MOTO-SCAT

New addition to the fleet today! I'd been watching it on ebay all week and it didn't get a bid at £500 so on my way back from delivering a corsa we visited lovely* hartlepool to view this prime slab of mid '90s gallon guzzling luxury ford estate car. Two owners from new, 36,000 miles, no tax and a gearbox fault. First owner was a funeral director

So I looked, shook my head, poked and prodded and then offered £300 for it. Seller said yes, on the condition that I wasn't just going to engine rape it. I assured him that I wasn't (at least, not yet....) and put fifteen twenty spots in his 'AAAAND. It drives nicely, but can't decide what gear it wants to use. GR4 for smooth driving... I discovered it did better if you aren't gentle with it so rather quickly I was home to show Mrs M her new wheels.

Tomorrow, I get to discover what sort of world of pain I'm in. I've got a whole spare car, what could go wrong?

Looks like a good buy. I like the 'Serck-ish' number plate.

Can the speedo really affect the gearbox? I think these are one of the first cars with multiplex wiring so there might be something in it.

I always found these estates a bit confused styling wise. The all modern uggers front ends mixed up with the pleasant enough older back.

So if this is some rare specification old Ford it is bound to be worth £££ in the future. Like a V6 MkIV aircraft carrier is today. Aren't they?!

Yeah, speedo, gearbox, engine and a multitude of other things are connected by the big loom of DEATH. My initial suspicion is that the multiplug on top of the gearbox is the culprit.

Seth, it's still got the same back lights as a mk1 sierra estate, and the same windscreen as a mk3 granada. I'm also sure* it will be worth at least as much as a mk4 zephyr - they weigh about the same!

I never knew these shared the tail lights with early Sierras. I'm guessing that since the Granada/Scorpio estate was launched after the facelift Sierra, Ford couldn't just use the same lights for both models? I reckon these are smart lookers now that so much time has passed (even if they don't benefit* from the saloon rear styling), though the wheels and M registration all help add to the pleasantness too.

Ford did use the same tail lights... Mk2 sierra estates are the same at the back as the mk1, It's like they looked at the 1982 design for the sierra estate and thought "yeah, that's nice. We'll leave it like that for the next 15 years or so." The only difference is that the reversing lights moved to the tailgate on the granadas - the light holder is still there in the cluster but the lens is painted red.

Not that this is surprising, a mk2 escort estate is actually a whole mk1 escort estate with different wings and bonnet grafted on.

I have to go to work now because the curse of Ian Autofive has struck - seems this morning the car has no dash lights and won't start.

....because it has a flat battery!



Something the seller neglected to mention (of course) and it's also a bit on the small and weedy size for such a large/complicated car.



I had sort of wondered why the radio needs its code putting in and why the boot open warning light is on all the time even with the boot shut. Maybe (just maybe) its got a stuck courtesy light and a rubbish battery. Anyway, it started on a jump, multimeter says it's charging fine, I changed the battery anyway so it would move around without faff.



SWISH! Carphone is a motorola, I didn't check what model or anything though.



Reasonable underneath for a 18 year old ford. Gearbox wiring is unfortunatly buried behind lots of heat shielding and the exhausts. Gave up and came home instead of investigating (I may need it to run and drive tomorrow, so dismantling at 5 on a sunday is not a good idea) and did this



Ghetto solution to needing a big sim. I'll try it out in the morning.

Oh yeah, and this describes exactly what is going on. Four figure repair cost though? Do me a flavour!

We looked at getting one of these a couple of years ago for barging down the motorway in. Well specced up and good value for money, in my opinion, but the insurance was going to be absolutely ridiculous for some reason and broke the deal.

Ozzy Mandeus wrote:the same windscreen as a mk3 granada.

Should do; it's the same as the early bustle-back ones.