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Car mistakes?

Actually I've been lucky with cars over the years. A few fords and VWs. 4 Skodas and a current W212 estate. All very reliable, but none of them supercars to be fair (the Merc is a lovely place to sit despite not being an especially fast car).

All except that diesel Previa!
 
Had a mint Alfa 75 turbo Italian import that was rear ended at 70mph whilst I was stationary in motorway roadworks by a dozy bint applying make up, she ended up in what was left of my back seat. Needed a car quick so I replaced it with a Volvo S70 turbo which was soul destroying to drive, fairly ok in a straight line on the motorway but for anything else I hated it, lasted 5 weeks before I moved it on to buy a mint mk2 scirocco on twin Webber’s (so much fun) which lasted 3years before hitting a shitload of gravel dumped from a faulty farmers trailer.

So Volvo S70t, shit car.
 
My biggest mistake is that I keep buying cars that get by on grip instead of handling.
 
Mistakes? GF of many years & I selling the little C-reg 'breadvan' VW Polo, all raging 1litre / 45hp of it.

That thing was... just bloody marvelous in all weathers, for all purposes, for many years.

Bought for under900quid, we might have lumped 100Kmiles onto it, and it still used no oil/returned well over 40mpg however hard you drove it. Lively, unassisted, very direct steering/ controls meant you could punt it around the lanes and enjoy the experience! Light weight - sub /c.850kg ish iirc - but massive ground clearance, soft springs and and skinny tyres made it brilliant over even broken roads - and splendidly sure-footed in winter months (tbh - might be the best car I've ever driven in deep snow and icy weather.) Consumables,replacement parts - so cheap and easy to replace! A heater that would cook a chicken, and for a small car - so much space inside. I actually took the cyl head off at 160k purely out of interest and the cylinder-hone crosshatch looked like new; sewed it up, and went to Edinburgh and back several times thereafter.

A very, very basic car - but a brilliant one. Should have kept it...
 
Car mistakes? Too many to list party.


Mini R55 JCW - oh boy. The PSA N14 engine is fragile. Currently has 53K on the clock and has had the following replaced - Cam chain and tensioner, high pressure fuel pump, clutch, most of the cooling system including pump, thermostat & hoses + a whole heap of other parts I've forgotten about. That said I love it.


The N14 engines are notorious for coking up. At some point it will need a de coke.
 
Not buying a Porsche 997 GT3 18 months ago...pre Covid

Not buying a 993 in 2001 for less than £30000. Oh, the insurance was so expensive, I thought. Bought a Toyota MR2 instead, very nice car, but it didn't hold up as well in the value stakes.

I've had 26 cars, at least half of them was, with hindsight, clear mistakes. The most obvious:
- 1973 Opel Ascona. Everything broke.
- 1994 Opel 900. Ok, the seats where good, but still worse than older proper SAAB's.
- Trading a near new 1996 Merc C class for another near new 1996 Merc C class. What did I think?
- 2006 Beemer 335i. B O R I N G. Lot's of horsepower didn't help that.
 
Had a mint Alfa 75 turbo Italian import that was rear ended at 70mph whilst I was stationary in motorway roadworks by a dozy bint applying make up, she ended up in what was left of my back seat…
I’ve been shunted at low speed when stationary sitting in a Merc C200 and whilst there was merely a scuff mark on the rear bumper I felt the whip through the neck. I can’t envisage it at 70mph where you both walk away without serious injury, leaving aside the Italian cheese.
 
Not quite - Reliant Regal, two Robins and a Rialto! :)

They were bizarre fun basic transport as a daily alternative to fast motorcycles. Reliable too.
Yes, I got mine as an alternative to a bike and arriving already cold and wet to day labouring on a building site.
 
I don't think I've ever owned a truly terrible car, I'm fortunate that I have no other need from one other than for it to be fun or fast.

So I'd say 98% of them have been a right laugh one way or the other.
 
