I'm in awe of RNP's and WCA's vehicle wrangling exploits. My spannering days are 20 years behind me, but I'm tempted to buy a fixer upper for me and junior to work on and for him to drive.
So not proper bangernomics, but post covid is it still possible to buy a sub £1,000 car and keep it running with modest spannering skills. If so, what sort of models lend themselves best to this?
I've just been scouring for a runabout, I'd say yes but helps if you know what you're looking at in the first place.
Not a spannerer but, looking about me as I travel the older / cheaper vehicles that seem to keep soldiering on seem to be the Mk4 golf and its platform stablemates (Mk1 Leon, Octavia) in the basic spec and 1.4 petrol engine. All the higher spec / hotter ones and all the diesels seem to have vanished but the base model petrols seem to both last (if you discount the front wheel arches which are at least a bolt on replacement it seems) and not require some of the big-ticket repairs in later life that the diesels need.
Thats not to say they don't require work our 05 Leon leaked, had ABS sensor foibles and so on but the engine never required more than service attention and the foibles were all addressable DIY or didn't cost much if we didn't do it ourselves. It's the car we've kept longer than any other and the cheapest to own car we've ever had. The near new Caddy we replaced it with has only be with us for 18 months and is already the most expensive to own vehicle we've ever had
Yes, depends on what you call 'modest' spannering skills.
Quick Gumtree search round me yields lots of sub £1k cars. Around the 04-09 age range - around 100k miles, some fine with short mot, or others with an EML or ABS light on.
Lots of Citroens, Renaults and Peugeots in the listings....
Yes definetely, especially if you can buy something with 1 fault to fix. I got an 08 V70 for £500 autumn last year with a dead center console. It did need 4 new tyres to pass the MOT but the dead center console was only a hard to find fuse. All in I am about £1000 with the tyres a service and a new MOT.
I’m in awe of RNP’s and WCA’s vehicle wrangling exploits
I also have a 2004 Peugeot Partner / Mk1 Berlingo, it's had the odd post about it on here. I bought it with 4x brand new Continentals and a folder of receipts, it had a tube of Sterident denture cement in the glove box which gave an indication of the age demographic for these cars.
It had a snapped coil spring which is why it was cheap.
It's been a great little useful van/car, dead easy to work on and decent quality OEM parts are dirt cheap. Galvanized so don't rust too much.
I paid more than your £1k budget but that was at the height of Covid.
I also had a 200k mile MK4 Golf Pd130 that I paid £400 for. I changed its oil and clacked about in it for a year. I posted about that on here. Rusty wings as mentioned above. I sold it for £300 and it carried on for a bit with its new owner.
My bangernomics have come from friends/work colleagues who know that I'll rebuild them/keep them going rather than scrapping them.
All the sub 1k cars are now on FB Marketplace. Don't get hung up on a make and model, be flexible and see what's available locally then go check it out.
Yes, I bought a 57 reg Mondeo for £800 with 90K miles . It had a years MOT. Some minor issues I'm working through but nothing serious.
£800 is less than the 1 years depreciation on MrsUggski's Juke that we have.
Full disclosure, I do know the PO so knew it was in ok condition. May need a new cambelt but that would still make it a £1200 car!
If you want a cheap, fun car then MF F/TF's can be picked up for hardly any money at the minute. And they still have a good spares network. 2nd hand parts are widespread and there are several good mobile MG Rover specialists out there.
I've got one and it's the cheapest car we have to insure too (1.8 130bhp model).
Lots crop up on here - from minters that have done sod-all mileage, to ones that need some work...
MG F&TF UK owners club,sales group !!!
Not a spannerer but, looking about me as I travel the older / cheaper vehicles that seem to keep soldiering on seem to be the Mk4 golf and its platform stablemates (Mk1 Leon, Octavia)
A main advantage to this is that there are so many models shared the same parts that they're cheap as chips and plentiful. I'm running an 18 year old Octavia vRS that just keeps going (I paid £1500 4 years ago for it) and some jobs that you think would cost a fortune in parts on a modern car are surprisingly doable
I don't do any spannering myself as I have the mechanical aptitude of a gibbon, but I do have a great local garage that doesn't take the proverbial on labour costs and always do a great job for a non-scary
My friend bought a 2009 C3 Picasso with, IIRC, 6?,000ilea on it last summer for £1,500. It's mint and she loves it
Not sure £1,500 is cheap enough to qualify as bangernomics but it shows there are great cars around for not much
Would those types of car be ULEZ compliant .... if an issue for where OP lives
Some of the older petrol cars are ULEZ compliant, diesels almost certainly not and also a ULEZ compliant diesel adds a whole other level of complication to diagnostics and maintenance.
