Your Bangernomics successes

fishybusiness

Yes, it has the usual late 90's rusty bits

Yup, I had one too, lovely drive, probably as good as my more modern Audi.

Sold it as almost scrap - the underseal was holding the chassis together - never seen so much rot on a modern car as I did on the merc!

dgtazzman

I've had 2 real successes with bangers. The last one was a 2002 Rover 200 (I think, might have been slightly older, was one of the last BMW built ones). Paid just under £500 for it with 1 year MOT and got 6 months road tax thrown in for the price, had 88k miles on the clock. Ran like a beauty for 2 years without spending a penny on it, other than MOT. Only thing that didn't work on it was the sun roof, that had been sealed with kit. Everything else was in good condition, even the body work. Unfortunately the gear box went when we were driving on the continent 2 years ago and the garage over there wanted £1000 to fix it, would have only been around £300 - 400 in the UK, I think. Told them to keep it and made alternative travel arrangements. If that hadn't happened, we'd probably still be driving it today. Really loved that car, a lot of power and the engine sounded divine.

Other success was a Ford Escort estate. Spent a little more on the purchase of that one, around £2000 when it was around 8 years old. It was a Ghia, with heated seats etc. Ran that for 4 years, unfortunately the oil started leaking when we were doing an international trip in it and the warning light didn't come on (failed sensor). The day after we got back from our trip the engine seized when we were just around the corner from our house to go do some grocery shopping.

Currently driving a 54 reg Clio, bought for £500. Not one of our greatest successes. The car drives fine, interior and bodywork are fine, but a bit of oil is leaking from somewhere. Only a minuscule amount, but nobody knows where it is coming from. Tends to leave a mess on the drive on a rainy day. Not bothering to have it fixed, only has to run for 4 more months. Will just park it on the road when we move next week or on the development's sales office parking (doubt they'll mind for a few months), save messing up our new drive. The drive on our rental property is tarmac, so it should just soak into that over time, have tried a few ways of cleaning it, without success.

We won't be doing bangers any more, just ordered a new car, we are wanting to start a family soon, so it's time for something safer and hopefully more reliable...

Flying-High_2

See Bangernomics.... Anyone Can buy a Pile a !!!! for not much money.... But sending it to a garage for Simpleish Jobs is Not a Bangernomics Success..... End Of.

Farzackerly

dgtazzman wrote: »

Currently driving a 54 reg Clio, bought for £500. Not one of our greatest successes. The car drives fine, interior and bodywork are fine, but a bit of oil is leaking from somewhere. Only a minuscule amount, but nobody knows where it is coming from. Tends to leave a mess on the drive on a rainy day. Not bothering to have it fixed, only has to run for 4 more months. Will just park it on the road when we move next week or on the development's sales office parking (doubt they'll mind for a few months), save messing up our new drive. The drive on our rental property is tarmac, so it should just soak into that over time, have tried a few ways of cleaning it, without success.

Make sure your current landlord doesn't twig the leak - if enough drops onto the tarmac it will wreck it and he might get funny about deposit money, etc.
Good quality tarmac is much more resistant to it, but a lot of domestic driveways aren't good quality to start with.

mcjordi

looked through the history for the meg and its due a belt change next year on age alone.. although current belt has only done 25k (interval apparently 70k) not sure whether to spend the £220 on a belt change/pump change and run it till the new one goes pop or run it now till it goes pop and put the £220 into a pot and get a replacement.
im doing the pads and discs next weekend with makes the car owe me £200 or there abouts.

so putting £220 into it makes it a £420 car.. hmm.. tbh its not cost me anything major in the last 6 months..

CKhalvashi

mcjordi wrote: »

looked through the history for the meg and its due a belt change next year on age alone.. although current belt has only done 25k (interval apparently 70k) not sure whether to spend the £220 on a belt change/pump change and run it till the new one goes pop or run it now till it goes pop and put the £220 into a pot and get a replacement.
im doing the pads and discs next weekend with makes the car owe me £200 or there abouts.

so putting £220 into it makes it a £420 car.. hmm.. tbh its not cost me anything major in the last 6 months..

We had a pump go on the 'W' Focus on Wednesday morning, which I lovingly ended up trying to diagnose at the side of the road, with cars going by at 100mph+.

That, new belt, MoT and a sidelight (which came about as part of the MoT) were done by a local garage. Total cost £198.41. Another 54 weeks of motoring for £3.68 a week, bargain. Last year was £5.91 a week, including 2 new tires. Both excluding insurance (about £7 a week)

Once again, thanks to all that stopped to make sure she was ok before I got there.

Jordi, the way I look at it (having bought the £350 ST and spending another £400 on it) is that it's still a cheap car (in this case about half price). It's cost another new tire this morning (another £108) as I ran over something, but that's routine maintenance IMO, and would have happened whether I'd been driving that or the Jag.

[Deleted User]

Anyone know how much it would be to supply and fit new fan belt on a 2001 16v Megane? (See post #710) Mine is making a slight whine.

That is if it is the belt.

mcjordi

Deleted_User wrote: »

Anyone know how much it would be to supply and fit new fan belt on a 2001 16v Megane? (See post #710) Mine is making a slight whine.

That is if it is the belt.

belt + an hours labour tops

ck- yeah i suppose it still makes my meggy a fairly cheap car..

eta - i cant see this mot being too difficult to pass.. tbh parts are cheap for the meggy

rev_henry

As some of you know from the thread I made I bought a Hyundai Sonata V6 a bit ago. Now, it is long overdue for an autobox fluid change, which I've booked in for on Monday. However is this essential given the age and value of the car? Current fluid seems ok, clean, reddish brown as its meant to be in this car (so I've read). I obviously don't want it to break and last a good while but if its an uneccessary expense...

colino

As you have booked it in, what are you going to give the garage for their wasted ramp time?
In essence, bangeromics are about surfing the crest of bills while enjoying cars until they go phut. Not laying out on maybe, unnecessary bills.