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Selling my car
Comments
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Many years ago British Leyland developed
“Lean burn “ for petrol cars. Went for approval in the EU. Got knocked back, because MB , BMW etc had Catalysts converter technology and wanted EPA approval in the US.Lean burn worked straight from start up as CAT C required to warm up before working. ( Remember the smell from some cars?).Average cold start EU is 0 degrees Average US ( California) temperature 5 degrees.So Lean Burn failed to become mainstream.Diesel Nox reduction required DEF (Ablue) and a Catalyst Converter, then Euro 6 required DPF . Which needs a drive cycle every couple of weeks to “regenerate and self clean the DPF“ add in supermarket fuel ( no additives pack)
to keep the price down and you have the recipe for disaster
Or do what a lot of the transport companies did fit cheat devices. ( VAG used software to detect emission tests and mapped out the ECU)0 -
Off topic but the repair stuff is interesting, am old and in our house growing up there were radios with a replaced volume control off another radio and a bag of spanners could fix anything on the Hillman Minx. Planned obsolesce is such a thing, and batteries have to be the biggest thing there. My phone is great apart from the battery, which of course can't be replaced....2
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Motorway have daily auctions. I got more than we buy any car offered
The employee at my local we buy any car was a crook. I won’t name where it was but the clue is a stone rolling.
he gave me the online valuation but when looking at the car, he said that the exhaust was damaged and there was something wrong with the transmission and that the l4 valuation has to be reduced to a l1 valuation, £4K lower. He then added that if I gave him cash, he could increase the valuation up to a l3.I told him that I would take it to the local garage to get the work done and would come back so that we could discuss the l4 valuation (knowing work didn’t need to be done). He followed me out of the hut and was apologising and asking me to go back in!0 -
Yes, I neglected to mention lazy engines. The motoring press a few years ago thought they knew what they were talking about when they suggested buyers went to the faster more economic versions and 1 litre engines which performed like 2 litre ones but they showed how little they actually knew. The best engines in terms of longevity are ones that are not overstretched/overheated. Maybe a bit boring but absolutely sensible.cafcnick1992 said:
You're right in that there is essentially a golden age between 1995-2008 where cars were very reliable and easy to fix. That timeframe coincided with the maturity of fuel injection engines and very limited emissions equipment.MuttleyCAFC said:My policy is to get a car then keep it for as long as possible, then when it starts to be less reliable buy a second hand nearly new one and part exchange the old one. I know this is not the best way but I don't want the hassle of selling privately. My brother tried to sell his with WBAC but they cut the quote they originally gave him through what he felt was unreasonable ultra fussiness and in his opinion wasted his time.
When you have your car, look after it as well as you can. Don#t miss oil changes and services. New cars worry me as I have been following the right to repair movement and buy my car with this on my mind. I think a lot of the eco stuff is the opposite in reality. How may cars built today will be viable in 8 to 10 years? Many new cars are like washing machines in the philosophy behind their design. If you want to keep your car for quite a few years you need to avoid cars like those with wet belts, those with unrepairable gearboxes that cost £5k to replace. If you have an electric car, it is the cost of replacing a battery when that runs out. Also bulb replacement that is linked to a computer and can cost hundreds of pounds and plastic engine parts that shouldn't be plastic. It is getting harder to find these cars and I am planning on keeping my current car longer as a result.
In these crazy times that is a consideration if you currently have a car that can be repaired at a reasonable price. These cars hold their value well. Right to repair is going to be a bigger and bigger thing and I hope that has a impact on the industry and changes the direction of manufacturers in future.
Post 2008, you started seeing DPFs stuck on diesels which were easily blocked if they didn't get hot enough or were poorly designed. AdBlue pumps stopped working, resulting in cars refusing to start themselves. Large lazy n/a engines were replaced with turbocharged engines which needed more frequent servicing to lubricate the turbo. Manfacturers started putting wet belts in cars to achieve minor efficiency gains to meet emission standards at a massive cost to long term durability. Direct injection was a similiar story which only resulted in carbon buildup.
Some manufacturers now won't let you use the ODB port unless you have a specific licence which costs £££.
The EU has brought in a law that all new phones must have user replaceable batteries by 2027. That is an example of right to repair in action and it is of course best for the environment.2 -
We Buy Any Car, don’t.0
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Ah. just an update. The dealer won't take it as it is just over 10 years. It is a Suki Alto, purchased in 2014. They suggested trying webuyanycar...0
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The problem, it seems to me here in France anyway, is that selling it directly yourself has got more difficult because buyers, for some inexplicable reason, seem to trust these middle men. Yet they don’t do anything like repairs or aesthetic changes, they just take a commission. The only thing you get in return is that the buyer gets a warranty for repairs.
I finally sold my car in December with a dealer. They took the car off my hands and asked a flat 1000 euros which on my car was 10% As far as I could see they didn’t do anything that I couldn’t do myself except offer a 2 year warranty. I would have sold it directly if it wasn’t a Puretech engine which everyone seems to be concerned about. In the end I had to change the whole distribution / belt thingy to get the sale anyway.
If you don’t have any issues with your car, why not sell it directly?0 -
Convenience and time0
