norm75
Part of things
Posts: 658
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Oh, do like a 21 turbo. Friend at school that lived opposite me (in a pub) offered me and a couple of mates a lift home after an exam. Her dad had one of these (not group n!) and was impressed by the shove.
A few years later I was seriously considering one I'd seen on a forecourt, but ended up buying an xr4x4 off a mate.
Said xr4x4 may be considered a costly disaster, didn't have that long as it was stolen by joyriders and torched. I think I may have been paid out more than I bought it for, but I had only just spent a few quid on it having gone over a yump at quite high speed and landing so hard the gearbox bell housing hit the Tarmac and cracked.
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Last Edit: Oct 8, 2020 17:25:39 GMT by norm75
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Bought a bright red Peugeot 306 Cabriolet cheap (around £500) from a guy who used to work at my brother's bodyshop, in need, I thought, of just a bit of tidying seeing as it had sat for some time. I spent quite a bit of time and money on it, fitting new rear discs, pads, front wishbone, etc. to get it through an MOT, and was quite looking forward to using it in summer, when driving home one evening along a high street slowly as I was about to turn into a side road, I heard a ping and the engine stopped dead. Drove it into a parking space on the starter motor and left it for the night. Looked at it in the morning, and discovered the cambelt had snapped. Booked it in with the nearby garage for an inspection; they took the head off, and told me most of the 16 valves had bent. I got a replacement head from a breakers for around £100, which the garage eventually fitted (it took them 3 months or so!) at a cost of around £600, and started using the car again, however, the electric hood mechanism had given up working, and I decided to sell before anything else went wrong, for around £900 to a Spanish ex-pat who said it reminded him of The Costa del Sol! Shame really, the car looked great, but a bit fragile for my liking. Looking at the DVLA check, it appears he only used it for around 3 months before giving up on it.
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A Mitsubishi Shogun 2.8TD GLX
My mum and I, at a time when we were as a family just recovering from extreme financial hardship, joined forces to buy something "nice" to replace a string of £100 bangers, that would also double as a decent towing rig. We bought the best one we could locate. I recall we paid £1300 for it, probably about 2008. That was the most expensive one on the market, but it had the longest MOT and a few features the others didn't. I think I haggled down from £1500. It was silver over silver with grey cloth interior and probably 160k-ish. We were met at the end of the road by the seller, to make it easier to find him. It also made it easier for him to disguise the cold start issues these engines suffered with. We found that out the next morning, beginning a spiral that included a new HP fuel pump, four reconditioned injectors, water pump, HG, battery (UK car so just the one thankfully) and almost tyres as well - but I bought another one for spares at that point and swapped the good tyres over. We had it for 13 months, of which just 3 (!) were spent on the road. We were about £1500 of work and parts into it then. It failed the MOT on chassis rust, so I offered it up for sale at about a grand. We jumped on the first offer which was a straight swap for a black E39 525tds, which was pretty ropey but I sorted it out and I believe my mum kept that for almost 3 years before I bought her an Impreza.
I lost a bucket load of money over a year old Arosa I bought, but it was actually a good car. I ended up buying another one cheap a couple of years ago and doing it up, in a kind of "repentance for former automotive crimes" deal with myself. That was poor financial decisions as much as anything else, and the beginning of me realising I like old crappy cars, not shiny new ones.
And the E34 touring my mum and I also shared at the same time as the Shogun was about, which cost thousands to keep on the road over three years, but at least it actually ran for most of that. It was constantly breaking electrical or mechanical parts but didn't ever give up entirely. I did a bad swap deal to get out of it but that was for an even worse car (a white E32) and I tried later to track the E34 down again. I eventually succeeded, bought it blind from 100 miles away, paid over the odds by far, had it transported up, and found out it was damaged beyond repair and ended up scrapping it, losing even more money. Nothing like throwing away good money after bad to add insult to injury! Lesson learned - don't go back. Well, unless my orange Estelle ever pops up for sale again...
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Bought my Celica sight unseen but did get the chap to send me a few videos. All seemed ok when I got it apart from a bit of a slight miss at idle. Unfortunately when it got hot this would result in dash lights coming on but it seemed to drive ok? After a bit of home diagnosis it was low on 2 cylinders and ended up with a £1700 cylinder head refurb for 2 bent valves. I was a bit miffed but the car ran great afterwards so I put it down to experience and as I was planning to keep the car for a long time I didn’t mind. Sold it a year later when I came to Australia. Hmph.
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Dead simple this one. Buying 12 month old cars, selling them 3 yrs later, £10k loss pretty much every time. Every retro/classic I’ve made money on
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