Your Bangernomics successes

mr_harris

GunJack wrote: »

that's a very good question to ask

Yes but if you get a truthful answer is another matter sadly.

Do you always get the cambelt? changed after buying a banger if there is no paperwork to back this up.

BeenThroughItAll

mr_harris wrote: »

Yes but if you get a truthful answer is another matter sadly.

Do you always get the cambelt? changed after buying a banger if there is no paperwork to back this up.

No, but I would always change it myself if there were no evidence to support a seller's assertion. (Unless a visual inspection showed clearly a new, recently datecoded belt, tensioners and water pump as applicable).

mr_harris

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

No, but I would always change it myself if there were no evidence to support a seller's assertion. (Unless a visual inspection showed clearly a new, recently datecoded belt, tensioners and water pump as applicable).

Thanks wish I had the skill to replace them ok with basic jobs.

GunJack

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

Unless the engine is chain-driven, in which case you'll just look like a tit.

made me laugh....yes, indeed you would, finding out should be part of the homework before looking at a car

Chains are unfortunately getting a bit like hen's teeth...

Stoke

mr_harris wrote: »

Yes but if you get a truthful answer is another matter sadly.

Do you always get the cambelt? changed after buying a banger if there is no paperwork to back this up.

I did with the Lupo, after 2 months of pleasant driving. The seller gave me some !!!! and bull story about how her fella (who worked for the AA ) had done it for her. Yeah, I wasn't really buying it, however I noticed that the belt had been done after 40k miles, so I was reasonably confident it would last a bit longer (it was right on the interval at this point).

I liked the car, I was happy to get it done. After smashing 60k+ miles on it. I got it changed again.

I recently viewed a Focus where the belt was almost snapped. We're talking 60% of the belt was physically torn.

Get it done. Not worth the risk. I've not got it done on this Mazda yet, but I probably will nearer Christmas.

jimjames

Not posted an update for a while but my £500 MK4 Golf TDI is still going strong. Owned for nearly 2 years, added 21k miles to it and how has 168k. Did 1000 miles last week alone in motorway journeys and it just eats up the miles while sipping fuel. Averaged 60mpg.

Also passed MOT last month with no advisories. Really can't complain at all, a good example of how bangernomics can work.

mr_harris

jimjames wrote: »

Not posted an update for a while but my £500 MK4 Golf TDI is still going strong. Owned for nearly 2 years, added 21k miles to it and how has 168k. Did 1000 miles last week alone in motorway journeys and it just eats up the miles while sipping fuel. Averaged 60mpg.

Also passed MOT last month with no advisories. Really can't complain at all, a good example of how bangernomics can work.

Great buy was the cambelt done on the car have you had to do many repairs.

Stoke

By the way, when buying the Mazda, I missed that the MOT expired end of September. Took it last week for a test.

Passed BANGERNOMICS!!

GunJack

Stoke wrote: »

By the way, when buying the Mazda, I missed that the MOT expired end of September. Took it last week for a test.

Passed BANGERNOMICS!!

Nice one gotta wait 'till March for mine....

Stoke

What with the rear visibility not being too fabulous on this Mazda, I went ahead and fitted some trusty reversing sensors. £20 delivered from eBay. CISBO which I'm pretty sure are just a brand name for Chinese Aliexpress jobbies but I've used them before and I find they're excellent bang for their buck. I've never bought matte black ones though. I usually buy the closest colour, give them a very light rub with fine sand paper and spray a very fine layer of the correct colour + lacquer (if metallic) but having a textured matte black plastic bumper, it made sense just to go matte.

Quick photo of how I colour matched them on the Audi:


Anyway, compared to the Audi A4, and other cars I've messed around with, this car is offensively easy to work on. You know your car is too easy to work on, when the hardest part of a job is finding the best way to feed a wire through a grommet, which genuinely was the only issue I had, as the grommet was a little on the small side... brute force and idiocy being the answer.





Job done.

Also, before anyone says:
a. I am aware that there are 'prettier' sensors you can buy. I do really like these new flush mount ones where you drill a hole and you mount them from the rear of the bumper, but the car is already ugly. I can't see the point.

b. There is a reason the gap between sensor B (inside left) and C (inside right) is more than between A-B, C-D. The bumper is very slightly rounded at the ends, but becomes flat in the middle. Doing it this way means I D and A will have some visibility of corners when reverse turning. B and C's ultrasonic range are only overlapping by a minimal amount which means the maximum amount of coverage is achieved. The instructions explain how to calculate this.

However, the heights and measurements between them are pretty much spot on and they work a treat.