Buying a car

RaymondLin

Clutch bites low means good.

Majorscale said:

I wonder, is there really a perfect condition car with premium tyres and full service history for less than £2.5k within 15 miles of Swansea???  #findingunicorns #tryleasing

That’s what I said last week...

TTony

Emp_Fab said:

I've just texted the seller to say I'm concerned 

.... and we're back on ....

For a few hours, I thought this was all over!

RaymondLin

TTony said:

Emp_Fab said:

I've just texted the seller to say I'm concerned 

.... and we're back on ....

For a few hours, I thought this was all over!

The fat lady is not here yet.

TTony

Majorscale said:

I wonder, is there really a perfect condition car with premium tyres and full service history for less than £2.5k within 15 miles of Swansea???  #findingunicorns #tryleasing

Just found one!!

In 1965.

DiscoStu

RaymondLin said:

Clutch bites low means good.

Yeah, a high bite point may mean a fault whereas a low bite is ok but you may want it adjusting.
Don't make a low biting clutch another reason not to buy a car.

LordOxygen

If it pulled well in all gears and going up hill in a high gear the clutch will probably be ok, low biting point is unlikely to be an issue, new clutches are often low. High biting point is another matter.

Asking the garage to check is the right thing to do.

(Don't not buy a 10 yr old car thats otherwise good because the clutch doesnt feel right. You'll soon get used to it anyway.)

EricTheWeary

Got my Civic back from the dealer. Oddly enough the main reason I had to take it in was the air con not working. Maybe it’s a Civic thing. 

Revolting1

Clutch biting an inch from the floor is not ok

  If it will adjust its no problem.

   Dont know if the civic clutch pedal is sprung.

   If its sprung this may mask a master /slave or fluid issue.

  To check for these issues check fluid then pump clutch a lot,slowly then fast.

  If biting point rises it indicates master/slave or fluid issue.

   Master/ slaves are relatively innexpensive.

     I'd expect whoever drove the car to where it was photographed would have noticed the clutch was on the floor.

        Very tricky to diagnose a fault? from 140 miles away.

                 

                       Is this Clutchgate?        

LordOxygen

Revolting1 said:

Clutch biting an inch from the floor is not ok

  

I missed that detail, agree 1 inch off the bottom isn't right. 

TimmyO

What have you spent on public transport since this thread started? 

octatonic

TimmyO said:

digitalscream said:

For what it's worth, tonking around Autotrader because of this thread, I've discovered that a car I've always lusted after is now down to the kind of price I'd consider actually paying for a car.

That car is the Jag XK8. I remember my housemate's dad showing up while we were at uni in his beater BMW, giving it to said housemate and getting her to drive him into town with a briefcase full of cash and coming back with a brand new XK8, and it completely blew my mind at the time.

Looks like you can get fairly decent ones for about £3k. That's mental.

That makes me wonder what I could get an S Class for...

£1500 if you don't mind a 54 reg with 300k on the clock: 

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201907200273076

jaytmon

A couple of local two-wheeled options, keep things interesting:

Bandit 1250:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201907290561211

Versys 650:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201906068722232

octatonic

jaytmon said:

A couple of local two-wheeled options, keep things interesting:

Bandit 1250:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201907290561211

Versys 650:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201906068722232

or if he fancies another trip to Cornwall:

Honda C90: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201807118341421

TimmyO

this seemed relevant and entertaining 



8 hours and £250 :-)

Emp_Fab

I'm not going to use the clutch pedal position as a reason to not buy the car, but equally, if the clutch is on its last legs then an adjustment in price is in order, wouldn't you agree?  

He replied "I haven’t got any paperwork regarding the clutch I just know by experience I can almost guarantee that the clutch isn’t very old I’ll have a look later and check the fluids, my mechanic isn’t back from holiday till Thursday I think , but as I said it’s biting low because it’s not very old , also you have a 30 warranty as well so if anything was to go wrong  you would be covered"

I replied that, no disrespect but I've done several clutches myself (which I have) and MY experience says this needs investigating and I'm happy to wait until it has been.

I may be daft but I'm not stupid enough to hand over the remaining balance BEFORE I'm happy with the car!

