Went to see a Rover 800 2.0 vitesse tonight!

The whole car was hilarious but the best bit was where the ABS warning light is supposed to illuminate on the dash the bloke hasnt taken the bulb out BUT - put a square of black tape on the perspex front cover to the instruments!

I actually laughed with the guy in the passenger seat next to me when I saw it!

Yours gentlemen??

once(when i was younger and stupider!) bought a nissan patrol, when i igot home and opened the rear hatch it was a rusty mess, i sold the car on but whenthe guy came to view it i just told him the catch on the rear hatch was stuck and i couldn't get it open!.

Ray

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Originally posted by rayward
once(when i was younger and stupider!) bought a nissan patrol, when i igot home and opened the rear hatch it was a rusty mess, i sold the car on but whenthe guy came to view it i just told him the catch on the rear hatch was stuck and i couldn't get it open!.

Ray

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hmmmmmm, not sure if I should say this on here, but then it was very cheap!!

I once sold a Peugeot 205 gti, which I bought as a £400 billy bargain (this was 5 years ago!) and the drivers side door lock didn't work. Who actually checks door locks when they go to see a car, and it's unlocked when they get there!

This chap didn't!

Got a phone call later, said that you have to wiggle the key a bit but it "should" work.

ooopps!

PS. I don't like lying, but it was a cheap car and I really couldn't be bothered to get a new lock!

My first car, an A35 van, had the passenger door bottom hinge held into the bottom of the front wing by two six inch nails into a space that had been filled with concrete. They hadn't invented fibreglass filler at the time.

I've now just remembered the really laughable car that I saw!!!!!!!


I went to see an X-pack arched MK2 escort with a 2.3 v6 cologne engine in it.

The car was not tidy but then at £600 I didn't expect it to be, just wanted it to be solid structurally which the seller assured me it was!

It was only a few miles away so I went to see it..............................

The good bit was the X-pack was quite nicely done, but....................

I went lift the carpets and the seller remarked "there's sum weldin' in there but it's welded fur strenf, not cos it were rotten" the inner and outer sills were a total bodge of mig wire etc, yup welded for strength cos if it wasn't it would have fallen to bits!

I then started the engine, which was actually very healthy and really revved, it apparently had steel internals etc but on the basis of the car so far I regarded that claim with some scepticism!

I then had a look under the back as apparently it had an atlas axle and capri lsd in it.

Well.............it did indeed, but I have never before or since, seen exhaust clamps used as axle U-bolts

I proferred that this was pretty unsafe (as was the battery with no clamp free to wander the engine bay) and he then offered to take me for a spin!!!!!

I refused, but offered him £200 for the car as the axle was worth that. He argued etc about the rot and welding, so I said that I had seen another escort, a MK2 RS2000, for sale in Ibstock nearby, for "silly money" and that was rotten and a mess too but it had just been roughly tarted up and put on a forecourt, and that it must be a complete twat that thought they could sell it for that!!.................................he then remarked somewhat bitterly that that was his forecourt and the RS was in VGC!!!!!!!!!!

DOH!

Hi All
Some years ago I had a mate with a Ford Classic 1340cc (the one with a rear window like an Anglia) Well, the floor & members were pretty rotten. He jacked it up, and placed pieces of wood around the rotten cross-members and outriggers, and from the inside pured in a concrete mix. After it was set, we sprayed it all underneath with underseal, and it looked perfect. I myself took it for its MOT, and the tester remarked on the good condition. He said "We don't see many of these in this condition. Solid as a rock" I could hardly keep my face straight. It went on to give the next full year of service without any problems, and as far as I remember he sold it on to a banger racer.
Petemate

My old man did a unique repair...

Bedford CA utilabrake with rotten sills.

Carved a 4"x2" to the right shape, jammed it into position and pop riveted a skin of thin aluminium over the top.

Top job.

i repaired my 205 after hitting a fox by rivetting some ally plate behind the bumper, you can only see the shiney rivet heads from the front

here's the before, haven't got an after yet.


foxbumper2

got given a lada,water pump bearing had gone and the fan had holed the rad,put a 2nd hand pump on and filled the rad,it kept leaking,in went some rad weld,still leaking,mixed up some plaster into slurry and poured that in till the leak stopped(plaster set)
sold it to a nutta,he came back 5 mins later saying it was overheating,i said it was fine when it left here,never heard any more

Once when I was on holiday down in Cornwell in a mates MG Magnette the car broke a rear spring , managed to jack the car up and get the ends of the spring together, nipped into a hardware shop and got a G clamp fitted it to spring and tied it on in case it fell off . Managed to do about a 100 miles in it before we found a new spring. Perhaps shouldn't mention the old rover P6 v8 that I welded up the worn camshaft lobes and refrofiled with an angle grinder, run a treat when I sold it

No offence to any (R)over owner but who would buy a rover in the first place unless its a v8 for a kit

Tom

A ha....

