't understand the logic behind that! Pedward cost a couple of hundred for an exhaust and a service, and did me for the next 3 years. It was very fast (60+) so clearly wasn't standard, but the speedo only worked for about a week of the time I had it, so wasn't illegal! Sadly the tank split, and the thing was just knackered. I bought a brand new moped which is better in everyway, but has no soul.
In case you are wondering, it was named Pedward, as a play on Jedward, because it was curse word!
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I picked up a Lupo the other day for £50, lady at work has a lad who told her his car was broke so she bought him a new one and this sat under a tree for a few months. I spoke to the lad and he told me the clutch cable snapped - so i offered £50 which he accepted. towed it home and when i got back started looking for a clutch cable flapping around but it was attached ? so i put some oil and a battery on it and ive been driving it round - nowt wrong with it !! i think he pulled a fast one on his mum to get a new car.
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Mar 11, 2016 13:26:05 GMT
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Had a good few bargains, although I seem to usually end up losing on them in the end! I think a quick 'flip' for a bit of profit is the way to go for me, rather than trying to 'do them up' etc. Some examples; 205 GTI 1.9 £50 out a pub car park with a suspected head gasket. Turned out to be a very rare 1FM model - yay. Then turned out to be a ringer (hence why no one had noticed it was a 1FM - was on the wrong wheels and a few other bits). Boo! Ok so not much I could have done about that but I only discovered it was a ringer after paying to have the head gasket done! Sold it for 300 quid in the end to someone wanting to use it for spares (bit naughty but it was a different time and place, and a damn shame). Renault 19 16v £70. Cr*p listing on ebay, had a punt and won it. Had been sitting for a while but threw a battery on it and drive it home. Had loads of engine work don't apparently and it did indeed absolutely fly (and I've had about 6 of them so I know how they go). Ended up breaking down on a little test run a few weeks later and we couldn't source the problem so the travellers came and took it. I did have the leather out of it for my other 19 though. So didn't really lose anything. 309 GTI £200. Got it through the MOT at fair expense (new exhaust) etc, listed it on ebay and it sold for about £400 I really, really wish I'd have kept that one actually. Renault 19 16v £200. Actually ran this one for a couple of years so did ok out of it. Eventually the cam belt went and I sold it for........£200. Escort 1.6 £100. This is a rare success story! Picked this up and on the way home it expired in a cloud of steam (here we go again...). Turned out where it had sat through the winter it had burst a coolant hose and all the water had fallen out! Topped it up with water, drove it home, had a new hose and water pump put on it and drove it for 3 years. Never failed once and was on 166k when the scrap man came and got it due to chassis rust. Gave me £140 I think. Brilliant car that was. XR2i £250 off this very forum. Bought to be a 'project', got it transported home, took one look at it on the back of the trailer and though 'what the hell have I done here'. It looked like it had been pulled off the bottom of a lake! Was way, way too far gone. WBroke it up for spared in my garage over the course of a week then got it taken away. Made about £800 all in so that was pretty good actually. I still find myself on eBay and Gumtree very regularly looking at cheap cars however! I genuinely think there is cash to be made if done right and if you don't invest too much.
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ianmk2
Part of things
Posts: 116
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Mar 11, 2016 13:42:49 GMT
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Y Plate Mondeo 2.5 Ghia X for £200
It had 200k miles on the clock, but it was 1 owner from new and had been serviced religiously by Ford main dealers up until 190k! The guy had tried to sell it on autotrader and had no bites, his new car had been delivered so he just wanted rid. His son-in-law put it on a car forum I used and I said yes straight away
It was immaculate and 100% reliable for another 40k miles, I would still have it today but a friend wrote it off back end of last year, I was genuinely sad.
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bazzateer
Posted a lot
Imping along sans Vogue
Posts: 3,653
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Mar 12, 2016 13:17:55 GMT
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Best bargain was the whie Imp in my sig, it was free. I did have to get it back on the road though.
My current daily (1995 BMW 320i Touring) is probably a decent contender too. £450 about 20 months ago plus £50 rail ticket. Spent a total of £150 on it above normal running costs. Averages 30-35 mpg and is one of the nicest cars I've ever owned. Was planning to replace it this summer but now not so sure.
