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Asking for a mate...

S

simonbowns

Car  Clio 172 Cup and 200
well, the guy who works in Spar near where I work. He's got a 2004 172 on 117k.
Failed MOT on broken rear spring, trailing arm bush, leaking rear shock and exhaust major leak.
Sell as is, or fix and sell with full MOT. He'll not do the work himself and I've not got the time to help him there..
 
Spring £10 off here.

Rear shock £10 off here

Exhaust will be an easy fix.

Seriously, why would he consider selling a car for those simple maintenance jobs?
 
I don't get this mentality of "it failed an mot I need to sell it". You'd be doing well for a car that age to pass every mot it has now. You can get all those parts here on the cheap. Plus there is a million breaking on eBay.
 
I'll go the other way:

If he doesnt have the skills to do it himself, nor mates with the time to help him, then the fact you can get used bits cheap is irrelevant and it's going to wind up being:

New exhaust section - £60 plus an hours labour at say £40
New shocks - £80 and springs £80
Pair of rear beam bushes £30 plus 2 hours labour (£80) to remove the beam, change the bushes and refit. Swap the springs and shocks whilst there.

So he's going to get a bill for ~£370

Depends how tidy the car is as to what it's worth, but 172s are all sub 2k, ones which see little enough care to wind up with those fails on an MOT more like a grand. If it's a good car and he likes it and wants to keep it, then pay the bill, if hes planning to get shot anyway then get shot to someone who can do the work themselves. No point in paying £370 to sell it for a grand. If its a minter with recent belts and will sell for more, then that alters the decision a little.
 
alistairolsen said:
ones which see little enough care to wind up with those fails on an MOT
Click to expand...

Biushes, shocks, springs (known for snapping on Clios) and exhausts are all consumable parts that can deteriorate from 'still fine' to 'needs replacing' within the space of a year - I'm not sure that them all cropping up at the same time is 'little enough care' lol
 
White16valver said:
Biushes, shocks, springs (known for snapping on Clios) and exhausts are all consumable parts that can deteriorate from 'still fine' to 'needs replacing' within the space of a year - I'm not sure that them all cropping up at the same time is 'little enough care' lol
Click to expand...

They never crop up at the same time, you end up with that fail sheet because they crop up one by one and youre either not aware of them, or ignore them.
Exhaust major leak even my mum would hear and come saying "my cars broken"
Rear beam bushed dont just fail, they degrade a bit as a time and are advised time and again before failing. The MOT standard in the UK are so slack it's untrue. By the time bushes fail the suspension is literally hanging off the car.
Shocks leak, sure. Again though, not instantly.
Springs I'll give you, they happen to the best of us.
What that fail sheet tells me is that no one has looked under the back of the car for a few months at best, or the last MOT at worst and have been driving it around listening to the exhaust blowing for weeks or months
Lets face it, it's unlikely its an enthusiast owned minter with perfect paintwork and recent belts that would sell for £2500 once fixed, it's vastly more likely to be a slightly leggy car thats coming due for belts in either 2 years or some miles, and even once you fix the fail issues, still needs TLC and will sell for £1000 as a project.
 
alistairolsen said:
They never crop up at the same time, you end up with that fail sheet because they crop up one by one and youre either not aware of them, or ignore them.
Exhaust major leak even my mum would hear and come saying "my cars broken"
Rear beam bushed dont just fail, they degrade a bit as a time and are advised time and again before failing. The MOT standard in the UK are so slack it's untrue. By the time bushes fail the suspension is literally hanging off the car.
Shocks leak, sure. Again though, not instantly.
Springs I'll give you, they happen to the best of us.
What that fail sheet tells me is that no one has looked under the back of the car for a few months at best, or the last MOT at worst and have been driving it around listening to the exhaust blowing for weeks or months
Lets face it, it's unlikely its an enthusiast owned minter with perfect paintwork and recent belts that would sell for £2500 once fixed, it's vastly more likely to be a slightly leggy car thats coming due for belts in either 2 years or some miles, and even once you fix the fail issues, still needs TLC and will sell for £1000 as a project.
Click to expand...
Fair comments :)

