Don't like the adverts?  Click here to remove them

Went to view that blue 80 and came back with......

Chris

Super Moderator
Supporter
Joined
Feb 24, 2010
Messages
17,937
Garage
Country Flag
great_britain
F*ck All!!!! Other than a £70 dent in my wallet for train fare to sodding Lancashire. Being a Yorkshireman you cannot imagine just how that hurts. Bloody LANCASHIRE.

Yes another day totally wasted. These guys have been quite good at keeping in touch. I am not about to blame them. Yes they are monkeys, quite stupidly so, but not rogues. I arranged to be picked up at the station by them at 13.50. I mailed them to say I was on time. At 14.10 I rang them and they said 'oh are you here, we'll come and pick you up' Great start. Already not liking Blackburn. Some lad standing outside the station with blood pouring down his face - outside the cop shop. Nice.

5 mins later a blue 80 pulls in. That's the one I have come to see. No tax in the window. Inside is tidy and fresh. All the seats are quite cracked which is odd, but the nets on the seat backs are perfect. Everything seems OK but my mirror glass is wobbling around all over the place. It sounds good and changing gear doesn't seem to be giving the guy any problems. Inside really IS very clean and tidy, but not in an artificial way.

We get to their place and I start to look around. Paint needs a T cut badly. Covered in tree sap I think. No dings in the roof. No rust on tailgate, but above the DS TURBO decal there is a very clumsy rattle can repair. Right by the light cluster. Doors all shut well. Hmm, rust where the sill meets the rear wheel arch. Quite bad. A little around the screen but not too bad. Tailgate etc all open and shut like new. So underneath then. Horrible. Utterly horrible. Thick black bitumen everywhere with what is very clearly rust underneath. So overseal really not underseal. Oddly one hockey stick is coated but one is not. Completely uncovered but rusty. ARB bushes are like donuts. Exhaust is like Gruyère cheese. Rotten and full of holes end to end. Tyres match but all pretty thin. No matter. This will clean up with a good blast, wire brushes and scrapers. I am still interested despite the steady drip of engine oil.

Let's pop the hood. Interesting, it doesn't have aircon. Well it did but there is no condenser. The pipe are there but no rad. The engine rad is aftermarket, well 180k I am not surprised. But what's this? The ends of the fan blades are all chavelled. And the cowl is missing. Hmm, no AC belt either. UUuuurrrrr, bottom pulley is bent and 'crimped' so a belt wouldn't go on anyway. Now I see that the very tatty grille is held in with self tappers. And in a way that it is bent to make it flush with the lights. The top front cross member (the bonnet shut) is bent too. I reckon the PO has hit a deer with this! Honestly, something has gone through the front of this car. The EGRs didn't seem to be moving like they usually so (who cares) and there a lot of oil on the engine top near the injector pipes. Where the brake line comes from the ABS block, down to the DS wheel, there is a whole section that has been replaced with copper pipe and compression fittings that look like airline couplings.

Looking inside again, the lockers seem ok but then I notice that the dash has been out. There are no screws anywhere and the binacle is wobbling about all over the place. I'm now in a position where I am not happy with the provenance of this car. I have shown them everything and plainly they hadn't got a clue. I really think they were surprised at what they thought was a really clean car. So we get to haggling. I really don't want three trains and three hours to get home. At the right money, I could perhaps have it as a project. It could be nice again and I'd be working with something that was good in places. We talk money. I get them to a place where I think I might do a deal, as long as it was taxed too.
They now realise that if they sell it to me I am not going to come back with trading standards, but sell it to Tom Noddy and they will be back with pick axe handles assuming they are not cruiser experts like wot we are. I am a safe bet.


BOMBSHELL




They can't find the logbook. Then the dancing begins. In my mind I am already resolute that I will not be buying any car ever without a log book. Cue dream sequence music - So the deal goes south and I come on here looking for sympathy and you're all saying - you bought it without a log book, what are you six?

So I start to back away. They offer to deliver it for me on a deposit, they offer to order a replacement log book etc etc. I say 'Just take me back to the station please'

And so I am home. They have rung me. They have found said log book and are deeply ashamed. They have offered to sort some more off the car for my trouble if I come back. I tell them not to hold the car. Sell it if someone comes along.