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1968 Singer Chamois Sport 1972 Sunbeam Imp Sport 1976 Datsun 260Z 2+2 1998 Peugeot Boxer Pilote motorhome 2003 Rover 75 1.8 Club SE (daily) 2006 MG ZT 190+ (another daily) 2007 BMW 530d Touring M Sport (tow car)
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Milord
Part of things
Posts: 155
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Mar 15, 2016 19:39:13 GMT
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Had a few succes storys,
- Opel Omega C caravan, bought for 400€ sold all the parts for approx 1200€ - Kadett E Sedan bought for 100€ with a full tank of gas, sold the parts for approx 400€ - Peugeot 309 diesel for a crate of beer (15€) sold parts to someone who'd bought a 309 GTI without interior for much, much more - Another Omega C Caravan, had had an accident and got it for free if i'd take it off their drive, had nice interior so put it in my car, sold the rest for scrap - About 3 Vectra A's, all sold for scrap, all 3 bought for under 100€ each - Volvo 340 Vario 1.4 bought for 350€ from someone who'd made the worst online ad ever, no pics, no info, nothing, called the lad, got his price down to 350, bought it over the phone without seeing even a picture, car is immaculate, i'm 2nd owner, 98.000km, with FULL service history (ea, a book written by a 70yo chap with EVERYthing he'd ever done to the car, including filling it with petrol!!!) SWMBO uses it daily now! - Most recent purchase, Volvo S80 bought for 150€ bc someone'd been nagging for me to take it off their hands, broken servo pump, broken clutch, had to be collected 50km away. Sold it for export purposes to Croatia for 550€ and took off the wheels and sold them separate for 250€ - can't recollect them all, i'm 26yo and have owned approx 40 cars now... lost some, won some
imo, there's money to be made, but don't try and look for it, let it come to you, otherwise you force things and lose. to me it's nothing more then a hobby, if i make some money i'm happy, if i don't i'm also happy. (SWMBO isn't alway happy about all the cars, but hey...)
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Last Edit: Mar 15, 2016 20:39:51 GMT by Milord
Currently: BMW E46 320i Touring BMW E34 525TDS Touring VW T3 panel van 1.6d Opel Kadett C1 Caravan 1.2 Fiat 411R
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Mar 22, 2016 21:58:55 GMT
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After a few beers I entered a bonus ball competition for £4 on the retrosh*te Facebook page to win a Toyota Carina. It seemed a good idea at the time. I never ever thought I would win, but my number was drawn and I won it. I then realised I was 5 hours away and the car had no mot. It would have cost me a lot of money to get it transported 5 hours, way more than it was worth. I gave it away to someone else who had entered who lived a lot nearer.
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mikeymk
Part of things
'85 Polo Coupe S 1.6 16v
Posts: 931
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Go to your local auctions, or travel a bit further for a smaller one instead of a big one with heavy comission (Manheim or BCA are hard on non-traders).
Get there before it starts, so you see the first ones go through. First auction of the week is a sure bet.
Here in MK you can still get a clean, reliable car for less than 200 quid.
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Mar 26, 2016 23:47:23 GMT
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My first car was a 1993 citroen ax, bought it in 2002 from a guy my dad worked with, £470, he took it to kwikfit for some stuff like brakes to be done, they stung him for nearly £500, he was p-ed off and bought a vw passat and wanted rid, 2 years later i sold it for £495 which i used as a deposit on the stilo i bought.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,085
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Dollywobbler mentioned in his blog and over on autoshite that he'd found a small collection of cars being cleared in Wales. There were several cars but the one that caught my eye for reasons unknown was the little Renault 6TL. I didn't even know what it was, I just knew I'd quite like it. Then I found out it was £80. This was only in 2014 when scrap prices were still quite good so to get a whole car for so little was pretty remarkable. It wasn't until February last year that I got it home and this year I'm finally rebuilding the engine. I'm only the third owner and it's been off the road since at least 1993. On the face of it this might not seem like a bargain, you you try finding a right hand drive Renault 6 at all, let alone for the price of a couple of tyres. I'm hoping this will be the year I get it road legal and get some use out of it, especially now the engine is mostly rebuilt as of today.
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I have owned many many cars over the last 30 years, as in well over 700. I would think at least 680 of which I have made something on. Mostly the cars have needed work of some sort, some full restoration. I am attracted to cars that other people have given up on, the sorry cases, something I can make a difference with, and add value to. A few at random:
78 Datsun 100A FII from a breakers yard £20 72 Scimitar GTE ebay £250 2001 Merc E320 or something with seized engine £200 (cracked sump, put oil in it and unseized it!) 300zx turbo ebay £50 Peugeot 206 salvage auction £280 (sold £1200 after putting a wing on it)
£50 Volvo 850 with 'busted automatic gearbox' as diagnosed by a garage because it made a loud grinding sound everytime you went backwards. It was actually the starter motor engaging, traced to a worn through engine bay wiring harness that was bridging the reversing lights to the starter!) Eureka.
Nissan Patrol that was sat under a tree covered in leaves, paid £2000. Spent 2 days cleaning it, put on new set of tyres and it fetched £5000.