Yeah - my Rover 800 vitesse interest is for their lovely Garrett t25!

I thought that car was hilarious and I never even looked for plaster in the cooling system!

Geoff

I hope someone is making a list of these cars and their sellers......

You know, just in case they have any other bargains to unload...LOL

Seriously guys...very funny stories..

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Originally posted by tom windmill
No offence to any (R)over owner but who would buy a rover in the first place unless its a v8 for a kit

Tom

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ahhhhhh, just remembered the time when, whilst driving like a tit, I managed to break the nearside engine mount in my Opel Manta GTE. Every time I accelerated, the engine lifted up and the cooling fan ploughed into the fan shroud and the rocker cover hit the bonnet!!

I strapped the engine mounting to the crossmember with a ratchet strap and drove it like that until I could get another mount from the scrappy!

Ah the wondeful penny piching days of being a student!!

Oh, and another one!!!

my mate had an old mgb and when travelling back from the east coast the fuel pump packed in.

It was an old model with the sqeeze bulb windscreen washers, and he had a spare can of petrol in the boot, so the washer tube was connected to the carb and the pickup pipe from the washer bottle was plopped into the petrol can, and his wife's thumb became the new fuel pump.....................and speed limiter, apparently she could only pump fast enough for about 40mph!!!! Also had a very sore hand by the time they got home!

Take a look at this...

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/clunker.html

A mate of mine had a Talbot Sunbeam, and when the block cracked between the bores, he just used some chemical metal to seal it back up again. It miraculously ran fine for over 6 weeks, but when it failed again he patched it back up and flogged it quick.

Can remeber when a child - was travelling with my brothers in my dads car with my uncle following. Can't remeber exactly what happened but i do remember all of us hoping over a hedge and peeing into bottle so we could top up the radiator

must have smelt nice when it got hot



[Edited on 15/6/05 by DaveFJ]

i had an 8 year old dolomite sprint once that was a real rust bucket. I put a lot of filler in the front wing around the wheel arch at the front passenger side and made a nice job of the repair. A guy bought it, and as he was counting out the money in my hand, i leant back on the car and heard a resounding crack as I split the filler!!!!!!

i kept my back to the car, and if he noticed, he didnt say!

atb

steve

[Edited on 15/6/05 by steve_gus]

quote:

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Originally posted by NS Dev

quote:

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Originally posted by tom windmill
No offence to any (R)over owner but who would buy a rover in the first place unless its a v8 for a kit

Tom

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There was nowt wrong with Rover cars, it was the people that built them!

I had a bloke buy a car off me in about 1987. Took the wee re my asking price but I was skint and needed to pay off loan, so took his offer.

He'd overheated about 6 miles from my house, so I took a couple of bottles of rad weld and chucked it in, filled with water and said it'll be ok now

Apparantly it cost him 60 quid for a tow

ATB

Simon

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DarrenW - 16/6/05 at 08:57 AM

i had a 325i sport, sump cracked so i repaired it with ematal. It actually worked very well and held for a long time.

I have heard of landrover boys cracking petrol tanks off road - a squishy beer bottle pushed in the tank opens up when fuel is put in and does a good job.


In my inexperienced years i drove to Cornwall in an old 1.1 Escort (Mk3). It was rough but we went anyway (long way from Durham). About 3/4 of the way the rear silencer blew. The noise was bad so i tied a rag around the end to quieten it down. It was OK till we got stuck in traffic, i looked in rear view mirror and saw a lot of smoke as it started to smoulder. I had to dive over onto some gravel and pull it off very quickly before it started to burn properley!!!

Old mini - catalogue of errors. Most notable fastening a big bore exhaust rigidly to underneath - it cracked off eventually when i was in a posh part of Durham. I had to tie it back up with wire to get home. I also had the battery cable too close to exhaust clamp - burned through and shorted out. Fitted spots without using grommets - nearly set fire to dash. Biggest confusion was when it used to die on me up hills. On the flat and downhill was OK, just a problem up hill. Eventually traced the fault to my jack handle rolling around in the boot and shorting out against battery live.

I have since learned much about cars and have never made same mistakes. They were all valuable lessons.

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DaveFJ - 16/6/05 at 09:06 AM

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Originally posted by DarrenW


when i was in a posh part of Durham.

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Didn't know they had such a thing

[Edited on 16/6/05 by DaveFJ]

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britishtrident - 16/6/05 at 09:34 AM

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Originally posted by ned
i repaired my 205 after hitting a fox by rivetting some ally plate behind the bumper, you can only see the shiney rivet heads from the front

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Araldite style epoxy adhesive from Poundland works really well for bumper repairs ----

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DarrenW - 16/6/05 at 09:35 AM

quote:

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Originally posted by DaveFJ

quote:

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Originally posted by DarrenW


when i was in a posh part of Durham.

