We had a lovely big barge in which my wife was floating around, but she decided it was too big (Merc W210 E420)
I argued it has parking sensors front and back AND a towbar that could tow my driftcar , but none of that seemed to help.
Then her brother needed a new car because he was bored with his '04 Focus that threw him lots of problems to solve and I offered him to borrow the 420 whilst I'd sell his Focus for him (as he's not interested at all to do the whealer dealering).
He phoned me just a few days later if he could keep the 420 for a while as it was very comfy and nice to drive, Focus sold and a 106 was traded in so I though, well that could work and gave the keys of the 106 to my wife...
then hell brake loose.... no power steering, no automatic gearbox and very slow so i was told to get rid of this piece of junk....
which I tried to do, but noone would buy it...obviously
then we made a list of things the car needed to have and it was long (enough):
It needed to be small
automatic gearbox
did i say small yet?
not slow expecially round town, motorway cruizing speed is not really an issue
retro-ish
not boring
not a saloon but a hatch or a small coupe
power steering
maximum 1000 euro's
not another bloody project car... (I argued I don't even own 2 of the same kind....)
so we went out to a local car dealer (horse trader) that had a Renault 11 coupe (3 door sedan, but told her it was a coupe..) made a testdrive and broke down half way through that...
after that he informed us that it had been sitting for over a year and that i'd would be fixed, no problem.
obviously I was intrigued (i generally like a bit of character) but she didn't want it anymore, so off to something else..
but all others were either too big or too slow or too boring (lots of starlets, 106's, polo's)
but then jonkheer suggested the Ypsilon, which has only 60HP but as it's not a regular gearbox but an ECVT it allways has that 60HP available at any moment. (raw unsensored powaar that is)
so got on the interwebs, found a few of them, sent another car dealer an email asking what he'd want for it when I traded in that 106 and got a prompt reply, hand me the 106 and 500 euro's and you can come and get it... which I imidiately did.
Got it home, parked it in front of the house and sent the wife a picture of it, as she had not driven it it was a bit of a gamble, but then she drove it and was very chuffed with it.
obviously as it was cheap there some minor faults which I'll be fixing, but nothing too serious.
-It needs a service
-some new wipers (ordered a set of bosch aerotwins from ebay.it)
-rear wiper seems broken
-passenger side mirror doesn't go up and down
-sunroof has a small leak (water comes down the switch when you throw it into a corner (not practical)
-dashboard top is sticky and looks rubbish, might clean up
-wheel trims are rubbish, so it needs alloys
-It came with a pioneer DEH-171, but without a front... so fitted the radio from the 106 (only good bit from that car tbh, sony xplod thing)
-speakers are crappy and not all of them working
-it could do with some more power... so I'll research the multipoint injection from a punto 75 or a 16V head from an ypsilon elefantino rosso or punto sporting.
just hope the gearbox will cope with that (any selecta experts in the room?)
well that'll be enough information to keep you from doing something usefull with your lives for a few moments.. now some pictures:
it has nicely wheathered wheel trims and detailed tyres (that really sold it to me!)
unfortunately one of them is a bit broken:
Also it has a power bulge in the bonnet, really nice touch:
I argued it has parking sensors front and back AND a towbar that could tow my driftcar , but none of that seemed to help.
Then her brother needed a new car because he was bored with his '04 Focus that threw him lots of problems to solve and I offered him to borrow the 420 whilst I'd sell his Focus for him (as he's not interested at all to do the whealer dealering).
He phoned me just a few days later if he could keep the 420 for a while as it was very comfy and nice to drive, Focus sold and a 106 was traded in so I though, well that could work and gave the keys of the 106 to my wife...
then hell brake loose.... no power steering, no automatic gearbox and very slow so i was told to get rid of this piece of junk....
which I tried to do, but noone would buy it...obviously
then we made a list of things the car needed to have and it was long (enough):
It needed to be small
automatic gearbox
did i say small yet?
not slow expecially round town, motorway cruizing speed is not really an issue
retro-ish
not boring
not a saloon but a hatch or a small coupe
power steering
maximum 1000 euro's
not another bloody project car... (I argued I don't even own 2 of the same kind....)
so we went out to a local car dealer (horse trader) that had a Renault 11 coupe (3 door sedan, but told her it was a coupe..) made a testdrive and broke down half way through that...
after that he informed us that it had been sitting for over a year and that i'd would be fixed, no problem.
obviously I was intrigued (i generally like a bit of character) but she didn't want it anymore, so off to something else..
but all others were either too big or too slow or too boring (lots of starlets, 106's, polo's)
but then jonkheer suggested the Ypsilon, which has only 60HP but as it's not a regular gearbox but an ECVT it allways has that 60HP available at any moment. (raw unsensored powaar that is)
so got on the interwebs, found a few of them, sent another car dealer an email asking what he'd want for it when I traded in that 106 and got a prompt reply, hand me the 106 and 500 euro's and you can come and get it... which I imidiately did.
Got it home, parked it in front of the house and sent the wife a picture of it, as she had not driven it it was a bit of a gamble, but then she drove it and was very chuffed with it.
obviously as it was cheap there some minor faults which I'll be fixing, but nothing too serious.
-It needs a service
-some new wipers (ordered a set of bosch aerotwins from ebay.it)
-rear wiper seems broken
-passenger side mirror doesn't go up and down
-sunroof has a small leak (water comes down the switch when you throw it into a corner (not practical)
-dashboard top is sticky and looks rubbish, might clean up
-wheel trims are rubbish, so it needs alloys
-It came with a pioneer DEH-171, but without a front... so fitted the radio from the 106 (only good bit from that car tbh, sony xplod thing)
-speakers are crappy and not all of them working
-it could do with some more power... so I'll research the multipoint injection from a punto 75 or a 16V head from an ypsilon elefantino rosso or punto sporting.
just hope the gearbox will cope with that (any selecta experts in the room?)
well that'll be enough information to keep you from doing something usefull with your lives for a few moments.. now some pictures:
it has nicely wheathered wheel trims and detailed tyres (that really sold it to me!)
unfortunately one of them is a bit broken:
Also it has a power bulge in the bonnet, really nice touch:
