mikeymk
Part of things
'85 Polo Coupe S 1.6 16v
Posts: 931
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Mar 27, 2015 16:44:18 GMT
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I got a train From Milton Keynes to Carlisle to pick up my donor shell, and that's driving it back - the shell was all it had going for it, only had 4th gear, the driver's seat had collapsed, the brakes were best described as being of 1920's standards.. but it drove, and had some test left, so i limped it hundreds of miles home on educated but corrupted faith.
There's no being clinical with old cars.
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Geordie
North East
Course I'm out of my mind...........it's dark and scary in there!!
Posts: 2,512
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Mar 27, 2015 17:18:44 GMT
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Great thread. I've also never understood the "if only you were closer" get-out. I love a good road trip, with the excitement of a new car added into the mix. Can't beat it. I've got one next week up to Glasgow for my latest motor, involving three trains and a full day out. In the last 3 or 4 years I've bought cars from Coventry, Liverpool, Kent, Colchester, London, Northampton, Telford etc etc
The comment that winds me up even more though is...."would you take an offer of £blah-blah£ because I'm travelling quite a distance?". I mean, wtf? Why should the seller subsidise the travel costs of the buyer? What next? "The motorway services Little Chef isn't the cheapest, and I also got whacked with a £1.50 charge for using the cashpoint there. Can we work something out?".....
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Last Edit: Mar 27, 2015 17:19:42 GMT by Geordie
CURRENT FLEET '91 Nissan Primera (41k miles, an early one and immaculate) '99 Ford Mondeo Ghia X (60k miles) '01 Mini (#869) '06 Audi A6 (18 year old 'modern' daily)
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stefan
Posted a lot
If it isn't broken fix it till it is
Posts: 1,598
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Mar 27, 2015 19:14:36 GMT
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I did derby to Glasgow and back on Tuesday for a very cheep car 588 mile round trip in 13 hours. Fuel cost about 90 times what the car did but I wanted the car.
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POWER IS EVERYTHING WITHOUT CONTROL
1985 Honda jazz 1997 Saab 93 convertible 2010 transit 280
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Mar 27, 2015 19:22:16 GMT
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Amen Dezmond.
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Mar 27, 2015 19:37:50 GMT
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December I flew 11000 miles return, drove 3500 miles in a month, looking for parts that eventually cost £200 .spent £600 on shipping for a couple of bits that I can't get in Europe for my Mazda Rx2 sedan. Was it worth it? Hell yes !
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Last Edit: Mar 27, 2015 19:41:53 GMT by Deleted
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,194
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Mar 27, 2015 19:53:21 GMT
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I myself have not quite got why people do not wish to travel far, although this is the first time that all of my cars have come from a local source (the Escort from Coventry and the Clio from Rugby). I guess it comes down to a number of issues: -Convenience: When a similar(ish) car is for sale locally then why bother going all of the way down. There is a caveat to this however which is in the next point: -Disappointment: When I went to buy a new daily the Clio was one of the only few cars being 'as described' and my choice of cars was varied to say the least (Audi TT, Citroen Xantia HDi, Volvo 850/V70 T5, a Mini 1275 and a Bini One Cooper S or One D were all on the list amongst others). The second closest description much to my amusement was a dodgy trader in an unsavoury part of Coventry! Almost all of the other cars I saw were tired old dogs requiring quite a bit of time and cash throwing at them. Is this pickiness on my part as a result of buying secondhand or dishonesty? I'll let you decide (C&C welcome ). -Hassle: this does not apply to everyone. A number of people I know are in professions where they are silly early starts and finishes with them taking their work home with them. Travelling miles away to get a car no matter how good it may it is simply not an option, partially due to the above. However, I suspect that you have an exception to the rule, an item that is very much a one off and something that is quite a break from the norm. I'm sure you shall make something of that.
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VIP
South East
Posts: 8,293
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Mar 27, 2015 19:58:43 GMT
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Most of my cars have been more than 100 miles away.
I'm near London.
Some of my purchases off the top of my head.
The Oldsmobile was from Newcastle. My Audi A8 was in Chester. My LS400 in Nottingham. The Cuore was in Dorchester. One Yugo from St Ives, one from Edinburgh, another from Swindon. My Jetta was in Devon. The Arosa was from near Chester also. The Senator was from near Cardiff.