Car mistakes? Too many to list but heres a few.

MG Metro - my 2nd car, purchased with 11K on the clock. Borrowed by some low life who left the steering lock on the floor & most of the front tyres on the tarmac behind Milton Keynes train station car park. Can't remember how many head gaskets and gearbox main shaft bearings that thing got through.

Nova SR - brilliant little car. With the addition of Astra GTE 16V brakes it would actually stop.

Astra GTE MK1 16v Turbo. Technically my brothers car. Broke everything. Gearboxes, driveshafts....nothing lasted very long.

Audi Quattro's / Audi S2 - wish I'd kept the S2. Loved that car. Brakes were appalling (common theme here) however a set of 996 calipers and S8 discs sorted that out.

Audi A6 2.5TDI Quattro Sport Avant - spoiled by Audi making the cam shafts from Cadburys finest. 1st thing I knew about it was when it dropped a cam follower out on the M25. All 4 cams were so badly worn more could have escaped at any time.

Audi A6 3.0 TDI - all 6 injectors failed with less than 90K on the clocks. That will be 2 grand please....final straw came when 3rd gear syncro got its coats and left the party.

Audi A3 2.0 TDI - pile of steaming &*^!. As good as the 1.9TDI red eye it replaced was it wasn't. Part ex'ed for new gen Mini Clubman & have have never looked back. It would take alot to get me back behind the wheel of an Audi now.

Audi S4 V8 - lunched its timing chains twice (2nd set requried because a bolt was cross threaded during the 1st replacement, unfortunately for me too late to claim on the warranty). There are 4 timing chains and it's an engine out job as Audi fitted them to the back. Sounded glorious with the non resonated Miltek exhausts.

Mini R55 JCW - oh boy. The PSA N14 engine is fragile. Currently has 53K on the clock and has had the following replaced - Cam chain and tensioner, high pressure fuel pump, clutch, most of the cooling system including pump, thermostat & hoses + a whole heap of other parts I've forgotten about. That said I love it.

Well, compared to that my bad cars only had very small knotty problems.
 
I think my biggest car mistake was, over the years putting up too many miles on the one (usually quite nice) car I would have, and enjoy at the time.

I now have an old diesel Golf for work and any running around I need to do, and keep my 5 Series M-Sport for the weekend when I love to use it.

If I ever win the lotto the BMW will become the runabout and I’ll keep my Porsche 911 Turbo S for the weekends:)
 
I wouldn’t say it was a mistake, but my Polo (0-60 in 19 seconds, according to the manual) was quite a handful on country roads. Steering by telegram or something.

My late father had one. In addition to the things you describe, the brakes were none existent until your foot was on the ground. It would have stopped more quickly if you had thrown an anchor out of the window.
 
I probably have more regrets about cars that I didn't buy. Then again I was doing other stuff in my life then, so a spe cial car wouldn't have been ideal.

I tried the classic car as daily runabout route. Not very good. Spitfire Mk4.

A Caterham 7 cured me of performance cars. After that, anything else is just transport.
 
One of my biggest mistakes was scrapping my HB Viva because I just didn't have the time or the space to do the welding repairs to the front footwells.
 
Astra GTE MK1 16v Turbo. Technically my brothers car. Broke everything. Gearboxes, driveshafts....nothing lasted very long.

Turbo, Aftermarket?

I used to lust after one, in white, my dream car as a young teen.

(Oh, and son has his eye on a Mini JCW, test drove a 2017 one, nice!).
 
I sold a Mk1 Ford Escort Mexico for £300

I Sold a Mitsubishi Starion 2.6 Widebody from last year of manufacture for £1200

Do I win?
 
MG Metro - my 2nd car,

had one of those as my 4th car (possibly 5th), enjoyed it for a couple of years. It was nicked from outside my house, never the same. Few months latter it was rear ended at traffic lights, and scrapped
 


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