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PRI-DAH!

Where the lost, lonely and mentally ill can now be found chatting about MISERABLE motor vehicles. No O/T posts.

PRI-DAH!

Postby xedos » Fri Sep 04, 2015 9:47 pm

Last summer I was covering about 450 miles a week in a 250k Eunos. I was enjoying it, but it appeared to others to be silly, and it was getting a little frilly.Image

Plan A: Replace rotten MX5/Eunos with something which can tick both 'fun' and 'practical' but is still . Plan A was enacted last September and I was happy resigned to driving this everyday.
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Since April I've been commuting to Newcastle instead of Stockton, which means crossing a couple of valleys, mostly in 30 limits. Surprisingly enough, where my Impreza excelled at three-lane A roads in the early morning, it's starting to become a little tiresome crawling up Whickham bank and still getting through a tank of fuel just on the commute even though it's only covering 2/3rds of the distance. SWMBO threw out £1800 in fuel receipts that I was putting off figuring out the consumption from. Clearly, a plan B was required.

Plan B involved a small car which can be used mostly just for getting to Newcastle and back, leaving the pretzel for long journeys, camping holidays and wintery weather. SWMBO has a 1.0 K11C, which has dull steering and is slow, but fabulously economical.

What I really wanted was a bubble shape Rover 220 diesel. I idly gazed at an alternately coloured forum, where members have been providing an opportunity to lose money on the lottery without any going to charity, on the 1/49 chance you have to drive some old car home afterwards. I failed to win a Peugeot 305 or an R8 214.

Having decided I needed to actually buy a car, I thought I may as well buy one sight unseen from a shit description and a shit picture.
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Still, at least it was only 230 miles away. PART TWO IMMINENT.
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Re: PRI-DAH!

Postby xedos » Fri Sep 04, 2015 10:44 pm

I had already booked a couple of days off work in order to go and visit SWMBO's grandparent, and Ludlow was nearly Coventry, so I agreed to go and have a look buy it without considering if it really worked or if I should haggle. It was less expensive than SWMBO's SPC, so it was bound to be fine.

Thursday: Drove to Coventry, visit relative-in-law. Onwards to almost-Wales, complete with full-on sudden onset male-making-a-big-deal-of-it cold symptoms.
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That was as good as the weather got, but it was a really nice spot and looks to be worth spending some time round there.

Friday: Visited Ludlow itself, which is a nice little place where the charity shops sell nice things without marking them up to nearly-new prices. There's even somewhere you can buy decent tea and coffee which isn't Pumphreys. Moved on to the seller, who was a nice enough chap. Usual half-read 'service history' which missed out more than half the miles, interesting concept of 'nearly no rust', a starter that wasn't engaging properly, a blowing exhaust and some marker on the door which read 'slut'. The indicator stalk was on the right hand side of the steering wheel though, so there was no way I was walking away. At least we didn't have far to go back home.

Insured and taxed it (with my insurer kindly 'finding' 4 years NCB I had from the 323F) and agreed over IRC that we'd go and get 'lunch' in Nuneaton with friends. Since we were travelling in convoy, I just grabbed my sunglasses, and followed SWMBO uneventfully to Nuneaton, where gallondrunk (is he on here?) volunteered to be the first passenger (complete with 'slut' door label) for a trip to buy some supermarket pizza.

Of course, the idea of nursing a car home before taking a proper look at it gets thrown out of the window when you have a tall passenger you rarely see in a small car, so I hurled it round a roundabout as fast as I dared. This was apparently too fast, since there was a sudden noise of air escaping on the nearside. I limped carefully into the supermarket carpark, and examined the deflating tyre. This was to be my first flat tyre in 13 years. Retrieved the ancient looking spare and jack from the boot, and checked the manual to see that helpfully the toolkit should have been next to the jack. This combined with my 'car collection toolkit being in the micra meaning there was nothing to take the wheel nuts off with. Even a walk into town and a 'universal' telescopic wheel nut wrench left us looking at 14mm nuts with a choice of 17 and 19mm sockets. Eventually, we managed to get through to SWMBO who arrived a few minutes later with a socket set, and we discovered the tyre had gained an unwanted screw.

The journey back isn't worth mentioning except to say that 6 1/2 hours from Nuneaton to Durham without breaking down was pretty unpleasant, since every time the A1/M1 looked to have cleared, it was just waiting for the next half hour queue to get past another accident.

Since getting it home I've changed the oil, filter, air filter, sparkplugs, and had some part worns fitted. Ashamed to say that's also the first time I've ever changed oil myself..

Anyway, some pictures are needed here probably.
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Practical
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LUXURY
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STYLE
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CUTE
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I BETTER NOT BE IN THAT PICTURE ON THE INTERNET
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Re: PRI-DAH!

Postby I.K.Brunel » Fri Sep 04, 2015 11:02 pm

Delightfully repulsive.

Looks like the sort of basic but willing crud that I would be pleased to see pulling up on my driveway (to deliver my Curry).
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Re: PRI-DAH!

Postby Ozzy Mandeus » Fri Sep 04, 2015 11:10 pm

I BETTER NOT BE IN THAT PICTURE ON THE INTERNET

Hmm, I hear that a LOT.

Kia looks ok in pictures, doesn't it?
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Re: PRI-DAH!

Postby xedos » Fri Sep 04, 2015 11:13 pm

Better than the view from underneth, certainly..
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Re: PRI-DAH!

Postby I.K.Brunel » Fri Sep 04, 2015 11:37 pm

Particularly enjoying the rubber-grommit-wiper-delete option on the stern view.
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Re: PRI-DAH!

Postby tone_depear » Sat Sep 05, 2015 8:18 pm

Brillyunt. Best colour as well. Good work. :D
http://mingebagcitroens.blogspot.co.uk/ - my shit cars, 1998-present.

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Re: PRI-DAH!

Postby Seth » Mon Sep 07, 2015 9:27 pm

6 1/2 hours from Nuneaton to Durham without breaking down was pretty unpleasant


I am trying to decide if that means that you'd be happy with 6 1/2 hours if it included a breakdown or if it was unpleasant that you didn't break down at all regardless of the time involved and you'd have preferred to be stranded somewhere for a while.
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Re: PRI-DAH!

Postby tone_depear » Tue Sep 08, 2015 8:37 am

if that campsite is somewhere near the outskirts of that Ludlow, I think I may have stayed there about 4 years ago.

ImageIMAG0898 by Tony Lloyd, on Flickr

ImageIMAG0910 by Tony Lloyd, on Flickr

I realise it hardly narrows it down, but the lavs were a wooden shack of the lowest order.
http://mingebagcitroens.blogspot.co.uk/ - my shit cars, 1998-present.

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Re: PRI-DAH!

Postby xedos » Tue Sep 08, 2015 5:56 pm

Fair point Seth! an extra three hours on that journey was unwelcome, so while I'm pleased that I didn't have any mechanical complications, it was nonetheless more of a faff than it should have been.

KIA PROGRESS: None. Bit rubbish, really.

Tone: http://monstayfarm.co.uk NEW WASHROOM FACILITIES FOR 2015. Half of which were broken, but it was still a pleasant enough place to pitch. Low order wooden shack still present..
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