Cheap run abouts ?? worth it ??

[Mick Annick]

That's over here with the crit air zones too. Cars with a higher crit air rating are starting to be banned in cities that are implementing low emission zones (mandated by central gov).
The double horns of the dilema for people is that the people looking for cheap cars with lower insurance ratings to insure them are students, who have to attend uni etc in places getting a low emission zone, so they have to go for cars with a lower crit air rating on a tiny budget which means older petrol cars with starship mileage on them which are fetching insane money because all the buyers are suddenly chasing whatever they can find with a low enough crit air rating, and newer diesel engined versions are miles cheaper as a result because diesel automatically gets a higher (worse) crit air rating for newer cars than old petrol ones. Note the fine is a few hundred euros, you cant just pay a higher tariff, its either compliant or it gets a fine if its caught in the zones.

You want practical examples? I'm off to look at a 2006 1.6 petrol peugeot 308 tomorrow for someone, its 2800e and it has 160,000 on the odometer, and that is considered cheap and there's a long queue of people behind the person I'm looking at it for ready to step in. If it runs and drives, he'll probably buy it regardless of what I turn up on it because he can fit a offical e85 ethanol kit on it (another 850e because it has to be registered to go on the v5...) and change it to crit air 1 rating which will be allowed in all the low emission zones. I looked at a 2005 fiesta 1.3 with 130k on it for 2000e in the week, and it had major hail damage to the bodywork along with scratches and scuffs, a flat tyre with a screw in it, the interior was shabby and the aircon etc didnt work but it drove ok once the spare was inflated and put on, and a friend was happy to pay that because it was cheap compared to what they had found in the previous few months.
We went looking for a 1.6 ecotec powered Astra G to replace my lad's one that he wrote off into a motorway barrier on monday, and the only one we could find for under 4000e had 230000 km on it, and when we went to check the vin as it didnt smell right, it was missing and the dataplates too, and there was evidence of the paint colour changing, and no engine numbers, this was on a motor traders lot! I've also look at a petrol 1.2 clio3 with 280,000km on it, and a 2006 c30 volvo with a 1.6 petrol donk in it with only 160,000km on it for 3k that sold to the person who got there ahead of me within within 2 hours of the advert going on. All people buying a cheap car seem to care about is its crit air rating, and the prices reflect that.

On the plus side, I bought a '97 Merc SLK convertible for my mrs because nobody wanted it as it cant be insured by a young driver, and it cant get a crit air sticker at all because its 6 months too old even though its euro3 which should be rated crit air 3, so it fell into the bargain priced bucket compared to worn out tired peugeots and clios. I'll tart it up and she'll drive it round rural areas enjoying life for a couple of years, then it'll make classic and the crit air scheme doesnt apply at all to them, no restrictions apart from you cant use it as a commuter. I'm keeping my eyes out for a bmw e36 to abuse as a beater in a similar manner...

You'd think it would be worth buying cars with no mot (CT) and fixing them up given the above. But you can only buy and sell a car with a mot with less than 6 months on it unless your a official motor trader. And you can only sell a car without that requirement to a motor trader or a scrapyard for disposal, no selling a car for parts to private buyers. Your not even allowed to strip parts off the car before scrapping it, it has to arrive whole with its engine etc in to be end of lifed. So no, the only people getting work off this are official motor traders.

Somewhere in London, there are politicians looking at this mess in France and wondering how they can engineer the same situation in the UK in future. Be on your toes.

It’s not all good wine and cheese over here!

 

[LewisT]

Used to browse the usual places for spares and repair vehicles usual problem was deluded sells wanting market price minus the parts cost needed to fix or seriously expensive repairs being passed off as cheap simple to fix, so mainly it was a price problem with no margin for profit.

