Dud Cars.....

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Re: Dud Cars.....

Postby RapidAssistant » Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:20 pm

moonbeam wrote:My brother bought a second hand Allegro. Two days after he bought it went round a roundabout down at Bowling on the A82 when the front wheel sort of fell off. It got taken back to a Leyland dealership to be told -they all do that. I had a Marina and the petrol tank rusted through.The car was only 18 months old.Quickly got rid off. I mentioned my neighbours Moskovitch.The guy bought it new. Spent every day polishing it and showing it off. His first new car. Felt really sorry for him when it went on fire and the petrol tank exploded just as the fire brigade arrived. Another friend bought a new Lancia. Took it for its first MOT. Failed due to rust. The engine mounting brackets had rusted right through and the engine was not really attached to the rest of the car! Yes I did buy a Fiat. Rampant rust under body filler. Yes a friend lent on a wing and his arm went right through! It was a Fiat "Sport" 850. I think the "sport" was getting the thing all to work at the same time.The starter motor never seemed to work. There seemed to be two types of starter motor as I had the "sport" it had a slightly different mounting from the ordinary 850. The wiper motor had a mind of its own.The suspension/shock absorbers were replaced and the headlights filled with water. A saturday morning season ticket for Shields motors. I got a regular customer discount! What annoyed me was it would take maybe 5 weeks to get an exhaust or a suspension part. Then something else would fail like some sort of obscure electrical part that meant the direction indicators would not work.


Remember the old adages about Fiats:

FIAT stands for "Fix It Again Toni", or "if the rust doesn't get you the wiring will"
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Re: Dud Cars.....

Postby RapidAssistant » Wed Jun 19, 2013 11:56 am

C'mon folks - this thread's gone a bit quiet sure there are more stories out there!
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Re: Dud Cars.....

Postby Mori » Wed Jun 19, 2013 3:53 pm

This one a freind of mine bought in the 80s because it was very cheap, few weeks later i asked him how the new car was, told me while he was driving to work one day the front wheels came off and the car landed in a skip that was lying at the side of the road. ::):

true story btw. :D

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Re: Dud Cars.....

Postby RapidAssistant » Thu Jun 27, 2013 9:19 am

Mori wrote:This one a freind of mine bought in the 80s because it was very cheap, few weeks later i asked him how the new car was, told me while he was driving to work one day the front wheels came off and the car landed in a skip that was lying at the side of the road. ::):

true story btw. :D



Yeah then they brought out the Yugo Sana which was their attempt at a modern hatchback. Guy two doors down from us had one - G plate I think it was (which was new then), it was riddled with rust after two years.
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Re: Dud Cars.....

Postby octavia » Mon Feb 10, 2014 1:01 am

had an old gpo yellow van, bedford h.a model,otherwise known to my friends as the haha van.totally hillarious to drive,brakes non stopping type,fortunately the noise from the back axle meant you didnt want to be going over 30.replaced this in 1989 with my first new car ,a Yugo 311 very cheap,brand new on the road 2799quid. not the best move though,soon after getting it many problems.. gearlinkage fell off, on whirlies roundabout! fixed underwaranty,then clutch cable snaps,same again,gearbox leak,same again,electric fan gives up etc etc ,had this junk less than 3 years only had done 30,000 miles,took ages to get it sold ,think I got about 900 quid ,now I always buy jap cars,nissan etc..
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Re: Dud Cars.....

Postby RapidAssistant » Fri Mar 14, 2014 2:22 pm

octavia wrote:had an old gpo yellow van, bedford h.a model,otherwise known to my friends as the haha van.totally hillarious to drive,brakes non stopping type,fortunately the noise from the back axle meant you didnt want to be going over 30.replaced this in 1989 with my first new car ,a Yugo 311 very cheap,brand new on the road 2799quid. not the best move though,soon after getting it many problems.. gearlinkage fell off, on whirlies roundabout! fixed underwaranty,then clutch cable snaps,same again,gearbox leak,same again,electric fan gives up etc etc ,had this junk less than 3 years only had done 30,000 miles,took ages to get it sold ,think I got about 900 quid ,now I always buy jap cars,nissan etc..