So yeah, 'if only you were closer' really gets my goat.
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Mar 27, 2015 20:11:22 GMT
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yep, sometimes you have to travel for the car you want, i woulda traveled for that Citroen, it looks great i've even traveled for parts as well, even spent more on petrol then the parts cost, but i know what i want and what things are worth to me
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Ryannn
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,421
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Mar 27, 2015 20:22:49 GMT
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I only buy within about an hour or so of my house, mainly because I don't want to risk turning up and it being a nail.
I've only ever bought standard, blank canvas, stuff to start off with aswell so it isn't always that difficult to find what I want!
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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Mar 27, 2015 21:14:01 GMT
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A few years ago when I lived in London I bought a LHD Alfa for 180 quid on ebay. The train fare to Edinburgh cost slightly more than the car. I was pretty good at driving LHD by the time I got home again! On the other hand, my spare time is no longer so plentiful, and I hate showing up to look at a car and discovering it's not as described (or, as was the case with the first 924 Turbo I went to see running on fewer cylinders than it ought). It's not too much of an issue if the car is an hour away - you can just drive home again. If it was 6 hours away and I had a 1 way train ticket (as with that 33), I would be furious. Cheers Duncan PS Love that Citroen. Can't wait to see what you do with it...
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Mar 27, 2015 21:18:17 GMT
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I've never really got the 'its too far away' thing. The thing is though sometimes it is just very inconvenient when it's miles away, having said that, there are other ways. I bought a Cortina shaped P100 last year, it was a real beaute of a ute but it was in Scotland, and i live near the south coast of England. It was a good price though, and in great shape. So i just figured the price of getting it transported (got some qoutes before putting in my final bid) into what i was willing to pay for it. I won it, paid the guy by a wire transfer, got it transported for (get this) £250!! Two days later it arrived at pistonpopper palace EPIC!! Having said all that, i bought a car in Stuttgart last year too, i arranged pick up to coincide with the family holiday, and delivering a load of my mates furniture and stuff on a very big trailer to his house in Germany. You should've seen Mrs Pistonpoppers face when i bought it, she'd been buying souvineers in Stuttgart all day then on the way to our hotel i swung into this little street, knocked on some fellas door, and the next thing we were loading a large old Opel onto my trailer! I got back inot the cab of our truck and she just looked at me and said "what the hell is that?" I said it's a souvineer, you've been buying souvineers all day so i thought i'd buy one too!! She just shrugged her shoulders and said Fair enough! Got a great wife me! Anyhoo, what i'm saying is that if you want it bad enough, you'll get it somehow! By the way... so i leave it at TAB and plan to return the next day to take a ride home with it on the big yellow taxi. which i did, apart from the breakdown service decide its not covered as its not UK registered (which it does NOT stae in their T+Cs despite them stating otherwise!) so i basically have a drive out to tab and back from southend for no reason. The big orange taxis don't do it either, my trailer broke down just outside Stuttgart on the way home while doing this trip in November, The big orange taxi company said they would recover the trailer, but not the car as it wasn't registered here in the UK. They said the trailer would follow me home two weeks later, but i'd need to recover the Opel myself. In December i drove back to Stuttgart, picked up my Opel, and my Trailer was still there. My trailer is still there now, and now nearly five months later the big orange taxi company have decided that they arn't going to recover the trailer either!! So it looks like i'm up for another trip to Stuttgart to recover my trailer in the near future! I did wonder why i bother taking out cover with them in the first place, but this is a rant for another time in another place... Meanwhile back at the plot, if you want to drive something special, rare, or different, don't expect it to be on your doorstep, having a cool car comes with a price, and that price is ususally a road trip of some description, and the roadtrip is part of what makes the ownership of said cool car interesting, you'll have a story about it, it's part of the fun! When i'm rocking away in the corner of some old folks home i'm glad i wont be one of those people saying, i could've had some cool cars, but they were always over a hundred miles away so i never bothered!
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EmDee
Club Retro Rides Member
Committer of Autrocities.