 

[Cobbler]

I haven’t done car repairs for others for many years, but the problem I found was people would pay £50 or so to a garage without a murmur, but you try & get a tenner out of them & they would argue the toss “can’t see a tenner in that, it’s 5 minutes work” (prices subject to inflation, I did say it was a long time ago)

 

[Nomad]

Update on my project camper van from the 90s. Starting has never been a problem until yesterday, now it's not turning over on the key. It needs to be fixed asap as it is parked in the way. I've just pulled the starter motor out and spent a while investigating - it's goosed so that was a waste of time. Next stop my local scrapyard and hope they have something to suit (they have older bits but 30 year old semi-commercial Renault parts are not common). If they want less than £40 for an untested one I'll be pleasantly surprised.

It's a pre-engaged starter, the solenoid is engaging ok but not passing current to the starter motor - the solenoid can is a sealed unit so I can't open that up to clean the contacts inside. Cost = time & £££ so far with more to come.

Procedure for fitting as new starter: bolt engine & box together on the factory production line, bolt on the starter, fit the unit to the body (making sure the starter fits in the recesss in the bulkhead - beware it is a tight fit.) Add aircon / power steering / brake pipes anywhere you can - they will block access to the starter (and make it nearly impossible to slide a new starter motor into place in the future) but that's not your problem..

Summary: Working on cars & vans can be fun but today I'm not a happy teddy bear

 

[Climber]

As a hobby, it can work. If you are happy to make, say, up to around a grand a week, jobs a good 'un. If you want to use it to produce your main income, it's going to lose its appeal quickly. As soon as you become a 'dealer', warranties, VAT and income tax soon make it a waste of time. You might be happy with an extra 500 quid in your pocket as a hobby; as a business you'd be lucky to have 100 quid left by the time you put a warranty on it, and paid 40 % of your profit to the tax man.

 

[jmp49]

It’s not all good wine and cheese over here!

Yeah, the peugeot was a pile of crap too. It had a 2 day old mot (CT) but seller had removed the stereo between sending pictures and us viewing saying to me that my lad had said to take it out when my lad was out of earshot. A boot full of water, horrific condensation in the interior, and the little status screen saying fuel consumption and any errors being totally corrupt (nothing bad, just humidity he reckoned, no mate its fubar and needs changing which means the dash has to come out and it hides any diagnostic errors flagged) the worst thing was the brake lights seemed odd when we followed him back to base. On peugrots of that era the body control module has a computer and controls all the lights etc from a central board that quite often goes bad and its a bit of a faff to change in terms of coding irrc. And I'm pretty sure the seller was turning the lights off and on during the drive back to try to pretend it had brake lights etc. So dodgy mot, expensive crap, he just kept saying it was perfect, so did a walkround and half the lights didnt work and the brake light came on with tail lights, so I turned them on and got out the car and said to him "are the brake lights working now" and he said yes, and I said "but nobody is in the car, I'm stood next to you", and he knew the game was up, apologised for the state of the car and made a hasty exit in it. "Trade professional". 400km today wasted.
Of out at 6am to go look at a Astra H, fingers crossed its better. Or at least not dishonest.

 

[arther dailey]

As a hobby, it can work. If you are happy to make, say, up to around a grand a week, jobs a good 'un. If you want to use it to produce your main income, it's going to lose its appeal quickly. As soon as you become a 'dealer', warranties, VAT and income tax soon make it a waste of time. You might be happy with an extra 500 quid in your pocket as a hobby; as a business you'd be lucky to have 100 quid left by the time you put a warranty on it, and paid 40 % of your profit to the tax man.

a grand a week as hobby ? what planet do you live on

 

[bricol]

a grand a week as hobby ? what planet do you live on

One we're all moving to I think . . .

 

[Climber]

a grand a week as hobby ? what planet do you live on

*Figures for demonstration purposes only. Haha

 

[GRW]

Its never been easier to fix cars....diagnostic tells you whats broke and replace part,clear codes and go....Luckily still a dark art to most folk so bargings can be had if you can get there before the East Europeans to buy them...I myself is picking up a 07 vivaro with factory fitted rear seats and aircon,power windows, and mirrors tomorrow for £575 with an MOT ..diagnostics told me being a none starter is was the camshaft position sensor which is £23, i never told the seller what i knew. I plan to keep the van but i could bang it back out for £1750 no problem.

