What have you done to your car today?

Acme said:
I'm used to saying stupid things and coming under fire, instead of learning not to do it, I've learned to handle it instead. It's the Acme way! :D

But no, when I found out about the gearbox, my initial reaction was "quick, get rid of it before its noticeable!" but then Shauncr91 made me put myself in the shoes of the prospective buyer, and I don't think I could do that to someone. Even if they wouldn't know that I was aware of the issue.
Click to expand...

I'm clearly a horrible person, but if I was selling a sub £1k car, unless I was aware of a serious issue which would likely cause a massive bill in the very near future, no way would I say anything. Bearings wear out on old cars and they make funny noises - in fact, I can't think of any cheap car I've driven/sat in that has sounded as it did when it left the factory. As I think I said before, my Astra had a bit of a whine in 5th when I sold it - several years on it's still running fine.

I suspect most people on this forum would do exactly the same thing, whether they'll admit it or not is another thing.
 
I'd sell it to a dealer and tell them about it - often it's worth them buying cheap cars to fix and sell on. You won't be selling it to a main VW dealer but a backstreet garage who sell a few cars on the side would probably give you a few hundred quid for it
 
geekman said:
I'm clearly a horrible person, but if I was selling a sub £1k car, unless I was aware of a serious issue which would likely cause a massive bill in the very near future, no way would I say anything. Bearings wear out on old cars and they make funny noises - in fact, I can't think of any cheap car I've driven/sat in that has sounded as it did when it left the factory. As I think I said before, my Astra had a bit of a whine in 5th when I sold it - several years on it's still running fine.

I suspect most people on this forum would do exactly the same thing, whether they'll admit it or not is another thing.
Click to expand...

Completely agree, regardless of people trying to take a moral stance on it, fact of the matter is when buying cars at the sub £1k end of the market you should be checking things very carefully as anything on it is reasonably likely to fail.

Few people would spend £500 on an old polo and seriously expect it to be trouble free for years
 
I wouldn't be listing it for £500 though, I'd be listing it at about £1000 and accepting offers over £800. If it gets as bad as £500 I'll just trade it in or use it as a bargaining chip. :p
 
Removed the faulty parking sensor and installed a new one off the bay for £15. Works flawlessly and it has a 2 year guarantee so good times. I'm glad bmw implemented the parking sensors in the bumper trim on the saloon instead of into the bumper it's self like the coupe.
 
Acme said:
I wouldn't be listing it for £500 though, I'd be listing it at about £1000 and accepting offers over £800. If it gets as bad as £500 I'll just trade it in or use it as a bargaining chip. :p
Click to expand...

Whether it's £500, £800 or £1000 it's still a cheap, bottom of the market car. Unless the noise is really very bad or you're sure the car is about to fail you'd be absolutely nuts to advertise it with a description of the noise as you'll put off almost every buyer apart from those who simply want to pay scrap value. If I was looking for a Polo and the ad mentioned gearbox whine, I'd assume that basically meant it was about to fail catastrophically, which more than likely isn't the case with yours.

I'm willing to bet I could go to see 10 sub £1k Polos and most, if not all, would have various similar flaws.
 
I guess so. And mine has lots of new bits on it and passed the last MOT with no advisories. So it isn't exactly a shed.
 
Tbh it isn't worth much more than £500 regardless - but if you advertise it just under a grand it'll attract the attention of the same audience and take what you can get. You'll find nobody looking to buy these types of cars is shy of offering you £3 and some item of "incredible value"
 
:p

£700 - £1200 seems to be the going rate, with the £700 ones being complete sheds, and the £1200 ones being lower mileage than mine and in much better condition. Mile about falls in the middle.

But yeah I am nervous about selling it, because of all the stupid offers I'll get. In this town I'm likely to get offers like "Will you take a share of my drug profits?" and "I'll give you £50, if you decline, I'll just steal it tomorrow"
 
Acme said:
I wouldn't be listing it for £500 though, I'd be listing it at about £1000 and accepting offers over £800. If it gets as bad as £500 I'll just trade it in or use it as a bargaining chip. :p
Click to expand...

Just bang it in your local car auction. Job done. Or change the 'box oil with a really high-end fluid and see how it goes. One of my ZF boxes went from being annoyingly raucous to relatively quiet with decent, fresh fluid.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom