Seriously?

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

That 740 (or was it a 940, they all look the same to me) is at that difficult age: not old enough to be an historic car (by a fair way) but too old to be a modern car… so, it is just quite an old car with quite a few miles, wheel arches starting to rust, sagging headlining and poor paint. As a consequence the market will be a bit small, if someone just needs a cheap car to get to work it is too expensive - a 12 year old Mondeo diesel will be cheaper and a better car for that purpose, it isn’t particularly interesting motor car so the mainstream classic car collector won’t be much interested, so that just leaves blokes and gals like us. There aren’t that many of us, so the market is small.

Is that car worth saving at £2,500? If one paid for a garage to do the bodywork (my guess is there will be a bit more rot under the bubbles on the wheel arches, there always is) and a cheap respray, fixed the headlining and did any mechanical work a 170,000 mile car will need that will cost about £3,000 to £4,000. Would the car be worth £6,000 afterwards? Of course not. As you said a few posts ago Andrew, buy your renovations already done.

The only people it will make sense to is folk like us that enjoy tinkering as part of the fun of ownership :-)

That one is definitely a 740 Alan - too old by at least 2 years to be a 940 - will likely sell fairly quickly as they do have a following. As you say, there aren't many that would be in that following but those that are outnumber the cars available.

That makes for a happy situation for the seller and in fairness, he hasn't gone OTT on the price, possibly a smidge high but he has invited offers.
The mileage is still low for a 33 year old car, averaging 5k a year. Mine is low mileage too but today this happened :



Still only works out at 7k a year so is still low mileage. Just another 270k to go now!

To answer your question, is it worth saving? If there's something a bit special about it then yes. Whether everyone sees that bit of special is the big question though, the old adage of beauty being in the eye of the beholder comes into play.

[Wagon Sailor]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

... the old adage of beauty being in the eye of the beholder comes into play.

It does indeed.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Othen

Another one to test the market. This one failed the MoT in 2016 and I suppose wasn't worth fixing at the time. It will have been standing outside for the past 5 years, so doubt any of the faults will have fixed themselves and a fair bit of rust may have set it. The car is 15 years away from becoming an historic vehicle, so that isn't a factor: it is just a rusty, 25 year old, 230,000 mile MoT failure:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274906894133?hash=item4001ba4f35:gNgAAOSw1ThhGWg X

I can't help thinking it only has scrap value (£300), but apparently someone has bid £500 for it (unless that is the seller to get it moving). It will be an interesting test of the market to see if it gets any more bids.

:-)

That rusty old car made £650, it looks like 2 people wanted it and so it made a few bob more :-)

Everything has a value.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

That rusty old car made £650, it looks like 2 people wanted it and so it made a few bob more :-)

Everything has a value.

The red estate do you mean Alan?

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

The red estate do you mean Alan?

Yes Dave, it was the red estate. It sounded pretty rough to me, but everything has a value.

If the buyer wanted it as a spares donor car then that could be good value. Unless the buyer is very experienced at renovating motor cars and has deep pockets I’d be a bit surprised if it is worth saving.

Alan

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

Yes Dave, it was the red estate. It sounded pretty rough to me, but everything has a value.

If the buyer wanted it as a spares donor car then that could be good value. Unless the buyer is very experienced at renovating motor cars and has deep pockets I’d be a bit surprised if it is worth saving.

Alan

It's one of those borderline prices Alan, either a pricey spares mule or a cheap (but possibly basket-case) restoration project.

Just had another look at the listing for that red 245 and it seems (if the listing is to be believed) that it's suitable for a rolling restoration. If so, a cheap car but could cost in limb proportions to get it MoT ready.

Another one to watch, a facelift 740GLE estate in Blue-Green Metallic :

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284412417993

Currently on £310 with 3d17h to go. Missing a few bits but none too difficult to get from what i can tell although it's going to need at least one rear light cluster, possibly both if the other is sa faded as the drivers side. The drivers side also has a hole in the lens on the stop/tail light so would be an MoT failure but the rest is badly faded anyway. Looks reasonably solid in the usual rot areas (sills, rear sill end caps, arches) but can't tell under tha battery tray or air filter where they're also prone to rot.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

It's one of those borderline prices Alan, either a pricey spares mule or a cheap (but possibly basket-case) restoration project.

Just had another look at the listing for that red 245 and it seems (if the listing is to be believed) that it's suitable for a rolling restoration. If so, a cheap car but could cost in limb proportions to get it MoT ready.

Another one to watch, a facelift 740GLE estate in Blue-Green Metallic :

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284412417993

Currently on £310 with 3d17h to go. Missing a few bits but none too difficult to get from what i can tell although it's going to need at least one rear light cluster, possibly both if the other is sa faded as the drivers side. The drivers side also has a hole in the lens on the stop/tail light so would be an MoT failure but the rest is badly faded anyway. Looks reasonably solid in the usual rot areas (sills, rear sill end caps, arches) but can't tell under tha battery tray or air filter where they're also prone to rot.

Good morn,

According to its MoT history that motor car has covered only 19,807 miles from new, it would seem that it wasn't maintained much since 2006 because it failed the MoT every year on a few trivial things, to be presented again a few days later, so it looks like the owner was only fixing whatever broke each year. Either it has really only covered the distance between home and the MoT station every year for a decade until it was laid up, or the owner has been disconnecting the speedometer drive straight after the test each year. Here are the last two tests:

Date tested
23 June 2015
PASS
Mileage
19,807 miles
MOT test number
2699 1417 5169
Test location
View test location
Expiry date
22 June 2016
Date tested
23 June 2015
FAIL
Mileage
19,807 miles
MOT test number
4480 0417 5173
Test location
View test location
Reason(s) for failure
Front Windscreen washer provides insufficient washer liquid (8.2.3)
Nearside Front wheel bearing has excessive play (2.5.A.3c)


If it really has done only 19,807 miles then it would be an excellent source of spares, most components being almost as new (that old cliché). It could be put back together by someone very patient, and perhaps not at a great cost (I wonder why it was being taken apart, was someone stripping it for spares or is there something hidden underneath like a rusty hole where the floor should be?).

As a project this one would require a great leap of faith: the cost of a transporter to move it, and then crossed fingers to find out what was wrong and why the mileage is so low. If it turned out to be genuine it might be a bargain at £600.

:-)

[Moomoo]

The plus side to this prospect is the people selling it. Craddocks are an old school spares and services company in the Land Rover field. They advertise LRs at reasonable prices not like some in the trade.
Nice approachable people to deal with and knowledgeable.
I've used them in the past , nice folks. I suspect if you enquired , they would give what help they could.

At the moment it's neither bargain nor money pit! We don't know.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Moomoo

The plus side to this prospect is the people selling it. Craddocks are an old school spares and services company in the Land Rover field. They advertise LRs at reasonable prices not like some in the trade.
Nice approachable people to deal with and knowledgeable.
I've used them in the past , nice folks. I suspect if you enquired , they would give what help they could.

At the moment it's neither bargain nor money pit! We don't know.

Now that is really useful information, first-hand knowledge of a seller is invaluable.

Alan

[Laird Scooby]

Looking at the trip meter, it's easy to see what's happened, they've reset the trip meter while the car is moving and broken the gears in the trip/odo unit.

I seriously doubt they would have disconnected the speedo sensor each year after the MoT as they would have had to put up with the orange ABS warning light glaring at them all year.

I'd guess it's probably covered more like 30k miles based on probable extrapolation from when they broke the trip/odometer. Fixable fairly cheaply despite being a Yazaki instrument.

There is another possible cause of the trip/odo failure but at the moment, my money would be on them resetting the trip while the car was moving.