Mind if I ask what Diagnostic Module you use?
(My interest is more in plugging into our 3 older vehicles to look after them. 06 Fiesta 1.4 Diesel, 08 Renault Master 2.5CDTi, 11 Kia Rio 1.4 petrol... with a plan to keeping them all as long as possible).

 

[dieselsamurai]

My friend made a decent profit fixing up MGFs with blown headgaskets as its a weak point on those engines, the jobs a pig to do and puts most people off but he got used to it as once youve done a few the skin thickens on your knuckles. He did it all on his small front drive with just some basic tools and moved on to classic beetles , parts are still cheap and plentiful and they are very simple cars . As long as you have one with a decent shell everything else is bolt on

I suppose if you can find a niche problem that you can fix it can be profitable , another friend has a tablet he bought thar reads and resets error codes and its paid for itself many times over I think nowadays if you touch modern stuff regularly having one is almost essential

 

[Bornfree]

There's a breakers yard who have a Utube prescence and if you look at the cars that they crush you would wonder why until they tell you that it's nearly always due to a single expensive component that makes them unviable to repair. They say the average age of these scrapped cars is 10 years. I think they call it progress!

There's a scrap yard near one of our farms and the cars going in there on the back of trucks look perfect bodywork wise. One of the truck drivers told me that most are scrapped for electronic problems.

 

[Nomad]

My friend made a decent profit fixing up MGFs with blown headgaskets as its a weak point on those engines, the jobs a pig to do and puts most people off but he got used to it as once youve done a few the skin thickens on your knuckles. He did it all on his small front drive with just some basic tools and moved on to classic beetles , parts are still cheap and plentiful and they are very simple cars . As long as you have one with a decent shell everything else is bolt on

I suppose if you can find a niche problem that you can fix it can be profitable , another friend has a tablet he bought thar reads and resets error codes and its paid for itself many times over I think nowadays if you touch modern stuff regularly having one is almost essential

The K-series is a great motor but it takes somebody braver than me to take on one that has had headgasket or overheating problems in the past. Well done to your mate for finding a niche and making it work.

I was offered a clean 214 last year (K-series engine same as MGF), the radiator hose had burst and it overheated. I turned it down even tho' it was free. Our local garage said they fitted a scrapyard engine to the car 3 years ago so it could be sold, lass I knew bought it but knew nothing about the engine swap. The garage refused to look at it as they weren't confident a repair would last. The lass gave the car away as scrap.

Finding a source of sensibly priced Beetles (or any other classic) that don't need a months welding is a good trick, I wish I could do it more often. Most of my projects start with a few weeks / months welding the body before I even look at the mechanicals or cosmetics

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

Finding a niche I think is difficult these days...if you think of something just Google it and there will be dozens of videos explaining how it's done.

I think the days of the one guy who could fix a certain ford gearbox are long gone!

 

[Climber]

a grand a week as hobby ? what planet do you live on

Just to add, my use of the word hobby was largely influenced by my hatred for the term 'side hustle'. A good chunk of the enquiries I get through my website are from people wanting me to tell them how to scale their 'side hustle' into a business. It's at around a grand a week, that side hustles need to be thought of as a business, hence the example.

 

[dieselsamurai]

There is still money to be made but compared to 10 or 20 years ago its gotten much smaller in opportunity

When I was a kid in the 70s and early 80s my old man made a good living from car auctions and the exchange and mart etc at least 4 cars a week but those days are gone . Cash was king and you could have a deal , but not so easy now

easy to swap speedos from lower mileage cars etc not so easy now thank god but back in those days it was rife.....

 

[bricol]

The K-series is a great motor but it takes somebody braver than me to take on one that has had headgasket or overheating problems in the past. Well done to your mate for finding a niche and making it work.