Aye British Rail used to have loads of those - they were based on the 1960s Vauxhall Viva, but they kept the van version in production right into the 80s I think?
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Re: Dud Cars.....

Postby octavia » Tue Apr 08, 2014 1:30 am

yip,st let the back tyres down a bitnot only the ancient 1960s bedford ha van ,but also in production until 1983!,the marina van aka ital van,you had to use a grease gun regularlly to stop front suspension from collapse,engines pretty good ,gearbox a bit fragile,I had a morris ital 1982 model ,used it every day,terrible to drive ,but it was reliable and very good on fuel.and when the snow came ,living in ek ,btw, I just let the back tyres down a bit,never got stuck in snow not like todays fancy traction controlled bmw s etc....
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Re: Dud Cars.....

Postby RapidAssistant » Thu Apr 17, 2014 12:21 pm

Yeah I used to do work for the shopkeeper around the corner - being the total skinflint that he was, he had an ex-GPO Sherpa van. Totally and utterly sh**ged out, the paint was probably holding it together, there were only two gears left, and it was the old BMC B-Series diesel engine, so top whack was about 45 with a taliwind behind you. Yet it just kept on going, and could be mended at the side of the road (which you often had to), with the proverbial swiss army knife. They don't make 'em like that anymore!
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Re: Dud Cars.....

Postby octavia » Wed Apr 23, 2014 12:49 am

sounds like your works van was a health and safety issue on wobbly wheels.old sherpa vans were notorius for dodgy steering,kingpins I believe,..still on health and safety,in the early 1980s,I worked for a famous southside tiling company,as an apprentice,I had to travel from glasgow to hunterston nuclear power station,for a 2 month job ,working in the bowels of B station ,laying concrete floors,no safety gear,eg. hard hats ear plugs ,noise was constant and deafening,also got constantly soaked from leaking pipes above, no radiation checks,wonder what risks were going on ? .but then perhaps the most risky bit,had to travel from glasgow to hunterston in the back of a 1.1escort van,fully laoded 4 guys tools prpane gas bottles,me and other apprentice in the back on top of all the gear,along the paisley to largs road ,drum brakes all round,overloaded ,plus driver either hungover or still pissed,still remember the bend in the road coming down from largs nearly at kilbirnie,several times the van on 3 wheels heading for a wee stone wall or the field on the other side,oh happy days, but still here to tell the tale,airbags are for softies.
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Re: Dud Cars.....

Postby mercury » Wed Apr 23, 2014 11:14 am

I used to drive an ex army Sherpa mini bus. On a trip to Carlisle my mates couldn't believe my driving, they soon understood on the way home when one of them took over. You nearly had to turn the stearing wheel 360° to keep in a straight line. 8O
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Re: Dud Cars.....

Postby HelenD » Thu Apr 24, 2014 5:51 am

I did most of my provisional licence mileage in a Sherpa. It was the same year's model, so nothing had broken on it, but even so, it was a horror to drive. Only the Ital was worse.
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Re: Dud Cars.....

Postby RapidAssistant » Thu Apr 24, 2014 4:01 pm

@ octavia, I can tell a few more stories about same shopkeeper's colourful van history - before the infamous Sherpa -

Mk3 Escort 1.1 van - probably even rustier than the Sherpa was - you sat in the thing and one side of the driving seat went right through the floor as the area where it attached onto was rusted out. It DID prove the durability of the Ford Crossflow engine on one occasion - the radiator let go and he ran it with no water and hardly any oil, yet still managed to get from Paisley to Shettleston in one piece. I put a new head gasket on it, and he still couldn't kill it....it went on until it failed its MOT (on bodywork..funnily enough)

Was replaced by a Maestro Diesel - horrible thing to drive, but he managed to stove in the sump driving it over a rough dirtrack - oil ran out and it had to be towed back to a garage. I duly replaced the sump with an item from the scrapyard... It was later consumed in a mysterious "electrical fire".....
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