I may be out of date but as far as I am aware the only time it is legal to drive a car on the road without a current MOT is to a garage for a pre booked MOT test. Further to that I am pretty sure it has to be the nearest garage from where you set off from and not the nearest garage to your home. If it fails on a serious issue it is not legal to drive it on the road thus your only option would be to either dump it at the garage, allow them to fix it or get a transporter to take it to your preferred location.

It could easilly turn into a money pit.

Plus you have not given any info about your DIY ability.

No you are right about the mot, it has to be pre booked and local. My mechanical knowledge is very limited it will be a project for me, and I will have to seek advice on most of it. In short I would not call myself a mechanic, at all.

You don't have to call yourself a mechanic. You just have to fix stuff.

I'd think that car will be well documented and still have reasonable spares availability, but it might be worth checking the latter point with perhaps a few sample parts or a query on a user group.

If this is OK, inspection can focus on rust, a deal breaker unless you fancy getting into welding, which is an option but a rather intimidating lone.

Rust is mostly diagnosable with a thorough physical inspection, without special skills or tools.

Re getting the seller to MOT it, seems a stretch to me on a 150 quid (max) car. I've tried that on (with a vehicle I thought was overpriced anyway), and been told to take a walk, which I did.

I'd guess the seller might be more willing for you to MOT it yourself, at your expense, IF its drivable or can be made so fairly easily.

Most likely problem is a dead battery. If it won't hold a charge and you cant borrow one, are you going to buy a new battery for a car you dont own?

(I suppose one of those pocket power pack things might be a contemprary solution to this dilemma, though I've no experience with them)

Personally I'd probably buy or not based on my own inspection, and then hopefully sort out an MOT later after some fettling, but a pre-purchase MOT would be nice to have if you can swing it.

Edited by edlithgow on 01/03/2020 at 02:48

Thank you, if I decide to go for it I think I will need it, for me it is a learning tool the idea being that it is old enough to be mechanical and not computerised, and if I can learn to do it up then I can also learn to keep it on the road without using garages.

https://www.gov.uk/topic/mot/get-check-mot

I used this to check the mot history, and the only reason it is neither taxed or mot is that the owner lives abroad mostly and does not use it.

It’s worth scrap value, £30 no more. It might be viable but without a good look over on a ramp or an Mot test you’ll never know, equally it could be a total rot bucket and thus the reason for selling with no Mot.

That's the market, but scrap value, pretty much by definition, is exclusively determined by the trade.

This is a private sale, so the price gets a bit more personal.

I'd think its seldom possible, pretty much by definition, to buy a car that's worth nothing, for what its worth.

If the seller wanted to sell it for scrap they'd scrap it and save themselves some agro, so I'd bet money you aren't getting it for scrap price.

I paid the equivalent of about 300 quid (15 thousand NT, now about 400 quid thanks to the Brexit Bonanza) for my Skywing about 8 years ago. Since I was quite probably the only person in Taiwan who would have bought it, it was also worth scrap, but I couldn't get the seller to go lower and was embarrassing myself trying.

I beat myself up about that for a while, but I dont any more.The cars still going, and its still worth scrap value.

This sounds like an opportunity, with rather little to lose and potentially much to gain. You should check it out, and not worry too much about market value.

The Market is A Mor0n.

Edited by edlithgow on 01/03/2020 at 02:13

The car is on private land where the public do not ordinarily have access so no need for insurance until I actually take it off land and onto public road. This is partly why I was thinking about it, because I can jack it up and do it in my own time.

It has not be sorn off road but that is something I will have to look into further because I do not want to get into trouble for it not being taxed for the last 18 mths.

If I ask him to put it in for an mot check I doubt he will accept 50 quid for it, and I accept it is a gamble, especially for me with so little mechanical knowledge, they do a basic mechanics course at college which if I do this car I will have to look into.

The guy said his parents can come to the car and see if they can jump start it, he did mention the brakes will have to be given a good knock as they have not been used since it has been parked,

I am really not into scrapping the car if I do this it will be to run the car until it can no longer be fixed, or part exchange if I get some money behind me, as some adverts claim to give a minimum of £ 1'000 part exchange for a vehicle in any condition. ( I do not know if these claims are real or not )

THANK YOU for your input so far, it is all helping.

At a price point of £150 there is hardly any point negotiating as that amount will probably be much less than the cost of reinstatement, and haggling about the cost of half a tank of fuel is a bit embarrassing.

That'd be my feeling, though I'm not much of a negotiator anyway, and have lost some apparently very good deals (including a Mini Marcos, SHOOT ME) by price dickering .

If you feel obliged, if, on your own inspection it looks OK, you could maybe try 100 quid as seen.

If you fiddle around getting an MOT and it doesn't fail horribly then full asking price (assuming that doesn't go up) would probably be indicated.

This assumes the paperwork is OK, There's that SORN thing to check out...

Edited by edlithgow on 01/03/2020 at 21:53

I have a 2003 Yaris. And my son had a 2001 one.

Beware of:

Rust in the petrol filler pipe (filler cap to tank) under the wheelarch. Smell of petrol, very dangerous and parts are £100plus...Known issue .

RUST in the rear sills where they meet the rear wheelarch.. both in the wheelarch section and the vertical sill where it attaches to the floor..It is a KNOWN weakness.

Rust everywhere round rear crossmember of suspension.

Timing chains wear with poor maintenance. Rattling on start up. £200 parts PLUS a real PIA of a job . You need a breaker bar/air tool for the crankshaft nut..

The catalyst and sneors are prone to fail with age. £100 -£150 for a non Toyota cat + sensors are not cheap.

Front anti roll bar drop link bushes.. a MOT fail £20 a side for Genuine parts (cheapo parts do not last)

Radiators corrode through - check for missing fins £100 for pattern part.

The exhaust sytem rusts around teh rear wheel arch. front catalyst etc. £150 plus..

Front and rear suspension arm bushes will be bulging and if worn MOT fail.. crowbar to test job...

These are tough cars but neglect and 20 years wreak havoc...

You need to go into these with eyes wide open. If not knwledgeable about cars find someone who is..

A well maintained one will not have most of teh above faults.. A neglected one could have them all.

Unless well looked after, I would run away..

(I am at present in the course of stripping surface rust around rear verticla inside sills and repainting... our 2003 one which has been garged and loved (!!) all its life)

Edited by madf on 02/03/2020 at 13:52