Would any practitioners of bangernomics mind giving me their current experiences of this choice of motoring.

I've done it in the past and am arguably still doing it, but I'm now thinking of chopping the car I have and going the strictly banger route.

What are you running, what did it cost, is it a nightmare, that kind of thing.

Cheers

JF

Rule no.1: NOTHING FRENCH OR ITALIAN

Diesel fiesta is a pretty good banger, bodies fall to bits and the eat front wishbones but apart from that they are bullet proof. My last one did 180,000 before the body finally fell to bits, the engine was transplanted and did another 20,000 before I wrapped the car round a tree!

If you want to be a bit more refined 1.25 zetec fiesta. They go ok for a small engine, handle well and are cheap road tax.

Older diesel VW's are also a good bet.

If you have absolutely no pride skoda felicia's cannot be given away and are pretty bullet proof. EXAMPLE

I've always run bangers, if you use them daily and avoid any kind of maintenance they seem to be reliable

Cheers
Davie

Certainly depends on one's particular circumstances. I don't need to drive every day (workshop is withing walking distance), but when I do I need to shift bulky stuff, and/or tow a trailer.

With this in mind I bought a 960 Volvo estate, M reg, 100,000 miles, 3 litre straight 6, RWD longitudinal engine with 9 months MOT for £575.

It only gets 5 miles to the litre when it's working, which is usually towing a trailer, but the amount I save on depreciation can pay for a f**k of a lot of fuel.

Personally I think unless a person has just got so much money that it doesn't matter, then buying a new or nearly new car is insane (unless they are doing a HUGE mileage, and a slight gain in fuel efficiency will pay for the depreciation)

John

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Originally posted by daviep
Rule no.1: NOTHING FRENCH OR ITALIAN

Diesel fiesta is a pretty good banger, bodies fall to bits and the eat front wishbones but apart from that they are bullet proof. My last one did 180,000 before the body finally fell to bits, the engine was transplanted and did another 20,000 before I wrapped the car round a tree!

If you want to be a bit more refined 1.25 zetec fiesta. They go ok for a small engine, handle well and are cheap road tax.

Older diesel VW's are also a good bet.

If you have absolutely no pride skoda felicia's cannot be given away and are pretty bullet proof. EXAMPLE

I've always run bangers, if you use them daily and avoid any kind of maintenance they seem to be reliable

Cheers
Davie

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It all depends on your definition of banger. To some any car older than a couple of years is a banger. The questions are these tho, what do you need the car for and how bothered are you on the amount of work you need to do.
In the past I have had cars that were say 5 years old then run them into the ground and then buy a new one. The older they get the more running maintenace yoou have to do, which is fine if you can do it and have access to cheap parts.

When I slipped the belt on my Alfa 147 I needed something to run around in for a few weeks while I fixed her up. I went to the auction and picked up a Cinquecento SX on an R with 50K on the clock and 11 months MOT for about £300. Needed a few little bits but nowt too drastic. Throttle position sensor, rear hub (threads stripped by dumb ass garage), new tyre. It probably owes me about £350, but I now use it for the daily commute 4 days a week into Leeds instead of the Alfa and it saves about £100 a month on juice so since August it's paid for itself.

Done a few long journeys, Leeds to Northamton and back in it and never skipped a beat.

Only issue is it's sooooo slow but keeps my licence safe I guess.

I run a fiat cinquecento sporting. Small, light, economical, handle well. Cost me £125 to buy. Looks good, and easy to work on and keep running. And rob bits off a punto from any scrap yard for repairs or upgrades.

I concur with the 90s Fiesta suggestion for cheap, basic motoring, although I'd go with a petrol one. Cheap parts and aside from the bodies, robust. If you can't be bothered with even pattern parts prices, any scrapyard will have one.

Not much good if you want something to tow a kit car though.

If you want something more entertaining, basic E30s can be good c. £500, but you have to find one that hasn't been chavved and has had at least the major bits of requisite maintenance (e.g water pump, thermo and belts on the sixes).

Late 80s/early 90s Saab 900 liftbacks are the most amazingly comfy bangers and you can even tow with them, but they're agricultural and they do break.

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Originally posted by zilspeed
Would any practitioners of bangernomics mind giving me their current experiences of this choice of motoring.

I've done it in the past and am arguably still doing it, but I'm now thinking of chopping the car I have and going the strictly banger route.

