Car sat for a year, Should I have it?

peterbaker

Norman_Castle wrote: »

Tried replacing the thermostat?


A friend bought a 10+ year old diesel xsara with similar low recent mileage. Apart from a sticking front caliper there were no problems caused by the limited use. She did 18,000+ miles in it annually for the next 3/4 years.

Yes sticking front calipers are a common problem from under-use I think. What about rear brakes on these two Peugeots - are they disks or drums. Disks I guess.

I took my father's underused car for an MOT and was chatting with the friendly tester as he worked round each item - he was saying what remarkably good condition it seemed to be for its age and he already had me smiling at the thought of it surely sailing through the test!

Then he got to the brakes - it transpired only one of four was properly effective. One of the front calipers was seized to the point of being US. On that particular car it had drums at the rear and they were both US also.

Thankfully I had not done any significant braking on my way there!

It was about £150 to put it all right a couple of years ago.

The pulling to the left on the 308 could easily be brake related.

I've had a seized front caliper on my own car which was only used intermittently for a couple of years. They don't necessarily get picked up in MOTs until they start getting hot on every journey and you might notice that you don't need a handbrake to hold you steady from rolling forward (or back!) when waiting at traffic-lights - then you know something ain't quite right

System

My MX5 doesn't do much mileage over winter, often parked up for months and I've only done 10,000 miles in it in the 3 years I've owned it. Last year first time out in spring N/S front caliper seized after going down a 1 in 6 hill. Previous year I'd had to do the other side.