old banger needed, advice on which to buy please

forgotmyname

Whatever you buy will be pot luck. The issue with cheap bangers it needs £200 worth of work on the brakes so gets sold or scrapped.

£150 for a service when the car only cost £400. Sounds like madness. But if you want a reliable car then these things need doing.

If you can do the work yourself then even better.

Engine blows up, But you just spend hundreds on the brakes etc. £200 for another engine and a weekends work. Back motoring.

Older more basic cars are the one to get. No aircon and a ton of sensors. Who needs them when its so cheap to fix.

motorguy

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

cheaper than a civic honda bullet proof engine and gearbox and rover/honda interior.

K series engine and the head gasket made from chocolate?

forgotmyname

Didnt they do a 1300cc with the honda engine though?

I knew an old codger than bought the rover 213 with the honda engine. Oh my it was so quiet when ticking over. You had to listen carefully.

Bit upmarket compared to an A series

TrickyWicky

forgotmyname wrote: »

Didnt they do a 1300cc with the honda engine though?

I don't know the exact engine but yes they did do one with a very solid Honda engine. The snag is you really need to know what you're looking for if thats the engine you're targetting for that car.

forgotmyname

Thats easy if you say to the seller start it up and he gives you a mad look and says its running. Thats the one.

If it rattles like a cement mixer and chucks blue smoke out the back then its a rover engine.

andygb

forgotmyname wrote: »

Whatever you buy will be pot luck. The issue with cheap bangers it needs £200 worth of work on the brakes so gets sold or scrapped.

£150 for a service when the car only cost £400. Sounds like madness. But if you want a reliable car then these things need doing.

If you can do the work yourself then even better.

Engine blows up, But you just spend hundreds on the brakes etc. £200 for another engine and a weekends work. Back motoring.

Older more basic cars are the one to get. No aircon and a ton of sensors. Who needs them when its so cheap to fix.

This is all good advice for buying a cheap car, perhaps we should start a thread highlighting the things you should look for, and the things to avoid on a cheap car.
Like you, I would avoid air conditioning, also - central locking and electric windows. Avoid aftermarket alloy wheels with big, low profile tyres (they will probably feel like you are driving on rocks, and they are expensive to replace).
Go for - less popular, non sporty models - late nineties Toyota Corollas and Honda Civics in basic trim are good value. Standard (often steel) wheels with lots of tread left on the tyres. Cleanish engine bay, with good fluid levels. Some service history (particularly within the last year. Cheap tax and insurance - means going for 1.6 and smaller engines.

motorguy

TrickyWicky wrote: »

I don't know the exact engine but yes they did do one with a very solid Honda engine. The snag is you really need to know what you're looking for if thats the engine you're targetting for that car.

That was in the generation before that - it would have been a '213' or '216'.

The 213 was the honda engine and the 216 was the BL engine.

The Rover picture came 'as standard' with a 1.4 litre 16v K Series engine. There were others engines available, but that was the most common. Notorious for head gasket failure hence relatively few left on the roads.

Not worth the hassle seeking one out in my opinion

motorguy

If you're buying a banger, aim for something with 1 years MOT, hopefully a bit of tax and try to buy direct from the owner (as opposed to some lowlife pretending to be the owner).

Something like that is worth £400-500 irrespective of what sort of car it is.

steve-L

andygb wrote: »

This is all good advice for buying a cheap car, perhaps we should start a thread highlighting the things you should look for, and the things to avoid on a cheap car.

I guess there are two basic things:
1) cars that are known to fail (K series Rover engines as pglic points out)
2) things that if they fail make the car unusable, either legally or practically.

Like you, I would avoid air conditioning, also - central locking and electric windows.

No sure on electric windows? is that an MOT failure?
However non working AC or central locking are not the end of the world (just don't use them)
My old PUG had some alarm fault that prevented me using central locking. However, not a big deal, just use the key.

Avoid aftermarket alloy wheels with big, low profile tyres (they will probably feel like you are driving on rocks, and they are expensive to replace).

The cost is the biggy.... at sub 500 who cares about the ride of it gets you from a to b?

Go for - less popular, non sporty models - late nineties Toyota Corollas and Honda Civics in basic trim are good value.

Lots is good value.... even though the post XX6 series PUG and accompanying Citroen models are unreliable it's nearly always electronics.

The trick is to avoid any electronics that are required (IMHO).. for instance a Honda will not start if the VSA (Vehicle Stability Assist) doesn't pass the pre-ignition check. Same goes for other 'electonic drivers aids' up to and including ABS on some cars....

Hence I'd say electronics are best to avoid but especially anything that stops the car being driven without them.

Cheap tax and insurance - means going for 1.6 and smaller engines.

Sorta age dependent?
Also non-leading edge older diesels like the Isuzu 1.7 used by Vauxhaul and the 1.6 and 1.9 PSA (PUG/Cit Diesels) ... old 106 1.6D or 306 1.9D..... base models with as little to go wrong as possible!!!

If you go pre-injection petrol this means you can actually do a lot more for yourself, even if you are not that mechanically minded it's easier to find someone to help.

My Honda misses a few of these criteria but illustrates the watershed.
The Turbo died at 170,000.... as the car was worth a couple of grand (not 500) with a working turbo it was worth having it stripped and cleaned. We did (cost about £400) and touch wood it's been fine for 10k.

This to me illustrates the watershed..... as soon as something like this is uneconomic you might as well pay £500 ????

That's just me personal opinion of course.

fishybusiness

I would think about how much you want to spend.

There's a banger, and then a real banger, you've your £1000 ok car that probably needs very little on going work if you re lucky, and you've got your £500 take a chance car that may need work, and was probably sold because of its faults.

Also, you'll find some real bargains that in reality guzzle petrol.

Yearly mileage comes in to it at this level, petrol, diesel, once the miles stack up, both will need servicing and work.

We have an 1999 Avensis 2.0 petrol, @ 32 mpg, and a 406 2.1 TD @ 50mpg, the Avensis is actually cheaper to run due to reliability.

Japanese cars, with service history are the way to go for reliable cheap motoring.