It often pays to make cheeky offers on things, as long as you are polite. Knock on doors. Be proactive. Last year I saw a 2004 Kangoo van doing nothing for 2 years, knocked on the door and got it for £80. Fixed it up and MOTd it and got £900 for it.
I even buy other machines such as lawnmowers and I still love car boots and skips. Last week I saw someone weighing in a 2004 Honda lawn tractor that looked like it had been sat in a garden for 2 years. The low scrap price at the moment is brilliant for tinkerers like me because it makes things cheaper. I can't bear to see good things thrown away. I offered the guy £20 outside the gates which he accepted. Heaved the thing into the Datsun pickup and took it to my loving home and typical Japanese engine, after a new fuel pipe and battery it fired up and ran perfectly . The contra-rotating 48 inch blades had gone out of sync and were crashing into each other (re-timed and tightened the timing belt ) one new inner tube, a blade sharpen, deck repaint and a damn thorough sand and polish of all the plastics enabled me to sell this nice 20hp V twin machine for £500 2 days later. (£4000 new!)
I also dabble in musical instruments, toys, car parts , domestic appliances, motorcycles, bikes and off-grid electrical equipment. I am now getting into electric cars. Every time I see someone who moans they don't have any money i suggest to them why don't they buy and sell a few things, theres more stuff out there than I can buy!! Usually falls on deaf ears.
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69 Plymouth Fury Convertible 75 Range Rover 2 door 82 Range Rover 4 door 84 Range Rover 4 door 78 Datsun 120Y 2 door 78 Datsun 120Y Coupe 78 Datsun 620 Pickup 81 Datsun Urvan E23 86 Datsun Vanette van 98 Electric Citroen Berlingo 00 Electric Peugeot Partner 02 Electric Citroen Berlingo 76 Honda C50 04 Berlingo Multispace petrol 07 Land Rover 130 15 Nissan E-NV200 15 Fiat Ducato
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foeux
Part of things
Posts: 19
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Peugeot 205 GTI laser green - £50.00 (left a note)
Nissan micra - £45.00 (lasted a pal and his bro 5 years)
Ford focus 1.8 - £ FREE (I asked for it)
Peugeot 205 GR (one owner car with complete service history) - £ FREE (left a note)
BMW 840 - £700 (sold for treble my outlay in 5 hours!!!)
Ford puma - £250
205 GTI 1.9 (k reg) - £ FREE (rescued from scrap deal)
Volvo 940 turbo (one owner car) - £300
I love a good bargain...
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I picked up a Lupo the other day for £50, lady at work has a lad who told her his car was broke so she bought him a new one and this sat under a tree for a few months. I spoke to the lad and he told me the clutch cable snapped - so i offered £50 which he accepted. towed it home and when i got back started looking for a clutch cable flapping around but it was attached ? so i put some oil and a battery on it and ive been driving it round - nowt wrong with it !! i think he pulled a fast one on his mum to get a new car. Wasn't a lime green one with a dent in the drivers side was it,lol
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Mar 27, 2016 13:27:20 GMT
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In 2010 i bought a citreon xantia 2.0 hdi off ebay with 2 weeks mot i needed a car asap and it was only 10 mile away paid £36 the guy advert made it sound a state and it had no pictures , it turned out to just need a wash and hoover and it was mint , passed its mot the week after needing only wiper blades i then used it for a few days and then got offered a swap for a very tidy x300 xj6 4.0 i loved that jag and only sold it to fund a audi s4 that was money pit.
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92 ford sierra 2.9 glsi ex police 87 ford sierra cosworth 3dr (In storage) scared to use 01 vw bora 2.0 sport 95 bmw 728i 92 2.9 xr4x4 barn find 87 xr3i 92 xr2i 89 escort van with rst (Blown up engine) 94 TRANSIT beavertail needs engine 3.0d waiting
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Dez
Club Retro Rides Member
And I won't sit down. And I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.
Posts: 11,712
Club RR Member Number: 34
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Mar 27, 2016 13:48:41 GMT
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Every time I see someone who moans they don't have any money i suggest to them why don't they buy and sell a few things, theres more stuff out there than I can buy!! Usually falls on deaf ears. This. There are opportunities to make money literally everywhere. All you have to do is educate yourself a little on values of certain items, then stick to what you know or are prepared to learn about. I think some people just don't have it about them though, I'll go round a mates who is moaning about being too skint to buy X, Y, or Z, and think I could make more than that in a week just selling stuff they already have that they never use, but they can't see it. Every time I go to a car boot sale I must end up making a hundred quid or so by accident. But after so long you don't even have to look for stuff, people bring it to you once you get 'known' for buying certain types of things. My problem these days is I end up with so much stuff I can't sell it fast enough.
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