Old Car - False Economy?

ilikedrawing

The bad MPG your getting with your golf is most likely to be your carb. The old Polos and Golfs have pierburg carbs which are terrible. The auto choke doesnt help either on these carbs as they are worn and can stick open or open for too long which uses fuel.

Buy some carb cleaner, take off the round air box on top of your engine and the carb will show, get someone to rev the engine whilst you spray loads of carb cleaner in there.

Other than that you could get a weber carb fitted but you'd be looking at £150+.


And the 1.3 mk2 Golfs can be quite desirable within the VW community. 3 door especially, so dont trade it in, put it on ebay or a VW based forum. (pm me if you do want to sell)

steveo3002

i put a weber on our 1300 last year this time, it did cost £150 and my time to fit it , but its ran so much nicer sinse and i can tune it myself easily

we get around 44mpg at best from it

JonathanA

I suspect the Golf / Fiesta debate may have been settled a long time ago, the original post was in 2005!

However, this is an issue we're now considering. We've always run new or nearly new cars historically, for lots of reasons, but we now have a car we've owned from new that is almost 5 years old. It is a good car, economical, comfortable and just about meets our needs (boot space is a bit small, but we can live with it for 90% of the time). It is because it ticks all the boxes we've kept it for 5 years, rather than selling it after 2 or 3, which is what we would have done before (no lectures about wasting money please - I've heard them all already).

Since January this year, we have spent over £1,000 in repairs to the car that may not have been necessary on a younger, lower mileage car, so yes, I'm rapidly coming to the view that running an older car makes more sense for several reasons, particularly since the depreciation costs of a younger car would have been much greater than the repair costs. I also think that having spent that money, I probably won't have to spend it again!

So why, in my heart, do I want a newer car, when in my head, I know it makes sense to keep this one?

Volcano

anewman wrote: »

You make an interesting point about people sticking themselves in what they believe a safer car yet consuming poor diets and smoking. However, apparently the new highly rated Euro NCAP cars will obliterate the old cars that you would ordinarily think of as sturdy and safe like the ones you mention. See http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ygYUYia9I

That's a really interesting vid, certainly surprised me. This is another good one: BMW 5 series destroys a saxo, 2 mondeos (exactly the same except one is 2 inches lower than the other, dramatic accident difference) and a really nasty one as a 4x4 mashes a civic: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JXeKSDpFjlg&feature=related

Again, these things are rare but still it makes you think.

Volcano

JonathanA wrote: »

.....So why, in my heart, do I want a newer car, when in my head, I know it makes sense to keep this one?

That's the whole point of this site!

militantconsumer

Bangernomics is my favourite money saving subject!

I've bought a series of cars costing between £100 to £500 and I reckon I've saved a fortune. Some I've ended up selling for more than I paid for them!

Example:-
15 year old Fiesta with low mileage bought from a careful old man
Cost £500 - lasted 2 years - annual depreciation £250
Yearly insurance - £150
Road Tax - £120
Annual maintenance & repairs - £300
Total annual fixed costs - £820

Then it's just petrol costs, which are dependent on how far you drive, and based more on the size of the car than how old it is.

If you buy a car for less than £500 and it breaks down/costs too much to repair you can sell it for about £100 for scrap and just buy another one. You might end up with the odd dud, but you'll get amazingly reliable cars as well. My friends with newer cars seem to spend much more on repairs because there is so much more technology to go wrong, plus they get it repaired "properly" instead of getting parts from a scrapyard. Or they actually notice when there is a scratch on their paintwork!

PS forgot to mention, after 2 years the Fiesta failed its MOT big time and I sold it for £50 on Ebay. Scrap metal prices have gone up a lot since then.

lincroft1710

I can't remember if it was on Top Gear or 5th Gear, but they drove a Renault Modus at 40 mph head on into a large old Volvo also doing 40mph - surprisingly Renault came off best.

Maggiesunshine

Hi - hope you dont mind me butting in ..... I have posted this question elsewhere too - at the end of a thread I started re buying a second hand car .... but would you have an opinion on a Skoda Fabia (jokes aside??) deisil that has done 100k - motorway drving - 2005 reg and they want £2800 ono? Thank you and apologies for butting in!

AdrianHi

Maggiesunshine wrote: »

Hi - hope you dont mind me butting in ..... I have posted this question elsewhere too - at the end of a thread I started re buying a second hand car .... but would you have an opinion on a Skoda Fabia (jokes aside??) deisil that has done 100k - motorway drving - 2005 reg and they want £2800 ono? Thank you and apologies for butting in!

Sister-in-law and Mother-in-law both have petrol Skoda Fabia's around 4 to 5 years old and about 60,000 miles on each of them. They never go wrong and are surprisingly refined and good on the motorway for the size and price of the car. If the price is right for the mileage (check up with www.parkers.co.uk for a rough guide) it's probably a solid buying proposition that's not to be laughed at

Maggiesunshine

Great - do you know if they have the 1.4 or the 1.2 cos some people say that the 1.2 whilst being more economical to insure is not as good on the motor ways as the 1.4? But do you know much about deisil engines please? 100k seems a heck of lot of miles to me, but friend says that it is only run in!!!! Thank you very much for replying however.