What are you running, what did it cost, is it a nightmare, that kind of thing.

Cheers

JF

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The £200 1.8 Sierra that I bought off of Bigwassa just over 2 years ago has just astounded me. I put the old tyres on it of my Granada donor when I bought the Sierra, I spent £18 on two exhaust sections, £50 on service items (including cambelt & water pump), last MOT it cost me 2 cable ties (to hold light reflectors onto broken ball studs), and this year it cost me nothing. Although if I keep it past this year I will have to weld a sill up and replace a suspected leaking wheel cylinder (slight rear brake imbalance in rollers).

Oh and I splashed out on £39 in Lydl's for a decent music box for the wife to listen to while driving.

bangernomics I know a few people who have been caught out bad, you have to make a shrewd purchase, and not start putting money into it. Obviously a low mileage grandpa car is the ideal one. Failing that, i did well for many years in 4 year old repmobiles from auctions, still new enough to be reliable but not much depreciation left to happen.

As mr henderson points out, you can take fuel costs into account. My new van ('04)worked out 7p a mile cheaper than the old one (2000), which at times would save me £35-£50 a week.

I only run bangers

I look for good bodywork with dead engines

I used to say never french but Peugeot's really take some beating.

My current car is 98 pug 406

I bought it with a snaped cam-belt. The owner had fitted 4 new tyres a month before hand and the belt had snaped within a mile of the petrol station having filled it to the brim plus 3 months T&T

Deal done £100

I bought another engine £75 plus a 200 mile round trip, in the back of the wifes escort.

Full service £100

I took the engine out one weekend and fitted the fresh one the next. Even the air con is fully working. It passed its mot a couple of months latter with just one advisory.

Its the best car ive owned. The newest car ive ever had was two years old and I used to hate parking it anyware.

That said I have picked up some lemons. I just sell them back on and explain the faults.

I am always looking for the next car so I have one in hand.

We bought a Kia Sportage last year when I was stuck for a car for running about and I had to go in hospital. It's only cost me an exhaust and oil change and is a good truck for carting stuff about plus it had a towbar for the trailer and trailer tent. The engine is 2ltr 16v Mazda based and is like a turbine it's so smooth and we like it.

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Originally posted by jollygreengiant
The £200 1.8 Sierra that I bought off of Bigwassa just over 2 years ago has just astounded me.

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volvo 940 turbo 1995 onwards , pick them up for around £4-500 .

pick a manual , pick a rare colour , and itll never depreciate .

citreon zx 1.9 deisel.

unstopable.

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Originally posted by Dangle_kt
citreon zx 1.9 deisel.

unstopable.

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~1990 mercedes 250d

like:
fleabay linkydinky

a bit more to buy but fairly cheap to run...

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Originally posted by Volvorsport
volvo 940 turbo 1995 onwards , pick them up for around £4-500 .

pick a manual , pick a rare colour , and itll never depreciate .

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Originally posted by mr henderson

quote:

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Originally posted by Volvorsport
volvo 940 turbo 1995 onwards , pick them up for around £4-500 .

pick a manual , pick a rare colour , and itll never depreciate .

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Mine's an automatic, wouldn't have bought it if it was a manual. Over the years I have found autos to be more reliable than manuals, althugh I buy them for the more pleasant driving experience

John

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Bangernomics is what I have been practicing since I learnt to drive
My approach is this - I try not to spend more than £200 a year on purchase , then as little as I can get away with on maintenance
My current tin-top cost £600 three years ago , and to be honest is about on its last legs - if it last this year I'll be dead chuffed ! (it is now 15 years old , with 127000 miles on whats left of it !)
The best car I owned was an Alfa 164 - 3 litre , all leather , for just £360 - sold that when the clutch and a head gasket went for £114 (back on ebay) two years later , and all it had in that time was brake pads

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Originally posted by clairetoo
Bangernomics is what I have been practicing since I learnt to drive
My approach is this - I try not to spend more than £200 a year on purchase , then as little as I can get away with on maintenance
My current tin-top cost £600 three years ago , and to be honest is about on its last legs - if it last this year I'll be dead chuffed ! (it is now 15 years old , with 127000 miles on whats left of it !)
The best car I owned was an Alfa 164 - 3 litre , all leather , for just £360 - sold that when the clutch and a head gasket went for £114 (back on ebay) two years later , and all it had in that time was brake pads

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Early Mondeo are cheap as chips and very reliable but they tend to rattle a bit from the suspension, also look out for the one pensioner owner low mileage old shape Rover 214 and 216 --- sometimes they can be found for 100 quid., Rover 600s are as reliable as hell but fuel and tyre consumption is reltively high. Good immaculate Rover 800s can also be found sub 300 quid but they tend to have electrical niggles.

