Your Bangernomics successes

worried_jim

Welcome Piehole! £200- well done. How did you come across this little bargain?

Would be great to see some photos once you are allowed to post them.

For new tyres call a local indy fitter, but first gets some idea of cost from blackcircles.com. You may want to go the part worn route at about £30 per corner, Google will be your friend for this route.

piehole

Hey Jim! Thank you. I came across it on Facebook, actually. A lady had just brought a third car, and just 'wanted rid' of this one. Wasn't at all fussy about the money, basically said "anything is better than nothing, and it goes towards insurance on the new car"

Drives like a dream, really. It only has minor cosmetic issues (Drivers mirror has been broken, and is held on with tape, for example), and needs a new tire. Honestly, though, for £200? I'm not complaining.

I've got a part worn place, right near me. Looking back on the thread though, some people were advising against that route, what do you think?

I'm pretty terrible with cars, mechanically. I'm certainly trying to learn as I go along, though.

rev_henry

piehole wrote: »

I've got a part worn place, right near me. Looking back on the thread though, some people were advising against that route, what do you think?

You're opening a can of worms there, which has been done to death many times on here! Do as you see fit and avoid direct eye contact with the 'part worn tyres will kill you' brigade. :rotfl:

jimjames

rev_henry wrote: »

You're opening a can of worms there, which has been done to death many times on here! Do as you see fit and avoid direct eye contact with the 'part worn tyres will kill you' brigade. :rotfl:

I found it rather amusing reading the signs in the tyre fitting place warning about the hazards of part worns. Obviously the next secondhand car I buy I'll need to replace all the tyres with new ones as they're part worn when I buy it.

But back to the question, there are many places that give prices online for tyres that you can check. Depending whether you are keeping the car long term affects what you might want to spend whether budgets or branded but I found asda tyre prices to be pretty good.

Farzackerly

At least when you buy a part-worn, you can inspect the inside of it. How many used cars are running around with damaged sidewalls, the owners none the wiser? There's a lot of holier-than-thou BS spouted about such things. I tend to take a pragmatic approach - and the sky doesn't fall on me.

piehole

I've got a quotation range from Asda Tyres of £40-£60. Next step, part worn. Let's see how they compare.

Any tips for buying a replacement drivers side door mirror? That's the only real cosmetic issue the car has (it works, but it's held on with black tape)

piehole

Local tyre place, one man op, seemed pretty genuine. £50 for 2 front, fitted and balanced. The front left was that bad, it had the threads showing. Ouch.

Told me the tracking was out, so, that's on my 'to-do' list. A brief glance online has said this will be around £20-30, so, total cost so far, for a good condition 51 Ford Focus, has been £250.

The way I see it, i'm still well ahead of what I should have paid for it, frankly.

(Though I do want to get the VSS sorted, as the car intermittently keeps on losing the Speedometer, so that might be another 100)

[Deleted User]

piehole wrote: »

Local tyre place, one man op, seemed pretty genuine. £50 for 2 front, fitted and balanced. The front left was that bad, it had the threads showing. Ouch.

Told me the tracking was out, so, that's on my 'to-do' list. A brief glance online has said this will be around £20-30, so, total cost so far, for a good condition 51 Ford Focus, has been £250.

The way I see it, i'm still well ahead of what I should have paid for it, frankly.

(Though I do want to get the VSS sorted, as the car intermittently keeps on losing the Speedometer, so that might be another 100)

You say it only had a week or so MOT left, I have a feeling that it is going to fail on a few things. People only get rid of old cars when the MOT is due for one reason, sadly.

piehole

I dunno, if i'm honest. She was pretty straight up with me, that the car was M.O.T pass worthy (she'd recently taken it to her local garage, because she is fairly paranoid about cars).

It really does drive perfectly. So, we'll see, I guess.

[Deleted User]

Paranoid about cars but she drove on illegal tyres?

I hope it does work out for you. Even with a couple of hundred in repairs it'll still be bargain motoring.