********Motors Chat - Round 8 ********

toastedpickles wrote: »

My old opel is gone off to get the following!

New timing belt/waterpump
New aux belt
New coil pack
Fuel pump, and a few other bits!

I test drove a 1.4 astra h 08 on Wednesday with 70k km and it was a rough car fairly genuine one owner but a fair few war wounds. In terms of driving they are nippy enough until you get to about 80kmh and then they die down a bit.

Salesman was like I know the body is slightly rough but the engine is perfect I said to him oh right why did it take 40 seconds for the low oil pressure light to go off when I started it :eek: he says they all do that ah no they don't all do that only the ones with worn out engines or some kind of issue preventing it from building oil pressure quickly.

Starting an engine and running it for that long with low oil pressure everytime it's cold makes me shiver.

Bpmull wrote: »

I test drove a 1.4 astra h 08 on Wednesday with 70k km and it was a rough car fairly genuine one owner but a fair few war wounds. In terms of driving they are nippy enough until you get to about 80kmh and then they die down a bit.

Salesman was like I know the body is slightly rough but the engine is perfect I said to him oh right why did it take 40 seconds for the low oil pressure light to go off when I started it :eek: he says they all do that ah no they don't all do that only the ones with worn out engines or some kind of issue preventing it from building oil pressure quickly.

Starting an engine and running it for that long with low oil pressure everytime it's cold makes me shiver.

My old one was a 01, and the body had seen better days, a few boardsies here remember it from the first meet i went to and the story behind it :pac:

Ahhhh memories

toastedpickles wrote: »

My old one was a 01, and the body had seen better days, a few boardsies here remember it from the first meet i went to and the story behind it :pac:

Ahhhh memories

My parents bought one brand new in 2000 a decent spec one too 1.4 silver in colour. They kept it 6 months :pac:

toastedpickles wrote: »

Why'd they get rid of it?

My dad hated it and my mother like it. But my dad said it was way to hard on petrol now that was more than likely just an excuse to get rid of it as you got decent mpg out of yours.

toastedpickles wrote: »

I'd a feeling that was it

I drove mine to each corner of the country and it was grand, my saab does similar mpg and i dont dawdle along either

With my dad it's all in the trill of the chase selling the old car finding and buying the replacement one. Once he actually has it the excitement quickly wears off. I'm quite the opposite really I hate trying to sell my car just the effort and trying to figure out if the buyer is genuine. Same with looking at relplacement cars my head quickly gets wrecked looking at cars and figuring if they are a good buy I always feel like I might miss something when checking them out or buy the wrong one. Ah it's life I suppose I enjoy owning driving and maintaining them though

mhackett102 wrote: »

Im thinking about going looking at a Renault Megane saloon 1.4 this weekend (06 - 09 model). Has a lot of extras, cheap enough tax and cheap insurance so its very attractive. Is there anything I should be looking out for or is there any common problems with them that I should be cautious about? I know that Renault werent the best of cars before, but they are after improving massively in recent years.

We had a 04 megane 1.5dci estate that everything was wrong with the biggest issue being electrics constant lights and sensor issues. We also had a 07 facelifted megane 1.5dci that I learned to drive in and it was a very reliable car never cause zero trouble and I was talking to the guy that bought it and he put 100k km on it and even at 250k km it wasn't causing trouble great car and I really liked it.

So based soley on that the facelift was a huge improvement on the early megane two 2003-2005. Sure like anything bring it for a good drive and see what you think you will probably get one cheaper than its rivals like a golf or focus that doesn't mean it's a bad car just not as popular. Granted my knowledge of their petrol engines is very limited although I know a few people that have 06-07 ones and never complain about them. Sure let us know how you get on test driving them are you looking at main dealers or small dealers or private ?

mhackett102 wrote: »

Just back from Kilkenny. The guy selling the Megane got called in to work and asked could I meet him after 7 but I said to him that I'd be back in Kilkenny during the week that i'll meet him if I were still interested.

Called into a few different garages around Kilkenny then, some of the main dealers recommended me to go to the garages which they trade-out their cars, but they had nothing that interested me.

Came back home, went to a garage about 2 miles from my house for diesel and they had an immaculate Ford Focus diesel in stock. Took it for a drive and was impressed. Hopefully the insurance quote will come back in my favour.

If it's 1.6 tdci mk2 Id be very weary of that focus I sunk some serious money into mine to keep it on the road for a year. I mean it would want to be reasonably low mileage, fsh, well mind and you would want to go over the engine very carefully. Id actually take the petrol megane over it I couldn't buy another 1.6tdci focus the night it left me stranded on the motorway for 5 hours was the night I burned my bridges with that car.

Anyway on another note I wouldn't get too obsessed with the kilkenny garage as we have one of the worst selection. After spending 2 days looking at cars and going to a good few main dealers in kilkenny most of what they have is crap secondhand wise. If you are near carlow Id certainly be talking a trip there.

In particular you have a row of garages on the hacketstown road 5 mins from carlow centre in that row you have dacia, renault, Citroen, jeep and there are others I'm forgetting all owned by the same guy and they are very sound to deal with my dad knows the owner well and a lot of the staff and they are very sound. Plus they would have a serious amount of secondhand cars carpark loads most not advertised. I mean you could give them a ring and see if they have anything either I was there on Wednesday and Thursday this week looking at cars for several hours both days and they never got sick of me just kept handing me keys and letting me work away. I would Imagine they would have a few petrol meganes 06-07 range.