Take a look at this
ebay item 230319213367

The price is too high it won't sell I would think 350 pounds would get it.

I've got 2 bangers -
1. sensible Mk3 Golf £600 that has been nothing but misery
2. silly Fiat X1/9 £450 that has been brilliant
It's probably one of those situations where you rely on luck rather than judgement - but if you are only spending a small amount of money why not try and have some fun getting someting you haven't tried before (and probably won't again).

My Citroen XM 2.1TD cost me £350 .I've had it for 11 years although it did cost me £40 the year before last to get it through an MOT . Had to fit a brand new second hand battery a few months ago as well

Have a look at the 2.3 turbo Saab 9000's. They can be picked up for a few hundred now and easily tuned with T5 Suite ECU software to 340 BHP or more. The engines are becoming very popular with BMW and rally Escort owners. I have a 9000 Anniversary currently running at about 280 BHP and 1.4 Bar of boost.

Saw a program t'other day with Quentin Wilson going over the case of two blokes one running a big 4X4 who in the end liked his car and would not change, but did admit to it being an eye opener, and another bloke who ran big old cars who it worked out that he was much cheaper buyiing a small new car, IIRC he took up the offer of the smaller car, I think that was more to do with fuel consumption rather than bangernomics though.

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Originally posted by paulbeyer
Have a look at the 2.3 turbo Saab 9000's. They can be picked up for a few hundred now and easily tuned with T5 Suite ECU software to 340 BHP or more. The engines are becoming very popular with BMW and rally Escort owners. I have a 9000 Anniversary currently running at about 280 BHP and 1.4 Bar of boost.

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Ive ran a rover 600 diesel for the last 5 years and spend next to nothing keeping it going.I intended to change it a couple of years back at Mot time but it passed again so just decided to keep running it .I changed the oil and filters this year the first time for 3 years and had to fit brake pads and a used driveshaft plus a new water pump so ended up spending a total of £100 to get it moted. .It does 45 to 50 mpg and starts first time even though it now has 230000 miles on the clock.
The worst bit is the body work is now starting to get rough around the edges and it is difficult to get a good match for the mettalic red that it is.
Paul

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Originally posted by locogeoff
Saw a program t'other day with Quentin Wilson

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yep i deffo practise bangernomics!

Have yet to spend more than £175 purchasing a car. Our current car is an audi 80 that i brought for £150 with intention to break and use the engine and gearbox in my saab.

Luckily I needed a car sharpish so put it through an mot where it needed new pads, wipers and a tyre plus some glue to put the mountings on one headlight back together.

Has not missed a beat since, only prob was ignition switch failed but luckily in the on position so got a bump start home and i had a spare switch as I had changed all the outer locks a month or two earlier due to having a break in.

Is a bit of a mystery car as it reeks of HC when its running but it gets good fuel consumption and the emissions are really low.

In the words of the MOT man, it passed emissions, I don't know how but it did.

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Originally posted by paulf
Ive ran a rover 600 diesel for the last 5 years and spend next to nothing keeping it going.I intended to change it a couple of years back at Mot time but it passed again so just decided to keep running it .I changed the oil and filters this year the first time for 3 years and had to fit brake pads and a used driveshaft plus a new water pump so ended up spending a total of £100 to get it moted. .It does 45 to 50 mpg and starts first time even though it now has 230000 miles on the clock.
The worst bit is the body work is now starting to get rough around the edges and it is difficult to get a good match for the mettalic red that it is.
Paul

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With SAAB always get an insurance quote before buying -- for some strange reason some insurance companies regard some fairly oridinary SAAB models as high risk.

Have practised bangernomics in the past (like over 20 years ago) - reckon the best was the Mk 3 2 litre GL Auto Crapi, sorry Capri in two tone dog doo doo

Bought for £200, new headlight (about £8), two years on the road and 40,000 miles. Sold for £190!

ATB

Simon