AA and garage - very poor service

AdrianC

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

AdrianC said:

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

I wonder if the same happened to your sister?  It's similar: classic car, minor fault, mechanic spots an opportunity and invents a major fault with the intention of prising said car away from the owner for a fraction of its value.  There are still people out there, probably a dwindling few, who have no idea of the worth of their classic cars.

It's a Metro. "Classic values" have not hit them.

1987 Rover Metro Metro Hatchback 1.0 Manual Petrol Hatchback Petrol Manual | eBay
Are you sure?  I know it's not up for loads but I remember the days when you'd have needed to pay someone to take a car like that away.  

Advertising is one thing, selling is another.

Despite just 19k miles on it, that comes with a very healthy dose of "HFM?" - which is why it's unsold despite the ad being nearly a month old. And given they can't even be bothered to pump the hydragas up... Shame about the MOT fails in 2014 and again this June for structural rot, too.

This has even fewer miles, no rot fails - and still isn't selling in a hurry, even asking just a grand.
https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1286427

Ditzy_Mitzy

AdrianC said:

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

AdrianC said:

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

I wonder if the same happened to your sister?  It's similar: classic car, minor fault, mechanic spots an opportunity and invents a major fault with the intention of prising said car away from the owner for a fraction of its value.  There are still people out there, probably a dwindling few, who have no idea of the worth of their classic cars.

It's a Metro. "Classic values" have not hit them.

1987 Rover Metro Metro Hatchback 1.0 Manual Petrol Hatchback Petrol Manual | eBay
Are you sure?  I know it's not up for loads but I remember the days when you'd have needed to pay someone to take a car like that away.  

Advertising is one thing, selling is another.

Despite just 19k miles on it, that comes with a very healthy dose of "HFM?" - which is why it's unsold despite the ad being nearly a month old. And given they can't even be bothered to pump the hydragas up... Shame about the MOT fails in 2014 and again this June for structural rot, too.

This has even fewer miles, no rot fails - and still isn't selling in a hurry, even asking just a grand.
https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1286427

But then that's not really a Metro is it.  It's a Rover 100 with a modern K-Series engine in it.  Following the link takes one to adverts for genuine Metros, all of which are quite expensive all things considered.

AdrianC

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

AdrianC said:

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

AdrianC said:

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

I wonder if the same happened to your sister?  It's similar: classic car, minor fault, mechanic spots an opportunity and invents a major fault with the intention of prising said car away from the owner for a fraction of its value.  There are still people out there, probably a dwindling few, who have no idea of the worth of their classic cars.

It's a Metro. "Classic values" have not hit them.

1987 Rover Metro Metro Hatchback 1.0 Manual Petrol Hatchback Petrol Manual | eBay
Are you sure?  I know it's not up for loads but I remember the days when you'd have needed to pay someone to take a car like that away.  

Advertising is one thing, selling is another.

Despite just 19k miles on it, that comes with a very healthy dose of "HFM?" - which is why it's unsold despite the ad being nearly a month old. And given they can't even be bothered to pump the hydragas up... Shame about the MOT fails in 2014 and again this June for structural rot, too.

This has even fewer miles, no rot fails - and still isn't selling in a hurry, even asking just a grand.
https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1286427

But then that's not really a Metro is it.  It's a Rover 100 with a modern K-Series engine in it.  Following the link takes one to adverts for genuine Metros, all of which are quite expensive all things considered.

And here's a 1yr older K-series powered... Metro-badged Metro.
https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1275342 - unsold for a month and a half despite being not far off half the price of the one you linked to. And not rotten... Well, OK, not as rotten.
This one's a bit pricier, but still a big chunk less than "yours". And unsold since September - https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1269256 - and only one minor rot advisory...

The change from A- to K-series, then later badge swap to Rover 100 did not in any substantive way change the car it was attached to. It was still utterly outdated and utterly mediocre - despite the attempt to pretend it was anything else. And there ain't no way anything but the absolute best-of-the-best is actually changing hands for real money.

EdGasketTheSecond

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

Manual choke. It has a coil pick-up in the distributor but other than that its old school; no idea why the AA couldn't get it going as there is not really anything much to stop it running if you do the basic checks.

Manual choke!  Now that is primitive, albeit reliable and fine if one knows what one is doing with it.  I don't know either, unless it is simply a case of the wrong mechanic at the wrong time; someone who doesn't really know what he's looking at. 
Or it could be something more sinister.  I had an odd but somehow similar experience when my old Volvo, which had mechanical fuel injection, broke down.  The car was recovered somewhere and I was given a load of guff about the entire fuel injection system failing and potential costs of thousands to fix it, along with various horror stories about obsolete parts and the car being an effective write-off.  I insisted the Volvo was recovered to an old-fashioned and good mechanic I knew of; he correctly diagnosed a seized fuel pump, fixed it and had the car back on the road inside 24 hours.
The first mechanic, Mr Failed Fuel Injection, made me suspicious almost immediately.  He couldn't quite hide the covetous gleam in his eyes when a classic Volvo in, even if I say so myself, excellent condition rolled in on the back of a recovery truck with a 'dumb' female on board.  I played dumb throughout but asked just enough of the right questions to satisfy myself that, firstly, he was lying and, secondly, the reason he was lying was that he wanted the Volvo.  He eventually started going down the line of 'I'll take it off your hands for £50 and you can have this nice (whatever) hatchback I've got for a good price...' 
I wonder if the same happened to your sister?  It's similar: classic car, minor fault, mechanic spots an opportunity and invents a major fault with the intention of prising said car away from the owner for a fraction of its value.  There are still people out there, probably a dwindling few, who have no idea of the worth of their classic cars.  The 'I bought it new in 1977 and never got round to replacing it' lot.  

You might be onto something there. The garage it was taken to is one that deals with classic cars and that is why I found it hard to believe they couldn't start it. I mean it's not as though they'd never seen a carburettor or distributor before. Maybe they hoped my sister would sell it to them if they said it wouldnt start and would cost £1000 to investigate further. I bet that cost would have kept going up too had she gone down that route.

fred246

I got a copy of Autocar when the K series Metro was introduced. They called it the "best small car in the world". Other cars came out and it gradually lost it's position. It was finally hammered by crash testing. It was said the K series Metro should have been called the Rover 100 straight away because it was so much better than the previous car.

AdrianC

fred246 said:

I got a copy of Autocar when the K series Metro was introduced. They called it the "best small car in the world".

In 1990? They were wrong. 
It wasn't even the best small car in the world a decade earlier.

fred246

It was Whatcar car of the year 1991.