Nice people thread part 7 - a thread in its prime

GDB2222

michaels wrote: »

Car 1 is the broken wreck which is unfortunate as it was the one that was probably worth something as only 4 years old. Which websites quote for scrap values? Car 2 just needs a new clutch which is not that unusual for a 12 year old car and would probably be 250 quid. However it is car 1 we want back on the road as car 2 drinks petrol.

http://www.scrapcarscomparison.co.uk/
http://www.cartakeback.com

My recollection is that the offers they emailed me were middling, but then I got a few calls from various scrap dealers off the back of that, and they upped their offers over the 'phone.

I hadn't realised that Car 1 is only 4 years old. That's nothing to joke about. Hopefully whatever noise came out of it is not terminal, because you clearly don't want to be scrapping a car of that age.

I'd hire the car in Welwyn and save £50 a week. A cab over there to collect it will only cost a tenner.

michaels

GDB2222 wrote: »

http://www.scrapcarscomparison.co.uk/
http://www.cartakeback.com

My recollection is that the offers they emailed me were middling, but then I got a few calls from various scrap dealers off the back of that, and they upped their offers over the 'phone.

I hadn't realised that Car 1 is only 4 years old. That's nothing to joke about. Hopefully whatever noise came out of it is not terminal, because you clearly don't want to be scrapping a car of that age.

I'd hire the car in Welwyn and save £50 a week. A cab over there to collect it will only cost a tenner.

Thanks

I would do the same as you.

However option today is keep current car for 6 more days for £106 or pay £86 plus taxi to Welwyn for 7 more days. If it was me then I would go for the later - as it is DW plus DS in tow plus need to get car 1 to garage after picking up DS at 11.30 and needing to pick up DDs at 3.30 and take them to dentist at 5.15 I think we are going to pay the extra tenner and hope the car can be fixed in 6 days.

The history is when we first got Car 1 at 30 months old the clutch took close to the floor and it was sometime hard to get in gear. Fiat changed clutch under warranty after which it wouldn't go in to gear at all then they managed to make it work with new clutch although it was still with pedal right down and now 18 months 12k later again no clutch working, I don't think clutch is broken but then I don't think it was before when fiat replaced it. Local mobiel mechanic I think doesn't really know what he is doing but thinks changing everything will solve the problem and make him lots of money, he claimed he tried to bleed it yesterday but given the horrible bang last night I am not sure if he didn't do something else and fail to warn us not to ty and move it. He is a little one man band so getting any recompense if something expensive is now broken is of odds about nil

Car 2 is 12 years old but only 60k miles but probably suffered from lack of use and thus lack of servicing, I suspect if a 'little man' buys it as 'scrap' and replaces the cluch bearing he could turn a nice profit.

CKhalvashi

GDB2222 wrote: »

I hadn't realised that Car 1 is only 4 years old. That's nothing to joke about. Hopefully whatever noise came out of it is not terminal, because you clearly don't want to be scrapping a car of that age.

Which model Fiat is it? It's probably worth more broken into bits if it's non-fixable (I'll PM a phone number when a friend calls me back).

A 4 year old car, presumably with non CK-style mileage, shouldn't be breaking, and Fiat are renowned for this. I think I mentioned before, the fleet director for London, from Fiat UK is banned from our offices, due to problems we had with Ulysse taxis several years back!

CK

ETA: The response back was '20% of the yard is Fiat bits that won't shift at the moment'

GDB2222

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Which model Fiat is it? It's probably worth more broken into bits if it's non-fixable (I'll PM a phone number when a friend calls me back).

A 4 year old car, presumably with non CK-style mileage, shouldn't be breaking, and Fiat are renowned for this. I think I mentioned before, the fleet director for London, from Fiat UK is banned from our offices, due to problems we had with Ulysse taxis several years back!

CK

ETA: The response back was '20% of the yard is Fiat bits that won't shift at the moment'

Fiat seem to engender very strong negative feelings. I can't think of another brand that fails quite so spectacularly. Alfa Romeos seem to be just as unreliable, if not worse, but there are some qualities in the cars that endear them to people.

michaels

We would both drive our broken down fiat over the brand new Astra any day. Comfort, interior space, handling and especially visibility are all 100% better in the Fiat. If only the brilliant design wasn't let down by useless mechanicals. However in the reliability surveys fiats actually seem to come out pretty middle of the road - ie look at warranty direct etc.

PasturesNew

I've no idea how to do those double quotes... I clicked two bubbles, but there are no clues what to do in order to get them to quote here.

Anyway .... set top box, still out of action. Been turning it on/off and trying to scan it every few hours since it died. Still "no signal" every time, not a flicker of anything different. So I found the book and phoned the help number (only because it was 0800) ... and they said "take it back", but I need to find the receipt. The receipt that I probably have, but never thought I'd need.... and I have two ideas where it could be ,.... but then I need to be over the other side of town. So, receipt + other side of town - it might be a few days.

As for the suggestion re aerial. I have an aerial socket. No idea where the aerial is, might be in the tiny loft. Small loft hatch, no ladder, no torch, fear of creepy places, fear of falling through the ceiling, no idea what I'd do if I got to it .... leaving it.

PasturesNew

I had a Fiat, new to 8 years old. Only thing that ever went wrong with it was the wiper linkage unit. Just over 50,000 miles I think when I got rid of it.

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

I had a Fiat, new to 8 years old. Only thing that ever went wrong with it was the wiper linkage unit. Just over 50,000 miles I think when I got rid of it.

On the Punto, that was a known fault. They had the linkage as just a psuh fit on a nylon bearing. It was generally good to last for the warranty period, but it was built to fail some time after that. You can buy 3rd party fixes for the problem - basically a re-engineered unit that actually works. Now you've got me foaming at the mouth.

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

You can buy 3rd party fixes for the problem - basically a re-engineered unit that actually works. Now you've got me foaming at the mouth.

I ended up living with the AA man's fix for about 6 years (a bit of string/similar) ... and finally it went again and couldn't be fixed, so I got a cheap little man (£35/hour) to fit a unit (£150) for me .... and then sold the darned thing.... wish it'd held on a bit longer with hind-sight.

silvercar

I've no idea how to do those double quotes... I clicked two bubbles, but there are no clues what to do in order to get them to quote here.

You click the "two bubbles" on each post you want to quote.

Then you click the "post reply" button that is to the left of the "page 490 of 490" that you see just above the "quick reply" box.