Scrap has gone down and if you don't need ULEZ/CAZ compliance (much cheaper to pay the charge if you only visit occasionally) then bangernomics is very much back on the menu. Older NA petrol, manual stuff is the way to go, smaller cars are best for cheaper parts too. You may have to pay higher VED, but problems with more modern £30 tax stuff will quickly wipe out any saving.
My 3.2 V6 £500 Porsche Cayenne is ULEZ compliant!
We’ve been running a £300 2004 Astra G Estate for around 9 years. Gutless 1.6 8v petrol, still see them about for cheap.
Really easy to spanner on. Cheap parts, I just replaced the whole exhaust for around £150.
Timing belt, water pump full service etc was similar money using decent parts.
It’s slow and dull but free to go into low emission zones (except Birmingham, oh well).
Not really bangernomics as I repair anything that needs doing but it is almost free motoring.
If you want a Renault Scenic with a ****ed auto gearbox to spend a load of time and money on, shout me quick before I offload it to a trader on Gumtree 😀
But you can indeed get an acceptable car under £1k these days. I helped a friend buy a 20-year-old Corsa C with FSH for £750 last year, just needed £160 welding to get through a recent MOT but drives really nice.
Thanks all, some things to consider here.
It would need to be ULEZ compliant, so petrol is looking best.
RustyNissanPrairie
Full Member
My 3.2 V6 £500 Porsche Cayenne is ULEZ compliant!
Is it actually running and roadworthy?
- <li style="text-align: left;">I reckon that there are plenty of broken cars that are compliant but live in a scrapyard?!
So not proper bangernomics, but post covid is it still possible to buy a sub £1,000 car and keep it running with modest spannering skills. If so, what sort of models lend themselves best to this?
If you know what you're doing, of course - but if you're asking then you've probably failed the 'test'.
A first-gen Honda Jazz is usually a good option for a cheap, low-running costs ULEZ-friendly car. Loads of room for a small car and very reliable. Can rust a bit, and the Cats were getting nicked a lot at one point, but otherwise very little to worry about.
Soo.... quick thread hijack...
It's not going to be £1000, but more like £1600...
I'm looking to sell my baby..my 2007 2l TDI Skoda octavia.. 🙁
I'm consolidating my EV and Octy into a longer range EV.. my OH says we've too many cars on the drive!
It's a grey hatchback, with 17" alloys with pretty new Michelin Cross climate 2s all round. Upgraded head unit to a £400 sony double-DIN with touchscreen and AA/carplay.
6 speed manual..125,000 miles on the clock.
Lovingly looked after..it's been my favourite car for years!
I'm 100% honest in the fact she drives like a dream! Still pulls like a train, and can handle Hove to Ard Rock, with 4 bikes on the roof, withought breaking a sweat.
Honestly... if I were King, I wouldn't make me sell it...
But I probably should.
I'll give it a spruce up and post pictures in the classifieds as this is the PERFECT MTBer car..heck I'll even leave the roof bars and a few biks racks on it for you!
PM me for more details!
Based in Hove!
DrP
retrorick
Full Member
RustyNissanPrairieFull Member
My 3.2 V6 £500 Porsche Cayenne is ULEZ compliant!
Is it actually running and roadworthy?
<li style=”text-align: left;”>I reckon that there are plenty of broken cars that are compliant but live in a scrapyard
Got a years MOT!
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/porsche-500-bangernomics/
I've been looking for a new motor about that price DrP. I'll drop you a line.
Yes.
My last car was a Berlingo 2.0hdi, in true bangernoimics fashion it was scrapped at the first failure where the fix exceeded the purchase cost minus it's scrap value.
£625
18 months
2 MOT's
35,000 miles (it got used for work, so almost every one of those was 45p!)
2x tyres - free off the Berlingo forum
1 door handle ~£14
1 Clutch cable £50
Cracked clutch pedal - terminal as it was an engine out job.
