It’s a ’95 import with just 82K on the clock – he wants £1100 and I can pay in £100 a month installments. He paid £1700 just a year ago, but he’s a young lad and his insurance renewal jumped up by 50% (!).

Pretty sure I can get a bike rack on the back, with the straps routed underneath the spoiler….

Is there anything in particular to be aware of with these motors? I know the MPG will be slightly silly (22ish, according to Google) but I’m slightly concerned about servicing costs. The cam belt’s been done and there’s a full service history.

My Focus estate is about to fail its MOT spectacularly – I’m guessing about £600 worth of work to keep its rusty carcass on the road….

Please tell me to buy it. Thankyou. My wife will hate you if you do.

£100 a month! wow whats to think about!
I have a Mitsubishi import (pajero), best built car I have ever had.
You could even sell it in a year for what you paid for it!

Looks just like this one;

Buy it. 😈

Thankyou – now that I have permission from a stranger on the internet, I most certainly will.

😀

Happy to help sir! 😀

Why not? If you like it and don’t need the practicality of your Focus estate, and if the insurance is manageable for you it seems like a good deal.

Assuming the FTO has an MOT (big assumption I know) you are actually looking at a purchase price of £500 ( assuming your repair estimate is correct).

In month 1, your cash flow with the FTO is -£100.
In month 1, yor cash flow with the Focus is -£600.

In month 2………you get the picture.

Makes sound financial sense, buy it.

(ignoring all other running costs / tax / insurance / repairs in the interest of giving you the answer you want. )

If you don’t want it, I’ll have it.

If it’s an automatic, be prepared to spend A LOT of money keeping it in working order. They need special transmission fluid. Roughly £200 every 3000 miles for my Mitsi.

If it’s an automatic, be prepared to spend A LOT of money keeping it in working order. They need special transmission fluid. Roughly £200 every 3000 miles for my Mitsi.

Eh?

I realise that the Evo’s need frequent oil changes but I’ve never heard of any auto that needs its fluid replacing at any kinda interval.

I wish it weren’t the case, but the Mitsi INVECS autobox is notoriously temperamental. Mine started acting up about 1000 miles after filling mistakenly with Dexron 3. Something to do with a higher than normal operating temperature I think.

Me and a couple of mates used to have one as a track car. We bought it for £400 and changed the oil, fitted some crap pads and then tried our best to kill it. We couldn’t.

We seriously ragged that car worse than any car should be; I had a fairly big off at Cadwell, resulting in it being bent but it still handled better than some hot hatches we’ve had. One problem we found was that it was gutless, really really gutless. Handling wise it was impeccable. Spares are cheap except the rear disks, which are unique tothe car and different between models (£75 ish for pair of crappy no namers).

You can fit a large nicolai Helius on the back seat with the wheels in the boot. I think to change the gearbox oil that often would be pretty obsessive, and they’re a very strong unit (well ours was).

I was once advised never to touch a second hand car or woman from a friend if you value the friendship.

and have you gone for zero mile cars and virgins since?

I was once advised never to touch a second hand car or woman from a friend

The bit in bold was the important bit martin and I agree. Cheap bike parts no problems but I’d be wary of getting anything as expensive as a car (or a woman 😉 ) off a mate.

I also would advise against a second hand car from a mate. However, this does sound like a good deal. On the other hand, some things can be too good to be true and any car is a risk. Hmm… I would advise to either buy it or to walk away, not sure which though…

Actually, if I was purchasing a car on the cheap then I’d probably get something more basic and cheaper to run but that’s ignoring the fact that you might want something like that.

I seem to remember the FTO being the only car Evo magazine has given less than 1 star out of five. I could be wrong of course…

Wasn’t that the 3000gt?

Hmmmm. Just managed to get my first sub £1K insurance quote on the FTO. Not looking good….

Other option is another mates 2.4 litre, uber-sensible Volvo S80 D5 on the same £100 a month terms. He wants £1600 for it which is about £4-500 under the usual asking price – it’s immaculate and very well looked after mechanically. Just over 100K on the clock and seven years younger than the FTO. Insurance is a couple of hundred less too….

Or just keep my Focus estate, put it through its £6-800 MOT and hobble along for another year. The Focus is looking very tired though and my clients do notice such things. Aaaaaah – decisions!

buying cars off mates could end up with said mates being ex-mates shortly.

Been there, seen it, done it. I would not repeat it!

Onzadog +1 – Never buy used cars from mates…keep business; business.

As I said – he’s more a workmate than a mate, and it would be bought completely ‘as seen’…. Managed to get an insurance quote of £800 now, which is better than I’d dared hope for. Might well be game on 😀

I know nothing about cars, but is your mate crazy ? So you make the first few payments, then it dies – do you pay him the rest ?? Who keeps the ownership papers ??

If you do but it then at least buy it outright, I personally would never hand over a car to somebody without full payment of a fair price.

And you have to wonder if your mate has paid it off fully…

P.S And now he is offering you another car ? Sounds awfy like a pyramid scheme to me.

The Focus is looking very tired though and my clients do notice such things. Aaaaaah – decisions!

What kind of work do you do where the condition of your car puts clients off but you’re only willing to spend ~£1500 on a ‘new’ car?

I’d:

-sell the Focus Estate on Ebay with an honest description of issues
-buy the S80 off a friend (or an S60 off a random)

if you were going for a cheap replacement.

buy the FTO for £100/month
if it dies within the year, stop the payments and give him it back
.
consider it a lease agreement whereby you get to keep the car at the end

cheap motoring and performance cars dont mix

my mate had one – he had a 2.5V6 with manual boxx

it was quick but not asstoundingly for the mpg …. a workmate however had a 3.0 twin turbo fairlady(300zx) in red ! – that would shift like no tomorrow !

You can have mine for (Manual GPX in black) for £200 🙂

Neighbour dented it couple weeks ago and her insurance wrote it off (Cat C) and gave me the money. It’s completely drivable, just the dent needs fixing and the fuel cap got bent. Needs a VIC Check. It’s going to scrap at the end of the weekend, as my insurance runs out and I fancy a change. I’ve paid £1600 and £1400 insurance the last 2 years.

I remeber getting horrendous insurance quotes for on of these, my response was **** That Off!

There are cheaper ways to upset your missus.

how old are you i query …..

i can insure an imprezza wrx at 25 for less than my partner van …. i could probably insure a rocket ship for the price your looking to pay to insure that !

Damitamit – for real?! I’m 37, have 8 years no claim bonus, have held insurance my whole driving life and have one sp30 which is now four and a half years old. Apparently it’s recently become very expensive to insure jap imports?

Worked with a guy who spent a fortune on his FTO, also spent most of his worktime at the following site (FTO Owners Club, may be of some help.

user-removed, yes! I’m getting less than that in scrap and would rather it go to someone who wants one. Email me…

damitamit – if he doesn’t take that off you stick it on PistonHeads in the track only section and I bet you get your hand bitten off even at double the price you want.

Buy either of the ones on here, and drive it like you stole it 🙂

Should I buy my mate’s Mitsubishi FTO?

Absolutely not.

I have a Mitsubishi import (pajero), best built car I have ever had.

*sniggers*

I can’t but laugh when I see the merc vito van, I bet they are popular in Finland!