Looking for some friendly advice.

[JoeF1]

Hey guys.

So i currently have a MK4 Astra Sri Petrol on a 52 reg. Its done about 104 (hard) thousand miles as the previous owner didnt really think servicing was a good idea although it was cheap and i needed something. 1st car i was naive and bit his arm off.

Now fast forward a year and it needs:

All new exhaust & cat - Apparently cat wont pass another MOT as said by the last MOT dude.
New Thermostat
02 Sensors - EML on because of this.
A good bit of TLC.

Problem is that the day to day running of the car is killing me. Im just on minimum wage at the moment so i wont be able to do these upgrades all in one hit. Will be one every month, apart from the CAT and exhaust that will be separated too.

Would you sell as is and buy a smaller engine shed to put me on? or sell once its running 100%? sell and do the same, smaller engine etc? Kind of stuck with the decision.

Ta.

 

[rodenal]

Tbh none of those are particularly expensive (in isolation) or particularly bad for the age of car.

Appreciate it will be difficult on a low wage but if it shows little sign of leaving you stranded i'd just sort the thing.

If you really want to go cheap get a good used exhaust & lambdas - will save you a bit of cash, short term at least... Thinking about it, I wouldn't be changing the cat in your situation until it actually fails an mot.....thinking some more how do you know the lambda problem isn't a cat problem or vice versa?

 

[rossk26]

As above, you will probably be better off fixing the astra, rather than selling and buying potentially another nail...

Least you will know it is mechanically sound when all the work is done. Hopefully should be able to get a few more years out of it. Then by then circumstances may have changed and you will have the money to upgrade...

 

[Matt82]

stat is cheapest

o2 sensors are the next most beneficial

with those done there is a chance that normal use will clean the cats IMO

borrow some times and start learning to spanner?