I was offered a clean 214 last year (K-series engine same as MGF), the radiator hose had burst and it overheated. I turned it down even tho' it was free. Our local garage said they fitted a scrapyard engine to the car 3 years ago so it could be sold, lass I knew bought it but knew nothing about the engine swap. The garage refused to look at it as they weren't confident a repair would last. The lass gave the car away as scrap.

Finding a source of sensibly priced Beetles (or any other classic) that don't need a months welding is a good trick, I wish I could do it more often. Most of my projects start with a few weeks / months welding the body before I even look at the mechanicals or cosmetics

K-series issues fixed with metal dowels and modern head gaskets.
Liner protrusion is the thing – there is a minimum amount required to ensure the gasket survives
In the early days of the gasket failures ie when the first one got to 30,000 miles ish, a lot fo “experts” came up with lots of ideas that created even more issues – aftermarket “performance” cranks that didn’t even meet the loose production balancing criteria, welded up decks, total misunderstanding of steel liners in an ali block with elastomeric elements to the head gasket.
Probably more issues created when rebuilders put wayyyy too much of the wrong sealant on the cam and bearing ladders.

There can’t be many about now – I can’t remember the last time I saw a Rover car on the road, or K-series Freelanders. Last MGF I saw was facing the wrong way the other side of a bent set of chevrons in a gorse bush a couple of years ago. Back when they were everywhere, I reckon my local garage had a bloke doing them every day.

I did three in our cars as they reached the trigger mileage and then rebuilt a VVC and all liners were below what was required in protrusion – I simply linished the top of the block with a suitably flat lump and emery cloth until I had the required amount. Dropped the liners back in with suitable sealant. Self ported head, skimmed, valves and seats recut, VVC deleted,285 cams and it makes a tiny, tiny amount under 200bhp and has done for a decade and a lot more miles . . . in a half tonne car it gets thrashed due to the low gearing.

(As a student, I went round the Rover factory K-series assembly line as a couple of mates were working on a 3-cylinder version as a final year project and I blagged a trip with them. Then a few years after, I was involved in designing and making work wash plant for a Lancashire company producing the cranks for Rover - a few more years later, we rejigged it to clean Porsche cranks.)

 

[jmp49]

I prefer electronic issues over welding, but thats because its easier to fix them if you have the right diagnostic kit once you get your head around how the beebooping works. On clocking I know in the software I have, you can only move the odometer forward in the instrument cluster ecu to stop clocking and maybe that's a anti tamper feature in the firmware of the clock ecu computer too and I dont fancy bricking the clocks finding it, and its technically pointless now anyway since all mileages are recorded and available each mot, so if something suddenly sheds mileage between mot's, its easy to spot. But I have always wondered if you can set a cluster to 999,999 and then trigger it with a rpm signal for a km and see if it loops round to zero, or just stays at 999999 and one day curiosity will get the better of me.
If you pair a clock cluster to a different ecu (ie swap low mileage clocks into a car), they ask each other what the recorded mileage is, and just sync on the highest number during coding. But, then curiosity would also have to see how the ecu would react to this situation too


The Astra H came 200+ km home, load of issues discovered but seller really flexible on price, we'll fettle it the weekend once daughters car is out the way and I've done some little jobs on my mrs's clio ready for mot (CT).

 

[Climber]

There is still money to be made but compared to 10 or 20 years ago its gotten much smaller in opportunity

When I was a kid in the 70s and early 80s my old man made a good living from car auctions and the exchange and mart etc at least 4 cars a week but those days are gone . Cash was king and you could have a deal , but not so easy now

easy to swap speedos from lower mileage cars etc not so easy now thank god but back in those days it was rife.....

Opportunities are more plentiful than they have ever been. They are just different / more complex now.

 

[Robotstar5]

As a student, I went round the Rover factory K-series assembly line as a couple of mates were working on a 3-cylinder version as a final year project and I blagged a trip with them.

I was involved in the commissioning of the K series assembly line and the first few months of production. I think it was built by JB Automation in Coventry.