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Post by PinkFloyd on Apr 11, 2018 20:13:00 GMT
Steve, my reliable / trusty Micra has now clocked up 157,832 miles and drives like new. He is 15 years old and has taken me in and out of town 7 days a week for the past 6 years. I've been looking at buying a new car (extensively) over the past 6 months but haven't come up with anything that would make good financial sense. Steve cost me £2,000 6 years ago and he has had NOTHING go wrong with him for all the time he has been with me. A few sets of tyres and an exhaust.... that's pretty much all that has been required. I replace the engine oil and filter every 3,000 miles and the spark plugs every 6,000 miles...... OTT you may say but it does the job. Anyhoo......... Steve goes in for his MOT next Monday...... I fitted a new pair of discs / pads.... dropped the oil, replaced the oil / filter and plugs..... new air filter..... the works...... everything 100% OK, wheel bearings fine, no cracked shrouds, all lights working, screenwash topped up..... 101% checked. Or so I thought Picked my friend (Big Shaun) up this afternoon (no, we are not gay) and we went over to Lidl (The Kraut supermarket) to see what was going down (it's Alpen Fest week at Lidl.... we all need a bit of that!) On the way to Lidl Steve made contact with quite a large pothole and a notable "boom" was heard from the back end of the car..... we both remarked "what the f**k was that?!" I said it was probably a large pothole. Turns out it was a petrol tank strap that decided it no longer wanted to spend its life as a strap. Managed to get a quick "get me home" fix and have secured myself a pair of half decent straps from an online "scrap yard" Wow........ Bottom end feeder motoring is fun
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Post by freddypipsqueek on Apr 12, 2018 16:04:08 GMT
Just looking for a replacement for my BMW 330d. Had it 6 years taking it from 60k to 220k. It has had everything it has asked for but it is now worth peanuts. Oddly when looking at new ones I never think they are better and I often come away thinking give it another month or so with the old one. Its just gone through the MOT but theres a faint turbo whistle so I thinks its finally time . .
It doesn't help that someone dented the front wing at 60mph on the M6 two months ago - It least I lost some weight all of a sudden.
Cars are well made now and it crap to keep changing them when we don't need to.
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Post by PinkFloyd on Apr 12, 2018 20:07:55 GMT
Same here! I've been giving Steve another month or two for six years now It may sound daft but I've got a good relationship with him..... I feed him plenty of fresh oil every three months and he takes me into town every day (seven days a week) with only one day "downtime" in the past six years (a totally dead battery) so I question the need for a new car. I know the day will come, things wear out, when I have to say goodbye but I'll do my best to keep him rolling for a month or two 220K is excellent Freddy! I'd love to hit the magic 200K in the Micra but up here it's not the engine that will let it down....... it's the salt on the roads that will let it down I gave my K10 Micra to my cousin's daughter about 25 years ago, it had 160K on the clock and drove like new....... she passed her test in it and and it finally bit the dust @ 210K! Damned good going for a little 1.0L engine. Steve is a 1.4L (K12) engine with timing chain so should easily be good for 200K + but, as I say, rust will probably take hold and cause problems before then. I'm looking for a Micra 160SR (ten year old would be fine) but there's only three of them up for sale across the UK at the moment...... the "SR" stands for street racer..... they're not fast (as such) but 0-60mph in 9 seconds is not too shabby....... My 1.4 SX "officially" does 0-60mph in 11 seconds but the bedded in 157K engine does it in about 10 seconds. An old geezer (probably younger than I now am) once told me that an engine didn't reach its full potential until it had done 80K...... he reckoned they performed at their best once they had bedded in for 80K. He also said 5 words to remember "oil oil and more oil!"..... I agree with him on that one! His other great one was "if it moves, oil it, if it doesn't move, paint it!" That man was my Dad. He should have also told me to buy shares in an oil company...... f**k me, I've spent a fortune on oil with this "drop it every three thousand miles" lark ........ I don't mind spending money on oil (oil is GOOD!) but the oil filter on the Micra is a wheel off job and a little bastard to get to! I'm getting Physio for a frozen shoulder ATM and I'm sure it was the last filter change that f**ked my shoulder Anyhoo....... rambling now........... managed to source a good pair of straps with plenty of life left in them so they're on their way up to me. They actualy have "paint" on them so good for another month or two The straps that were on Steve didn't have paint on them when I bought him six years ago so a pair of scrap straps with paint = living the dream
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Post by PinkFloyd on Apr 12, 2018 20:11:37 GMT
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Post by mrpharmacist on Apr 13, 2018 8:29:29 GMT
. Picked my friend (Big Shaun) up this afternoon (no, we are not gay) and we went over to Lidl (The Kraut supermarket) to see what was going down (it's Alpen Fest week at Lidl.... we all need a bit of that!). Thanks for the heads up on LIDL Alpen Fest. They've got a stein and a 950ml can of Perlenbacher Festbier for a fiver and cured meats aplenty. Don't care for German mustard, but maybe I'm nitpicking. LIDl in Germany have those flaschenpfand automat machines where you stick in your bottle, it reads it off and you get a receipt for more money to buy more beer to keep the world turning. Those are going to be wheeled out here adding 20p to every bottle. It seems unnecessary, we should just have more recycling points. I don't mind the 'idea' per se, but it's a complication and expense in time thats avoidable, as well as the social awkwardness of lugging a sack of empties through the streets like a shuffling, stumbling hobo. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLKmr0uVhWoHow LIDL Germany can sell 500ml beers for 15c (!!) is one of life's pleasant mysteries
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Post by PinkFloyd on Apr 28, 2018 21:15:35 GMT
Steve passed his MOT 2 days ago. He failed on "Offside Front Suspension component mounting prescribed area is excessively corroded inner wing holed by corrosion (2.4.A.3)" but passed after a welding job that cost a crazy cheap £85 (the poor bastard was up all night doing it, finished at 6am)....... I gave him £100 plus two 50g packs of "genuine" duty free Golden Virginia (worth £40 retail / UK rip off prices). He did an absolutely AWESOME job....... welded an entire new section into the inner wing...... galvanised steel....... the poor bugger started at 10pm and finished at 6am........ £85 handed over would have been an insult, I hope he's happy with the ton and two packs of GV. Anyhoo..... looks like Steve will be with me for some time yet ; I really am over the moon Mike.
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Post by PinkFloyd on Apr 28, 2018 21:24:05 GMT
Steve is BULLET PROOF
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Post by PinkFloyd on Apr 28, 2018 21:33:24 GMT
Touchwood.
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