Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Ha, arranging to view a Civic Tourer later this week. I take it from this that you don't rate Toyota/hybrid engines?

@sacredhart has one on here

My mother (US) has owned 2 different Prius models for the past 15 years. MiL has a CHR for the past 6 years. Both have been rock solid with no crazy bills.

Read up on how to buy a car. Best short advise.....

MIleage and number of owners TBH pretty irrelevant on a car over 8 years old IMO

Current condition is everything.

Buy private, literally no point in buying anything from a dealer under about £10k unless you need access to one of their (not great) finance packages. Every single person I've helped with buying cars the last ten years who have just defaulted to buying a random car from a dealer in the sub £10k bracket has had issues that have not been resolved, or they've been so british about it that they cannot pluck up the courage to go and take vehicle and its issues back to the dealer. You can also meet the original owner and not be buying blind.

Honda Jazz, Fiesta, I20, mazda 2 or 3. All with the basic or mid range petrol and a manual gearbox. Citroen C3 C4 with the basic petrol are OK, avoid the 1.6 diesel, a chocolate turd of an engine.

Avoid corsa/astra with 1.0 1.2 and 1.4 petrol, they all go boom
Avoid diesels that age, too many issues unless you really know what to look for.
Avoid yaris and I10 as they've all been flogged by delivery drivers unless you manage to find a random decent one.

Take a mate. And never buy the first car you see. If your desperate for a particular model, be sure to look at and drive at least two so you can get an even basic feel for why they both feel different to each other.

If your not a smoker, don't buy a smokers car, it is impossible to remove the pollution from it, its not just a smell, it actively degrades interior plastics, rubbers and materials and gives off carcinogens.

Your engine light was probably a floating code for ignition/cam/crank timing being out a small amount which is a moderate warning sign you've got a worn timing chain, tensioner and or guides.

Beware on VW and other brands, unless you have a proper code reader than can interrogate the modules properly, generic (even expensive £4k+ machines) will not pick up the detail codes, so floating codes that don't have a high tier priority (and are stored) won't even flag up, even if they are looking for them. If you buy another VAG product, buy VAG-COM or OBDeleven, few hundred quid that pays for itself the first time you've had to avoid going to a main dealer for a code look-up.

Sadly manual, otherwise I'd have bought it already

Helpful intel, thank you

Again really helpful, thank you.

Honda Jazz, Fiesta, I20, mazda 2 or 3. All with the basic or mid range petrol and a manual gearbox.

What model/mk/years for each respective car pls :)

Forum Passim. Suzuki Swift. Off most peoples radar, everyone on here. Thus low prices.

Suzuki Swift

Have always liked the og ever since watching top gear play football with them.

I do like old fashioned cars when I stand in the traffic jam.

Just had to have a thermostat housing replaced as it was leaking. Girlfriend called them to sort it today as I was at work and they quoted £600, she said fine. I got out of work and called them up to question it, all of a sudden it's £430. Still pricey but it included diagnosis of a few other bits so it's fine, I can now fix those myself. Cheeky buggers

It is a fiat innit...well stellantis isn't it?

Looking to purchase a car at the end of the week from a Skoda Fabia Estate dealer in Weston Super-Mare and they put forward what sounded like an interesting offer via a PCP with lots of addons like £750 towards the deposit, 2 MOTs, 2 Services, 2 years of extra warranty etc ...

However, I have like zero trust in what they're saying so looking for confirmation on whether or not it would be good to take advantage of that deal. I have the cash to pay for the car outright and would be looking to pay the PCP at the end of the first month, literally getting it for the advantages rather than the finance. Is that possible?

I've read a bit about PCP and seems like that's really not what it's built for and they have early repayment fees, "balloon" payments at the end etc ... which make me think it might not be worth the hassle ...

in general, the "extras" offered with PCP are funded by a kick back the dealer gets on selling the finance to you, so if you don't intend to utilise the finance for more than a very short period, i'm guessing that they'll have clauses to claw stuff back on early redemption - obvs check the small print.

in your situation, i'd probably be straight up and ask for the best price they can do for cash purchase.

See what the early redemption clause is.

It is a fiat innit...well stellantis isn't it?

Diesel engine only. Now discontinued.

Thought that the 90s swift was Japanese then later built on behalf of Suzuki by stellantis like mx5 and fiat 124.

Shows how much I care as they aren't cheap enough

If you want I can come along and pick faults....and piss on your chips about every car you take me to see ;)

Yet every car I buy I miss so much and get the I'll just buy this

Not visited here on my travels round lfgss but have been enjoying having a read. Piqued my interest as I’ve recently sold a VW T4 camper as we haven’t been using it this year, plus ULEZ, and the fact we now need to be ferrying kids to different places over the weekend. Task was a cheap fun car for my enjoyment and for taking my son to footy training/matches. I never really paid much attention to the newer mini but always liked the look of the early ones, ad that to some nostalgia for my first car (‘79 mini, 10 inch revolution alloys, rosewood dash!) and I was away. Bit of an impulse buy going for the first one I saw but it had obviously been well looked after, had a few nice upgrades/new parts inc an all important supercharger rebuild recently. Also only about 1/3 of what we got for the T4. It’s been about 6 weeks and it’s great fun to drive, nippy around town but feels surprisingly planted and stable on the motorway and ofc the handling is great. Anyway, thought I’d say hi in here as I saw there was a couple of people asking about R53’s a few pages back. Any others on here with one?

1 Attachment

Been thinking about this advice - which all seems eminently sound to a non-car-person like me - I hope you don't mind if I ask a few additional questions relevant to my current search?

You say buy private up to £10k which I assume infers some value in buying from a dealer beyond that. Can I ask you to elaborate on the rationale here? Is it that you put some value on the mechanical checks they all shout about, the warranties, the ability to attempt to enforce consumer rights against a listed entity, or something else entirely?

Any recommended models to look at (or avoid!) that fit the following criteria: large (estate), automatic, reliable, ULEZ compliant, decent value, not riddled with known errors likely to cost the ££££ down the road? Currently looking at Skoda Octavias, Honda Civic Tourers, Seat Leon's and VW Passats/Golfs.

Cheers

A DIY auto paint query...
I've got some fibreglass panels to paint and they're already in primer but there's some pinholes I need to fill and sand for a good finish...

I was planning to use Pro-XL Ultrafill Glaze filler as it seems to be the finest option my supplier has got but I'm wondering will I need to prime again before painting or will I get away with just filling sanding and painting?

New (to me) car day.

Jazz, blue notes.

1 Attachment

elaborate on the rationale here?

I think it's just a business model thing.

A dealer that can support after sales, warranties, and checking cars properly has to be of a certain size with a certain TO. You can't do that with cheaper, higher risk cars.

When we were looking in 2018 it was hard to find any sizable dealers with cars <£8k.