Don't worry Bund, I'm not offended in the slightest. You don't know who is replying to your thread from Adam. We're a tight community on here and converse regulalry and in fact meet up 3 to 4 times per year. It's hard for a newbie to know who they are talking to. But a quick look on the forum and you'll soon see who's who.
Long and short of it is this. Bearing in mind I do know quite a lot about 80's.
The car looks straight. I have not driven it. There are a couple of bits here and there on it like a slightly skew filler flap but it looks OK as it stands. It's on utterly atrocious tyres. The Enduro Runway, or Runaway as we call them are death waiting to happen. Now, the dealer won't see it that way, but as anyone who's ever driven on them does know, they are shocking. Now why put budget tyres on a beautiful, cherished machine? Probably to get it through an MOT and sell it. I'd be looking to spend at least £900 on tyres the very day I took it home. But there's no way they'll knock that off the price.
Underneath was just a mass of black. Even the roll bar tie rods were painted. Now who does that? If you took it and had it professionally done there's no way they'd do that to it, so I am suspicious.
As I didn't have the keys, I couldn't inspect the door shuts or bonnet valance etc. That would have revealed a respray if there'd been one. Both the TURBO stickers were present and looked original so it's not been worked on in that area I'd say.
Now without being able to get a proper look underneath with a good torch, I can't say anymore. I couldn't see any leaks or drips because it was as black as night under there.
There was no corrosion around the rear screen seal and the sliding window runners looked good and not distorted where the aluminium frame blows behind the seal. Probably been garaged.
OK so what.
Well if I had to work on it, I'd not fancy being covered in black bitumen every time I got the spanners out. That's just nasty. And what would I find under there? I don't know and that's the point. There's no way I'd spend £16 on a Cruiser that I could not see every nut and bolt.
These guys have bought it probably from some probate deal, looked it over and said £16k. They've put an advert on not expecting anyone to come along and look underneath. They'd expect a quick test drive and then cash down.
Al and I went to look at a similar superb 80 some time back. Oh it was the most perfect 80 in the world they said. True the chassis looked like a new one. Then we noticed the shut lines on the bonnet. It had been hit. Then I looked on the roof which was so battered that there were dents deep enough to take a mobile phone. Screen prices was £15k. And they still wouldn't budge. They'd no idea at all that the roof was bashed in.
So, Bund. Don't waste your time asking the dealers questions. They know shit. To them it's immaculate. You can point out defects here and there but they just won't be listening. And a couple of months down the line, it'll still be sitting there for the same money. Unless they've duped someone from Aberdeen into buying it.
This car is a gamble. It's not clear cut. If this had been bare underneath, I'd have been thinking about pulling out some savings, selling my green one and putting this into the unit for a rainy day. If that is worth £16k then someone needs to prove it to me. My point is (well one of several) that you can get a decent Cruiser with a nice interior for less than that without contributing to someone's early retirement fund.
I've heard (or read) that the 79 with the V8 Tdi engine isn't Euro 4 compliant, hence no imports? Will this still apply after Brexit I wonder??