Sigh. It looked so good in the pics I really thought 'This time!' I didn't expect immaculate, we know how it works, but yeuch. What a dog. Maybe I could have lived with one of the faults on its own, but all together. It just wanted too much work. It's all work I can do, but I don't want it! I just want something that I can start the project with, without having to rebuild the bloody thing just to pass an MOT and be safe on the road. I never drove it. I couldn't see the point.

Right. Off to look at some Discos on a Pikey caravan site. Feeling lucky.
 
Last edited:
:violin:

You'll have your day Chris, don't compromise, but you don't need any guidance, I know. Shame.:(
 
Ah in fairness they have produced some great cricketers in Lancashire :lol:

Seriously though that's a bummer, seeing as how the binnacle was loose etc, do you think it was clocked?? Nothing worse than wasting a day of your life like that.
 
Without you replace the speedo unit complete it is very difficult to change the numbers in the cruiser speedo, anyway there was service history to back up the mileage etc You did right Chris, it sounds like the first owner had virtually all his damn moneys worth, hang on, don't buy work.

Andy
 
chris buy a good one in what ever colour it happens to be and get it wrapped.
you would have saved money buy now on what you have spent on trains fuel and time.
good contacts for wraps in brizzle.
stu
 
Don't like the adverts?  Click here to remove them
You know reading that again it sounds like its had a good frontal, maybe more than a deer, airbags out job. Then its been bodged back together on the cheap because the owner only had third party. Just out of interest did you do a history check on it to see if it was a cat'c' or 'd'?

You'd almost wonder was all that black underseal hiding a couple of slightly wavy chassis parts or something??
 
Not keen at all on the idea of a wrap Stu, not really. I'd rather have a colour I didn't like, but don't think that I have been to see cruisers that were really good but just the wrong colour. If I had, I'd have bought them and done a flip for a few quid. I just haven't seen anything I'd want to buy in any spec. Not surprising given that I don't go to view Cruisers in a colour that I guess I don't want. So that makes sense I guess.

I looked long and hard at the front alignment and just couldn't quite see what had been affected, but it definitely had been moved somewhere. Gaps weren't quite right in some parts. Seriously, I reckon he's hit something then done a bit of a bodge,. Milner rad, grille from a scrappie etc but bottled it at the aircon because of the pulley.

Right, line well and truly drawn under that one. To be fair the one last Sunday in Suffolk was probably better in places than that one. Daft thing is that I know many of you with older Cruisers than this R plater today, who off road them etc and they're in better nick! Even mine is better underneath and mine's a wreck up top. Last one from Scotland that I look at. Too much salt in their diet.
 
You read my mind Yogi. But I don't think so. The damage was very central and just didn't seem to have spread. Right about the bodge though Rad wasn't even fixed in place properly. Two new branded batteries though. One owner, clearly bordering on barking.
 
Gutted Chris, I feel your pain I mean Lancashire!!!!!!!!
 
Does sound like it needs a lot of work to make it right. A bit of poor paint is one thing, a badly repaired front end is another.
One will come up!
 
A real juxtaposition that one. Very nice inside and yet rotten outside. Waxoil is one thing but people just need to understand what slapping black tar all over the chassis can actually do. I don't know if this was to cover up or if it was done badly trapping in moisture. But a quick scrape here and there and it came off with rust underneath. There were parts where the steel was effectively de-laminating in sheets. Wanted a front axle rebuild too. Very very dry swivels.

I really wasn't being picky about this one. It really just wasn't right. At auction it made £three something. I might have been happy with that. It would have left me something in hand to fix it up, not that I really want the work as I said. It's the newest 80 I have been to look at. A genuine 1998 vintage and it was really very very poor which is a great shame.
 
I wouldn't recommend a wrap just to change the colour. Protecting the truck from scratchy lanes and tracks is one thing, but it's not cheap and IMO there isn't a production colour I don't like, just prefer my blue! Correction, prefer Chris' blue:lol:
 
Not before I go nuts though Pete.
 
Before you go nuts?

Have you no idea how hard the rest of us are working buying all these dodgy 80's, spraying them blue, and getting likeable village buffoons to act as genuine honest sellers, in order to keep you entertained with days out in the countryside?

:icon-cool:
 
VILLAGE BUFFOON!!!!!!!

I had no idea my promotion had come through! :character-jesterco:
 
Wish i had read the thread before driving to Blackburn to waste my time too!

It was an absolute donkey to drive (half a mile to roundabout and back)

It was the opposite of what I need, fairly good interior and bodywork (save the cill near rear wheel arch where my thumb went through) and 'orrible mechanically.
 
Back
Top