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Car trouble - your advice please!

Halo

Halo

New Member
Today my car failed its MOT. :( To put things right is going to cost over £500, which is probably the value of the car! The car is a 1991 Rover Metro 1.4, which I quite like driving. The thing is, I just don't know whether to pay for the repairs, or get rid of the car and buy another for around £500. :confused:

For keeping it: the car is reliable and a nice runner. Plus it has a good CD player! It's my first car and I've got rather attached to it really.

Against keeping it: £500 of repairs!! :eek: (Mostly welding to the underneath). Plus it has a manual choke which is slightly annoying, and can be a sod to get into first gear.

Anyway, I really don't know what to do for the best. If I got it repaired, would I be throwing good money after bad? Or would it give me many happy years of motoring once it's sorted? I'd value your opinions. :)
 
:( Sorry Halo, In my seriously humble opinion, it sounds to me like the car has to go. £500 of repairs on a '91 metro? It's probably only worth half that given the amount of welding it clearly needs - it must be falling to pieces, or will be soon. And what's wrong with your gearbox? May last forever, may not.

:)If you like Metros you can probably find a nice tidy one that some little old lady has been using for biweekly trips to the hair salon. It will be in better nick, and you can always keep your CD player.

eg (NB; This is the first one I looked at, and not a recommendation!)

Rover Metro
£595
Location: Hull, North Humberside

ROVER METRO M reg, 1 years mot, tax until Aug '04, g.cond, low tax, genuine low mileage 45,000, cheap reliable car, 1 previous owner £595 o.n.o. Market Weighton 01430 872910 Telephone: 01430 872910
 
You reach a point with cars when it's time to say goodbye, and when they're failing their MOTs in most expensive ways then I think that time has come. It'll cost you £500 to fix it this time, how much next year? It's not a car anymore, it's a money pit.

It's time to change your sig and start passing round the collection plate.
 
Halo said:
Today my car failed its MOT. :( To put things right is going to cost over £500, which is probably the value of the car! The car is a 1991 Rover Metro 1.4, which I quite like driving. The thing is, I just don't know whether to pay for the repairs, or get rid of the car and buy another for around £500. :confused:

For keeping it: the car is reliable and a nice runner. Plus it has a good CD player! It's my first car and I've got rather attached to it really.

Against keeping it: £500 of repairs!! :eek: (Mostly welding to the underneath). Plus it has a manual choke which is slightly annoying, and can be a sod to get into first gear.

Anyway, I really don't know what to do for the best. If I got it repaired, would I be throwing good money after bad? Or would it give me many happy years of motoring once it's sorted? I'd value your opinions. :)
Click to expand...
Drive with a push bike instead! Its more healthy! :D
 
Thanks for the opinions guys, keep them coming, I'm still weighing up the pros and cons... A special big thanks to Neil for taking the trouble to find some local cars for sale for me - Thanks! :)
 
Halo,
I'm afraid that I can't be of much practical help (I've no idea what a Metro is, or how much 500 pounds amounts to in US $), but I, just this month, had to junk my Ford pick-up for similar reasons (a burned up clutch and/or transmission). I could have had it fixed for $600 +/-, but it had 300,000 miles on it. My mechanic basically said much the same things you've read above (i.e. that other things were also going to start breaking), and that it was time to let go.
 
Halo said:
Today my car failed its MOT. :( To put things right is going to cost over £500, which is probably the value of the car! The car is a 1991 Rover Metro 1.4, which I quite like driving. The thing is, I just don't know whether to pay for the repairs, or get rid of the car and buy another for around £500. :confused:

For keeping it: the car is reliable and a nice runner. Plus it has a good CD player! It's my first car and I've got rather attached to it really.

Against keeping it: £500 of repairs!! :eek: (Mostly welding to the underneath). Plus it has a manual choke which is slightly annoying, and can be a sod to get into first gear.

Anyway, I really don't know what to do for the best. If I got it repaired, would I be throwing good money after bad? Or would it give me many happy years of motoring once it's sorted? I'd value your opinions. :)
Click to expand...

If you're REALLY sentimentally attatched to it, then spend the money, but write off that money. Guess it depends what kind of person you are.
You do realise that the RUST WILL come back, unless you do a bare-metal respray-(which is not advisable). Rovers are well known Rotters, I don't know why Italian cars have such a bad rep, Rovers are MUCH worse. Perhaps you could shop around in getting the work done, if you chose to go that route? If you did, use Waxoyl after treatment to delay the rust coming back.
However, to put it into another perspective, there are ALOT of REALLY cheap cars out there now. Outside Germany this country has ALOT of cheap not-too-old second hand cars out there (due mainly to the high population density and over supply of cars). A friend of mine recently bought a 1995 Rover 623i (reliable because it's bascially a Honda Accord) for £400!! The K-Series engine is reasonably OK, but not as reliable or cheap to run as German or Japanese engines.
When I was 17, against my late fathers wished I worked weekends and bought an ancient BMW ("MIB"), and I had to spent a little (not as much as £500 though), but after a while I became so Sentimentally attatched to the car- It ended up inspiring me. I rebuilt it from scratch and re engineered it. I've sience spent loads on it. We've since been in a few publications. Me and that BMW have been elevated into the world of partner-sidekicks
There's Kirk of Enterprise,
Blake and Liberator (from Blakes7 :p)
Michael And KITT And
Me and MIB :p
I STILL own that car 14 years later!
I drive new cars regularly, and they don't really interest me to own. I've even turned down owning company cars!

PS: I wouldn't touch a Mini, uncle was involved in designing and developing them and confirms they are an overated joke! Unreliable, noisy, bad ride, bouncy, over priced smelly :)
 
It'd better be.

And what do you mean overpriced, they practically give them away!

Cheers
 
I've seen 8 year old ones fetching 3-4 grand and not in that great condition. But they're overhyped by a similar brigade who promote MGBs and Triumphs, while VW Golfs and old BMWs are left to rot. I wouldn't mind so much if they weren't so "over hyped".
Old style beetles go for alot of money too, but in terms of what they were designed to do, Go on forever, cheaply, and economincally - they do extremely well, IMO.
 
Martin said:
You're probably right, man, but they're just so damn gorgeous!

Cheers, Martin
Click to expand...
They DO look cute, and to be fair, they've been around for so long, if you know what you're doing, you could probably make the car quite reliable.
The best advertisement for the old Mini IMO- is the NEW Mini, which I can't stand, I think the old Mini looks sensuous and wonderful compared to the new one!
 
Thanks funes and Marquis Rex for your input! :) Opinion definitely seems to be on the "get rid of it" side so far ...

Sorry Martin, but I don't like Minis! They are tinny little things, too rattly and close to the ground. Anyway, I seem to remember you slagging yours off on your blog recently(?) :D
 
Hey, hey, hey! No slagging was involved! There was a disagreement, but we talked about it, and we're okay now!

I love my car, and I still think it's the coolest vehicle ever!

Cheers
 
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