A list of faults

harveybobbles

Sounds like a service might help. Air filter is probably choked up with 20 years of dust lol.

But my dad had a B reg Sunny and apart from rust, it was a belter. Used to start every time, even in the winter...

avantra

Face it, you will scrap it sooner or later, you can probably get £50 from the scrap yard to put towards something off ebay (tho don't spend more than £300).

If you like the Nissans of that ilk you can't go wrong with an old Bluebird, there's a G reg on Autotrader with 75k miles which is nothing for these cars. You will probably get 5 years or more from one of those. Or even better get another Sunny.:rotfl:

Loads of Hondas and other Jap cars for £250 on Autotrader.

Notmyrealname

1,2,4 and 5 are all related. It is either spark plugs, spark plug leads or you've got a burnt out valve. When was the last time it had a proper service?

epninety

Notmyrealname wrote: »

1,2,4 and 5 are all related. It is either spark plugs, spark plug leads or you've got a burnt out valve. When was the last time it had a proper service?

Or low fuel pressure, failing fuel pump, blocked filter, or one of many other possible causes. No point in confusing the poor OP saying it's definitely x or y when we can't know.

Do this in the right order - first get an opinion on the rust from someone who knows what they are doing - e.g. your mechanic. If you're not doing the work yourself, bodywork jobs can get spendy very quickly, and it's the only really terminal problem. Anything mechanical can be fixed or replaced, but once rot gets a hold then it's game over unless the car is specially valuable.

5 minutes on the ramp is all that's needed to get a good handle on the size of the problem.

If the body is basically sound, then it's worth looking at the rest of the problems - which are probably all just one problem, and may well not be expensive to sort out.

epninety

dancingdaisy wrote: »

I am at that pain in the backside who sits in the slow lane of the motorway doing 60, no point trying to overtake as I lose speed not gain if I put my foot down, although if I am in a situation where I have to I find if I drop a gear it will get me past anything.

Just re-reading this bit - I bought a car that drove just like this once. You could 'lead' it gently up to 70mph, but try to get a bit of acceleration and it backed off and slowed down. Eventually I tracked it down to ignition timing. A mechanic had mistaken the 10deg and TDC timing marks, so the engine was running way !!!!!!. It drove beautifully, smooth and economical, but just had no guts.
Even if the timing seems right, I'd swing it forward and take a spin round the block, just in case the timing marks are wrong (it has happened). Probably beyond the OPs abilities, but a proper old skool mechanic won't have any problems trying it.

rodenal

I'm quite interested to know how this turned out - I think it's definately going to be a scrapper at some point in the next couple of years but lets face it considering the lottery you'll be going into with any sub £500 car it's probably a case of better the devil you know. I would fix it at a cost of up to a couple of hundred quid. As long as it hasn't got more holes than a tennis racket that is...

jackieb

avantra wrote: »

Face it, you will scrap it sooner or later, you can probably get £50 from the scrap yard to put towards something off ebay (tho don't spend more than £300).

If you like the Nissans of that ilk you can't go wrong with an old Bluebird, there's a G reg on Autotrader with 75k miles which is nothing for these cars. You will probably get 5 years or more from one of those. Or even better get another Sunny.:rotfl:

Loads of Hondas and other Jap cars for £250 on Autotrader.

I used to have Bluebird (was 19 years ago mind ) and my parents had 2. I loved mine. I remember seeing one in the paper years ago and it was a taxi and had 500k on the clock and was still going strong.

dancingdaisy

Thanks for all of your comments. They are all very helpful.

I am not a lover of Nissan Sunny's, or other Nissans, it was cheap and I had the cash, I have kept it for all these years because it's cheap to run and has never caused me a problem. All of my friends with their nice shiny cars have had nothing but problems during MOT's, one friend's bill ran into 4 figure numbers, but my beige beast has never cost me more than £40 plus the cost of the MOT and that was only for a bit of welding. The usual problem is the CV boot which keeps coming off, this costs me a fiver.

No garage news, it's still in there. The garage rang late yesterday afternoon to say that they hadn't had a chance to look at it and could they do it first thing this morning.

I shall let you all know the outcome.

dancingdaisy

This where you all throw your mince pies at your pc screens and shout jammy cow!

The fallen metal is the first layer of the exhaust which is apparently nothing to worry about. He trimmed it and did whatever mechanics do to it.

Everything was checked over and it "Ran like a dream," when he took it for a spin. Carb a bit mucky...plugs fine...electrics fine....plus lots of other stuff fine that I didn't understand.

The loss of power/stalling when first starts is probably down to the air filter, although there may have been muck in it which has probably shifted itself, hence running fine with no stalling.

He suggested a service in the new year as I have never had one done, said he will probably have to replace air filter which isn't expensive, but it's up to me.

Then to top it all I asked him how much, got out my debit card and he said "It's on me, Merry Christmas!"

I have the best mechanic in the world, so I am now off to buy him some wine and sweets.

jaydeeuk1

Are you 5"8, blonde, slim and with big chebs by any chance? And if you've never had a service, do one asap! God knows what the oil looks like!