I would note that being an enthusiast does not necessarily equate to having money to fix advisory issues that will 'be alright' for a bit longer lol

I would class myself as an enthusiast, as I presume we all would on here, but I'm no CS Baller and need perhaps several months to save up to replace something, depending on what it is. I also prefer to do a complete, 'proper' job, so will put things off till I can replace at the same time all the associated other parts that might break from age in the near future, saving money in labour costs in the longer term (because I'm not rich enough to have a garage or anywhere to work on a car and therefore have to pay someone to do the work). That's meant that I have 'driven around' some issues for a while in some cases... but I know they're there and alter driving style accordingly if required. I'm not sure it's ultimately any different to driving a vintage car - you know the suspension/brakes/steering is not as good as it could be and, accordingly, pay extra attention and don't rag the tits off it.

Perhaps I shouldn't try to run cars that have any performance. Perhaps I should buy myself a Micra or a Yaris or something ultra-reliable that also makes me want to drive into bridge piers to make the driving experience more interesting lol. No-one's perfect, that's all I'm saying!
 
Nor me!

But (as I'm sure you are) I'd at least be aware of it and therefore do the saving and get it sorted ahead of the MOT.

I'd have clocked the exhaust blow, had a look underneath and decided how and when it needed sorting out. Whilst under there, you'd probably also notice the spring and the damper. I'd be amazed if the rear bush wasnt on last years fail sheet.

I'm no baller in the way I keep cars either, but I do enough miles that it's important to keep them right. The front end of my car started making a knock so I had a poke and figured it was droplinks, disconnected them and checked and then put them back. Theyre fine for now, just annoying, so come payday they'll get replaced.

I may be wrong, and I stand to be corrected by the OP!
 
Sam Linssner said:
I don't get this mentality of "it failed an mot I need to sell it". You'd be doing well for a car that age to pass every mot it has now. You can get all those parts here on the cheap. Plus there is a million breaking on eBay.
Click to expand...
Yup. Strange mentality. Loads of it going around!
 
alistairolsen said:
Nor me!

But (as I'm sure you are) I'd at least be aware of it and therefore do the saving and get it sorted ahead of the MOT.
Click to expand...

Years back, I grew wary of upcoming bills. made worse by the stuff you can't plan for like punctures, etc. I took the decision to have a standing order that put £250 per month into a separate account - mainly to create a pot for any car-related funds to be drawn from. It saved me a few times when I was running the Evo and 182 at the same time. But now I'm just back to the 182, I haven't stopped or decreased that monthly transfer in anyway.

The next service in a few months doesn't require belts - but like @White16valver suggested - I myself prefer to do a 'proper job' and get several bits done in one hit. Especially if those bits are closely located on the car.
 
Christopher said:
Yup. Strange mentality. Loads of it going around!
Click to expand...
In swear I've seen people on my Facebook feed fail an mot, sell it and then buy another car for 1/2k with a brand new mot, and then repeat the process in the next 1/2 years when that one fails the mot. Seems like they think they are saving money.
 
Sam Linssner said:
In swear I've seen people on my Facebook feed fail an mot, sell it and then buy another car for 1/2k with a brand new mot, and then repeat the process in the next 1/2 years when that one fails the mot. Seems like they think they are saving money.
Click to expand...
Mental isn't it.
 
Sam Linssner said:
In swear I've seen people on my Facebook feed fail an mot, sell it and then buy another car for 1/2k with a brand new mot, and then repeat the process in the next 1/2 years when that one fails the mot. Seems like they think they are saving money.
Click to expand...
That's why some clios have had 10 owners then!
 
woah, sorry guys - I'd somehow missed all these replies further up the page.

Anyhow, he traded it in. Now has a 200. It sounds as though the garage were planning to fix it and sell it on, so it'll live on.

The one I'm breaking is a different car, the fact I'd mentioned that one is why this fella had asked me about fixing his.
 
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