Scrapped for £440
Current fiesta has been owned by the OH for 20 years since it was 6 months old. Currently on 165,000 miles. It's costing money to keep going, but not much. A rusty spring, Cambelt + ancillaries last year, exhaust O2 sensor front shocks and a track rod end this year. Not true bangernomics as I get the garage to do big jobs as I don't have time at the moment. I still do the routine servicing so I tell myself it's justified based on having saved £150 so spending £300-£400 isn't a big deal.
And the exhaust is a patchwork of coke cans and clamps 😂
Swings and roundabouts though. Cars are always flipin expensive even if nothing goes wrong. How much he want's one or not might dictate how much he's prepared to spend on something newer and spend hours at work to pay for it, or spend hours on the driveway fixing it when he could just have ridden a bike / got the bus.
TINAS, 37 &1/2, not really missing having a car of his own. But is tempted by DrP's Octavia as borrowing the Fiesta gives him aback back and sore neck.
pretty new Michelin Cross climate 2s all round
What do you need them for in Hove ??
I've got a 2007 Peugeot 107 MOT failure sat here (Herefordshire) if it's of any interest?
109k miles
Red 3 Door
Rear brakes binding
Brake pipes corroded
Two spots of rust (one a fail as near suspension mount)
Advisories on front tyres
Needs a number plate light bulb
Headlamp lenses cloudy
Probably a day of work and a few hundred quid to put right. No idea when it was last serviced, some lacquer peel to front end. Cheapest online seem to be around £1500 with MOT.
Cracked clutch pedal – terminal as it was an engine out job
Someone let a Porsche designer at it!
Thing with old cars is you either have to not worry about breaking down or stay on top of the maintenance.
Just before leaving for a 2000 ish mile road trip last year, I realised the cam belt and water pump hadn’t been done in 10 years, we didn’t break down but it was in the back of my mind. Was a little concerned chugging up Alpe Duez.
Changed it a couple of weeks after getting home and it all looked brand new.
This is out my window today!! LOLOLZZZZ
OMG - quickly get down to the shops and buy all the bread and milk you can carry! 😱😱😱😱
.
duplicate!
Got a years MOT!
I had skimmed through the Porsche thread before Xmas but forgotten most/all of the fine detail 😭👍
vif only it was Petrol 🙁
Nothing stopping you putting petrol in it. Once 🙂
You all do know that when I sell the Octavia, my biking group will hang me out to dry.. this is collectively OUR car!!!
All our hopes, dreams, and fantasies are locked up within those 2000ml of dieselly combustion space...
DrP
EDIT - Pictonroad is already getting his objections in..!!!. @pictonroad Maybe we should do a round of crowdfunding, and just leave it parked up somewhere on the A27 with the keys on the rear wheel?
Cheapest online seem to be around £1500 with MOT.
Bloody hell.
We have a sub-£1000 car and I have no spannering skills. It's a 55 plate Mazda 2 with 125k on the clock, it cost £3k twelve(?) years ago, if it's worth £500 now I'd be surprised. We keep it on the road by getting it serviced every year and doing whatever jobs/fixes on it that the garage recommends. I suppose the key is that we have a local garage that we trust.
My tip would be to look for something that's east asian, boring, with as little cleverness to go wrong on it as possible.
This is out my window today!! LOLOLZZZZ
Ah I see now the world has come to an end ! How could anyone possibly drive on that road with that much snow !
Ah I see now the world has come to an end ! How could anyone possibly drive on that road with that much snow !
LOL!
In all honesty, i think Michelin CCs are THE BEST tyres for any car.. no downsides in the summer/dry, and amazing grip in cold, ice, and slush.. similar price to other decent tyres too..
It's a no brainer for me.
and on the odd occasion that hilly brighton and hove gets icy and snowy, I feel like a champ pootling about with ease!
DrP
Total thread hijack -
I've got to give back my EV company car in a few months (changing jobs) and need something to tide me over for approx. 12 months until i'm eligible to apply for another EV via salary sacrifice.
Budget £4,500 - £5000.
Needs to be ULEZ compliant and good for longer motorway journeys - i'll probably do 18-20k miles over the year.
Mazda 6 is a strong contender - can just about get a euro6 diesel for the top end of my budget... anything else i should consider?
@DrP - i've looked into these - but my new commute to the office (only once or twice per week) will be 130 miles round trip.. so i don't think a Leaf would work as don't want to charge up on the road.
charge at the office?
DrP