I know it's another delay and a pain in the arse.  I thought I'd caught my final train on Friday.  However...  There is logic here...  He's having the AC regassed Monday.  His mechanic will check the clutch on Thursday or Friday.  If the AC is leaking, it will likely be crap again by Friday, meaning it's still his problem.

I'm not considering the 30 day warranty to mean much - the only warranty I really have is holding onto the cash until it's all sorted.

If the AC works ok and the clutch biting point moves off the floor, I'll pay him and we're done.  The problems start if his guy cannot adjust it out and he tries to feed me some BS about how that's normal for Civics etc etc...

If he can't get the clutch sorted to my satisfaction, then I'm assuming it's on its last legs and will want a reduction in price.

TimmyO

Emp_Fab said:

I'm not going to use the clutch pedal position as a reason to not buy the car, but equally, if the clutch is on its last legs then an adjustment in price is in order, wouldn't you agree?  

He replied "I haven’t got any paperwork regarding the clutch I just know by experience I can almost guarantee that the clutch isn’t very old I’ll have a look later and check the fluids, my mechanic isn’t back from holiday till Thursday I think , but as I said it’s biting low because it’s not very old , also you have a 30 warranty as well so if anything was to go wrong  you would be covered"

I replied that, no disrespect but I've done several clutches myself (which I have) and MY experience says this needs investigating and I'm happy to wait until it has been.

I may be daft but I'm not stupid enough to hand over the remaining balance BEFORE I'm happy with the car!

I know it's another delay and a pain in the arse.  I thought I'd caught my final train on Friday.  However...  There is logic here...  He's having the AC regassed Monday.  His mechanic will check the clutch on Thursday or Friday.  If the AC is leaking, it will likely be crap again by Friday, meaning it's still his problem.

I'm not considering the 30 day warranty to mean much - the only warranty I really have is holding onto the cash until it's all sorted.

If the AC works ok and the clutch biting point moves off the floor, I'll pay him and we're done.  The problems start if his guy cannot adjust it out and he tries to feed me some BS about how that's normal for Civics etc etc...

If he can't get the clutch sorted to my satisfaction, then I'm assuming it's on its last legs and will want a reduction in price.

unless someone buys it as it is in the meantime - in which case it's likely you've lost a good buy. 

I do think that unintentionally you keep readjusting your realisim-o-meter - every day there are people reliably driving to and fro in all manner of cars you'd have dismissed as completely unacceptable. 

octatonic

Good god man, do you know the line where a person goes from being 'a savvy purchaser making the most of his budget' to 'a pain in the ass who is just too much trouble'?

TTony

octatonic said:

Good god man, do you know the line where a person goes from being 'a savvy purchaser making the most of his budget' to 'a pain in the ass who is just too much trouble'?

Emp's  been close to that line a few times!

But generally he stays well on the side of pain in the ass.

digitalscream

Emp - it could be worth considering the experience my wife and I have had with cars.

She's had two cars which were less than 7 years old, both of which cost in excess of £7k. First was the Avensis, which practically rattled itself to death within two months of buying it. The second is her 308 eHDI, which has had endless engine faults, too many sensor issues to count, and is particularly poorly put-together. Both of these car purchases involved a month or two of thought and research.

In the middle, she had an old beater of a Megane, which was bought for £250 and had absolutely no problems whatsoever (once I'd fixed the central locking), which we bought from a Facebook ad the very day her Avensis went back.

For my cars...first was a 2003 MG ZR which occasionally tried to kill me with a fuel pump problem, but was otherwise rock solid. Then there was the 2001 Puma, which never missed a beat. And now I have the 2003 Celica, which (thus far) has proven to be exactly what it says on the tin and is still as good as the day it rolled off the production line. None of those involved any more than a week's browsing around, and the ZR was a complete impulse buy a month before I took my test after I won a few hundred quid at a poker game.

My point? If you over-think it to this level, there isn't a car on the planet that will fail to disappoint you. Unless the car's worth a significant proportion of your house's value, why bother? Tot up the time you've spent looking at cars, posting in this thread and then looking at cars some more - I'd be willing to bet that, at a normal hourly rate for an IT guy, you've already blown your budget in time alone.

Emp_Fab

So, correct me if I'm on the wrong track here, but I'm starting to detect the beginnings of a general vibe suggesting that I'm being a tad on the fussy side?