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

Right, makes sense. I just hear "dealer" and "mop over it" and thinks swirl city.

I like the interior upgrades, should look great. The wheels are good too. There's a white one down the road with those fitted and it looks great IRL. Proper flush fitment, OEM stanced I guess.

The fear sticks ;) great cars but sooo shit. Handled terribly, rusted and the last lot were sold 5 years after production had finished.

Had a turbo technics conversation and then second turbo technics set of parts in a very rusty Capri. Scary amounts of turbo lag and lots ot suspension mods to make it handle.

There's an importer nearby. With a great range in stock and warranties plus service plans. You pay a bit more but I might have take a test drive. Ditch the porky Audi wagon for one is my dream. Just can't get distracted by their other stock
https://www.go-garage.com.au/product-page/1989-honda-civic-sir-ef9

Maxi was a great car. If it was so shit why would the Japs copy the suspension and even share bits with the honda crx?

The massive flat floor, the way rear seats fold up to give more space and the low boot opening.
If bl had injected the 1850 it would have been better than the golf.

I am just going by the look of it. I was rather young at the time and it still gives me shivers 😂😂😂

I think my father had a Datsun at some stage - one where the door pillar went down with the windows. SSS may have been the model. Memory hazy as I was about 6 years old.
Edit - possibly one of these in navy blue

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I do not. I know the Bodie one which I suspect was not the Consol

One of my forum favourites. RIP!

Absolutely love my e46 320d touring, will be a sad day when it has to go, but at 110k miles, I feel like it’s still got a lot to give.

My Dad had an 1850 Maxi, in the favoured soiled nappy beige, it became my first car for a princely £300. It had a gear change like stirring a bucket of stones with a stick. It didn't go wrong until the engine finally seized 3 years later and would carry five riders plus bikes to a race. Fond memories might be pushing it a bit (my next car was an 80 sport quattro), but I almost mourned its death.

Daughter has a 2 seat Smart which has been good for city and local life but she now has a job involving a commute of about 25 miles so is looking for something a little bit bigger

I mean, relatively, 25 miles is nothing. Why would she need a “larger” car to drive 25 miles? If it’s 25 miles total then surely downgrading to an ebike is the answer!

Consul Capris are a whole load of beautiful :)

Been a while

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We had 2 maxi as a kid. Great for sleeping in and the cheapest car ever to lower, you just let some juice out of the system, I slammed mine 1 weekend to the point it wouldn’t move as the floor was dragging. Lucky I carried a can of juice to fill it back up.
Does anyone remember the Mud Machine Croydon’s shit Maxi skate ramp car?

Give Richie a kick in the shins from me.

What type of miles? And what does that equal in time?

I haven't been in a Smart car, but I've driven the pug equivalent of an Aygo and it's typical small car levels of motorway comfort.

Although it's less economical, and less useful for trips to ikea and babies, a mini is a much nicer car and feels more comfortable and substantial on the motorway.

If there's not much motorway, then I'd question the need to upgrade for 25miles.

@hugo7 @Jameo

Thanks. Ita a commute of 50 miles a day up and down the A1 south of Newcastle. The Smart has started to make yet another noise, the last time it had an issue was corrosion around the engine mounting so at 12 years old might be time that mending it is uneconomical the size of it notwithstanding.

Wife has had 4 minis and currently has a 4 door Cooper, daughter not keen on a mini and likes the Aygo in yellow. Has to be an automatic.

I pay to run 3 houses / flats housing the family , 3 cars and 5 phones so I've not got oodles of cash to spare.

Just didn't want to get something with known faults that need checking.

How much of a job is it to replace the wiring that sits in the little hangar/loom thing in a driver's side door? It's a Skoda yeti. I took it to the garage last year and they didn't do a great job tbh and the issues are back (basically driver and rear driver side door don't have any electric function so aren't locking and no electric window /wing mirror etc). Last time they cut into the rubber shield and patched the wires that had failed. I suspect I could get in there and repatch them myself easily enough but I wonder how much of a faff it is to replace that entire wiring section and harness with new/nos? I could ask them for a quote to do it properly but wonder if it's DIYable? If it's just dissembling the door I think that sounds ok (so long as I'm not going to bollocks the airbags or something) but for the part that connects into the chassis of the car, how deep do I have to delve?

https://www.yetiownersclub.co.uk/search/74724/?q=Drivers+door+electrics&o=relevance
I don't know if you can view this as a non-member but this may help.

Thanks - I can; these are the threads in particular that may be of use to future CYOA:
https://www.yetiownersclub.co.uk/threads/drivers-door-loom.7010/#post-79536
https://www.yetiownersclub.co.uk/threads/failed-door-loom.4986/#post-55624
https://skoda.7zap.com/en/cz/yeti/yet/2015-779/9/972-972035/

In short, it seems like a faff especially for those of us with large clunky hands, but am up for it assuming I can track down parts.

So solder longer wires in.

Picked it up today in torrential rain - was given the below pic which they took last week. ‘Car of the week’ apparently.

The other image, well, that’s a consequence of cleaning the steering wheel and drivers seat 🤢🤮
Looks so much nicer now it’s all matte.
Funny how dealerships are obsessed with data cleansing coz GDPR. But actual cleansing…. NOPE.

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Does the door loom have a plug at the 'A' pillar? if so undo that, remove the door panel and pull the loom through so you have mor room to work on it.

The best way is to cut out the broken section, preferably removing each connecter and fitting a new connecter to a new wire and solder that to the good part of the door loom so that the solder connection is not in the moving hinge part of the loom where the brittle solder will break again.

Best practice for a beginner is do one wire at a time so you don't end up crossing circuits

Also best to renew that grommet they have cut in to or water will get in and corrode any plug in contacts or even short circuit some circuits when it rains.

Niiiiiice.

Did they clean all the previous owners gunge off the wiper stalks? Always filthy. Normally I'd check the indicator stalks too but they're probably like new ...

I was hoping to get away without soldering anything and replacing the entire pack of wires with a fresh set - ideally with the updated shape with extra wire length - i.e. go from this:

to this:

Not sure if you are into detailing yourself but it would be worth spending a bit on getting it professionally detailed.