Hi all,
I've been reading here and absorbing lots of information with the odd post for a while now, but find myself needing to ask a question at last!
I need to buy a car for £100 or less. After purchase can spend some money (~£500) making basic repairs, getting it tax/mot/etc, but basically it needs to be a runner for £100. I can do basic repairs or part replacements myself but nothing too complicated. It then needs to be able to cover about 5k miles in 2 weeks, and preferably still be in one piece at the end. The more unusual the better, though it doesn't really matter - priority is function not style. Interior doesn't matter as can easily be rectified - a good engine and other key components are far more important.
(Must just clarify this is not to be my (or anyone else's) main car. I'm shortly to be the recipient of a company Focus Titanium 2.0tdci so this is strictly a hobby project!).
Having been watching things like ebay a lot over the last few weeks looking for this there seem to be many different options I could go for. Do any of you have any suggestions on what would be a good thing to get, or indeed what it is best to avoid? Been leaning towards old examples of BMW/Mercs as in theory will have good engines but I don't really know how accurate that perception is. Simpler cars (Ford etc) will be easier to maintain or repair.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions :-)
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Why on earth.....?????
I think you're doing this the wrong way round. You should be buying a car for £500 with an MOT and spending £100 on new wiper baldes and tyres.
Chances are the £500 car will have had a recent cambelt change (provided you buy one that has(!)), whereas £500 won't leave you any change after having the belt done.
Mk ii Golf. £150 for one with a fresh MOT; you might not enjoy the next 5,000 miles too much.
I take it you want to enjoy those miles, which suggests some sort of German or Japanese luxury barge to me. :
W123 or W124 Merc. What kills these is rust - and rust isn't going to stop your 5,000 mile expedition.
Audi 100 (A6 shape). (saloon for a couple of hundred quid)
Honda Accord.
And eBay is the place for you to buy it.
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Are you going on one of those 'banger around the world rally' type of things?
For £100, just get the most common car you can, doesn't have to be small, avoid unusual or rare ones with expensive parts.
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Best way to do it is look for something that nobody wants so its dirt cheap even if its a reasonable car -think Lada, FSO, old Hyundais, old Austins ie Allegro in a horrid colour such as beige, Skoda Estelle and maybe an early Seat Ibiza.
None of these cars are any fun, but they are utterly unwanted in the main so hard to shift and thus very cheap, even for a car in servicable condition. Id lean towards the Ladas myself as they are fairly tough and have an owners club who could be useful for finding a running car very cheaply - they found my a Samara 1.3 for less than 80 quid with T&T which was horrid to drive but quite sound really as a working car.
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Rover 800?...If you are doing one of these Plymouth - Dakar trips or similar you might even get some air con working with your £500 fix it budget..... which would be rather nice in the desert wouldn't it.
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www,freecycle.org
Sometimes there are cars with a few months MOtToffered here. You could ask for one.
However I do concurr with the other comments above.
If you bought it for £100 then unless its a restoration project, or a car worth a lot more then spending £500 is not necessarily a good move.
Better you buy it for £500 and spend the £100 doing immediate repairs (if they're needed).
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you are better off spending about £500 and get a good car rather than spending £100 and having to spend lots more unneccesarilly
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The difference in terms of work needed between a car of £100 and £500 is negligable and values at this end are dictated more by what car it is than their condition. A £500 VW Beetle will most likely be a shed whereas you may get a Fiesta in reasonable nick for the same money.
Not many £500 cars dont need imminent work doing so atleast if you buy a superficially reasonable car for £100, you have £400 to throw at it whereas you could easily buy a £500 car still needing £400 worth doing to it.
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Why suggest he spend £500 when he states it must be £100? Its only for 2 weeks, so OP, look to a Japanese banger, like a mid 80's Toyota Carina or Corolla, Nissan Sunny etc, you could get one with an MOT on ebay for £100 no probs.
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Two weeks use for GBP500? You might as well rent one and save any hassle. Otherwise you will just get a mechanical hobby.
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>>Why suggest he spend £500 when he states it must be £100?
Because he tells us he has £600 to spend and we think that he's doing it the wrong way round.
>>The difference in terms of work needed between a car of £100 and £500 is negligable
I would disagree very strongly. Many £100 cars have an expired MOT or a failed engine, sold as 'spares or repairs'. Who knows what 'pointless' work will be required. Once you reach £500, a healthy proportion of cars for sale have a decent MOT - or are reasonably young.
And anyway, a £100 car will still be a £100 car, even if you spend £500 on it (unless it's a non-runner). A £500 car will still be a £500 car, even with 5,000 more miles on it.
What we *really* need is for OP to come back and tell us what/why he wants to do this.
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Try your luck on Ebay - some shortish MoT'd vehicles go for under £100. Think unloved models/makes.
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Reckon this might just make under £100 - tinyurl.com/y9uqy5 but good enough for your needs once MoTd and serviced.
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A friend had a Toyota Tercel 4WD in Africa and loved it - tinyurl.com/y4nqa8 at £50 and finishing tonight. Taxed til the end of the month, MoT for 2 days and you'd re-MoT it for far less than £500.
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or a 106 diesel for £100 inc MoT for a dfew months :
www.volkszone.com/VZi/showthread.php?t=317150
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I recall an episode of Top Gear where they bought cars for £100...as I recall there was an Audi 80, Volvo 940(?) and a Rover 200...I think the Volvo won...
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Because it was Clarkson's.
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Clarkson bought the Volvo for £1. The explaination was that, provided the car was roadworthy, it made more sense for the garage that accepted it as a trade-in to sell it off for a nominal price than pay the cost of scrapping it.
Maybe a chat with the owner of a friendly local garage who has a few old but sound trade-ins to get rid of would yield similar results? Can't hurt to ask.
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I would go for the spend less on the car option.I bought a Sierra estate for £30 in 1999,6 weeks tax and test included.Previous owner was off on a round the world trip and was going to scrap it rather than pay tax to leave it parked in the street.It's needed a few quid spending on it since but I'm still driving it now.
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Sure spend less on the car; but don't buy a car that needs money spending on it. Once you start thta; there's no end to it.
In 1999, though, the value of scrap steel was so low that it was cheaper to put a car through an MOT than to scrap it... nowadays you'll be given some money for scrapping it.
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Well, around 12 months ago, I indeed managed to buy a runner for close to £100.
I managed to get a Nissan Primera 1.6L for the grand sum of £160 off ebay. It has 200k on the clock, had been a company car for the first 180k miles, and ran sweet as a nut.
The weekend after purchase, I drove it to Belgium and back, and it cruised amazingly well at 70mph.
7 weeks later I sold it for £30 back on ebay.
If you want to go for a banger for £100, I highly recommend getting a high mileage, fleet owned, Jap car.
Now you know where my forum name comes from...
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See the classified section - I'll let the 205 go for £100 for a charity run. LHD, superb mechanically.
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When I last looked at the requirements for the Dakar rally you were limited to £100 cost and max £15 for preparation. Spending £500 seems to me to be defeating the object of the exercise.
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