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Didn't know they had such a thing

[Edited on 16/6/05 by DaveFJ]

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Whahey..... nice one. They most certainly do. There is a part where the whippets have seperate kennels. They are made from wood as well instead of old roofing sheets. Very nice area. I think the wood came from the old mine shafts. They also wear dry cleaned cloth caps and smoke tabs with filters on the end. One day i may be able to afford to live their............... Im saving my dole cheques right now

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DarrenW - 16/6/05 at 09:36 AM

[Edited on 16/6/05 by DarrenW]

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phelpsa - 16/6/05 at 09:42 AM

quote:

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Originally posted by DarrenW
[Edited on 16/6/05 by DarrenW]

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I agree

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ned - 16/6/05 at 09:50 AM

i don't

ps there is the delete option darren

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britishtrident - 16/6/05 at 10:00 AM

quote:

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Originally posted by NS Dev

quote:

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Originally posted by tom windmill
No offence to any (R)over owner but who would buy a rover in the first place unless its a v8 for a kit

Tom

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Rover P6 was (in many ways) a very nice car!!!!

I don't wish to try and defend BL group as most of their products were "poor" shall we say, but there were a few gooduns too!

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The old Rover company built some very fine cars, the P4 in particular was very underated.

I can't defend any car BL produced durring the Stokes era but from the Acclaim deal with Honda things improved rapidly, then BAe asset stripped the company, and didn't put enough money in to model development with Honda. The way the sale to BMW was handled deeply offended Honda and BMW was torn apart by a faction who wanted to destroy Rover because it was competing in BMWs markets and those who wanted to bulid cars. From the point Rover was doomed. For some reason the UK press turned on Rover.
Rover have a lot better reliability record than say Vauxhall (do you know anybody with a Vauxhall Omega that actually goes ?)


Most post Montego Rover were pretty good -- even the Montego in 2 litre Efi form was pretty good mechanically and a good drive --- the body and interior were however the pits.
The modern Rover group just lacked a steady hand at the helm -- take a look around you will see a lot more early 90s Rovers on the road than Sierra/Mondeo/Escorts of tha same age. Look for a pre cat 95 Mondeo on the road and you will be hard pressed to find one but you will see droves of Rovers equivalent model the 600. You will also find a lot more old 800s on the road than Scorpios or Omegas.


The next car company to pull out from europe will be Ford, the only european market they make money in is the UK and that has been in steady decline since they moved the design teams to Colonge. Look around it is amazing how few Fords you see on the road, and the Transit van market has been lost



[Edited on 16/6/05 by britishtrident]

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DarrenW - 16/6/05 at 10:30 AM

quote:

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Originally posted by ned
i don't

ps there is the delete option darren

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Thanks Ned. I thought i was getting ganged up on then!! I like the sport of it. Little do people know what we have to offer up here, im happy to keep it my little secret - hence whippet and flat cap comments! Id hate my little area of the country to be spoilt by an influx of foreigners!!!!! LOL

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MikeRJ - 16/6/05 at 02:09 PM

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Originally posted by ChrisGamlin
A mate of mine had a Talbot Sunbeam, and when the block cracked between the bores, he just used some chemical metal to seal it back up again. It miraculously ran fine for over 6 weeks, but when it failed again he patched it back up and flogged it quick.

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My old man had a Daihatsu Applause (fairly awfull car but was astoundingly rapid for a 1.6i ) and the engine block cracked. He filled it with metal loaded epoxy and made a 1/4" plate that bolted to some convienient holes in the block casting either side of the crack. It lasted for 3 years until he sold the car to someone who just wanted the engine as their block was cracked!

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derf - 16/6/05 at 02:22 PM

A freind has an M3 and he somehow managed to rip the rear shocks off the towers. The repair was $800us which he couldn't afford, so he zip tied the shocks back to the struts. He used close to 100 ties all around. Car actually drives fine, but I wouldn't drive in it.

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DaveFJ - 16/6/05 at 02:35 PM

reminds me of when we used to 'lower' cars by sticking a couple of large J bolts down through the tower and clamping up the springs - alternatively we put big jubilee clips over a few winds and clamped them down....

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steve_gus - 16/6/05 at 10:19 PM

i had from new a rover 600, a metro, and a montego, never had a problem with them.

a year old 800 was a bit of a duffer at times, but still a nice car, and our 3 year old maestro served well for 3 years and was regularly seen in our district for a further 10 years.

atb

steve

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JoelP - 16/6/05 at 10:23 PM

my old 800 was a great car... was thinking about it just today, as i trudged along at 80 in the ax, the vitesse did 130 down the same piece of road! big too. Might get one to work in

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