Posts: 5,920
Club RR Member Number: 108
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Mar 27, 2015 21:19:18 GMT
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I only buy within about an hour or so of my house, mainly because I don't want to risk turning up and it being a nail. I've only ever bought standard, blank canvas, stuff to start off with aswell so it isn't always that difficult to find what I want! This takes all of the fun out of it. I've just recently taken my only day off for 2 weeks to go from Caterham to Macclesfield by bus and numerous trains to buy quite possibly the most poorly advertised car ever. It was listed as a Fiat Multiplayer.
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Ryannn
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,421
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Mar 27, 2015 21:27:36 GMT
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I only buy within about an hour or so of my house, mainly because I don't want to risk turning up and it being a nail. I've only ever bought standard, blank canvas, stuff to start off with aswell so it isn't always that difficult to find what I want! This takes all of the fun out of it. I've just recently taken my only day off for 2 weeks to go from Caterham to Macclesfield by bus and numerous trains to buy quite possibly the most poorly advertised car ever. It was listed as a Fiat Multiplayer. I completely agree and I love a good road trip, (I'm driving to Spain in July) but I just don't have the time to do it and my holidays are booked months in advance lol!
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Mar 27, 2015 21:30:17 GMT
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When i was searching for an E24 I twice flew over to UK to look at and potentially buy an advertised car ,one of them was in deepest rural Lincolnshire and the other in Fife ,Scotland . On both those occasions I flew back as they weren't as described . Flights weren't cheap but cheaper than buying a bad car . The car I eventually bought entailed a flight up to Dublin from where I am right down in the SW of Ireland and then a coach trip to just outside Belfast and then taxi to sellers home . I bought the car there and then , tore up the return air ticket and drove the car 370 miles home . 20 hours from leaving to getting back and enjoyed every minute .
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Anglia68
Posted a lot
Powered By Boredom.
Posts: 2,049
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Mar 27, 2015 23:07:47 GMT
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I don't know why it is but the last car I sold went to Bradford and the two cars I currently own both come from around that area as well but I live in the West Mids and have absolutely no connection with that area at all. #weird.
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So much depends on the car and price in question though.
Its hard to justify traveling 5 or 6 hours for a normal 5-800 car, sometimes it might be a missed opportunity but if you make that excuse the car isn't what you really want or the bargain you really want.
I've traveled miles for what I would call average cars as the price interested me, am a sucker a cheap price and if it interested me and I happen to have the spare funds am going out my way to buy it.
But then thats why I have 5 cars and 2 motorbikes......
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Some days you just need to take a grinder to an inanimate object, just to make your day a tiny bit better!!
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dubwarrior2
Part of things
"Open up, its the filth"
Posts: 576
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I spent 12 months working for a "mate" as a trade plater and traveling all over the country picking up cars. In all honesty it was the worst f**king job I have ever had (low pay/poor planning/rediculously long hours etc) but the one thing I did enjoy was the challenge of having to make your way around the country to get stuff. Whether it was jumping trains or hitchhiking, it was a hell of a challenge.
I suppose the one thing that is always going to put people off travelling long distances, is the condition of the car. I'd be inclined to travel absolutely anywhere if I had a trailer and tow vehicle to bring it back on.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,085
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Nice, I can see why you went the distance to grab that, it's stuffed to the gills with potential.
I'm in Stockton-on-Tees, so travelling to Wales and back in a day for an £80 Renault with a trailer probably seems daft, but I think it was worth it. I also travelled to London and back in a day to collect and drive home the £180 Corsa B my housemate now owns. My biggest problem with long distance (ie, more than 300 miles round trip) collections is costs, timings and my own stamina for driving those sorts of distances which I'm just not used to. Mind is willing, wallet and body is quite often not up to the job.
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Last Edit: Mar 28, 2015 1:03:50 GMT by vulgalour
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If I want it I get it is my motto, most of you know how far my little subaru travelled to get here (Oz) I've a fiat that came from France, today I'm off on an 8 hour round trip to Norfolk to collect an old volvo and in a couple of weeks off to France again to collect an even older volvo that uses rubber bands to propel itself!
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1984 Subaru GLF Hatch 1983 Skoda 120LE Super estelle 1977 Subaru DL Wagon 1978 Datsun 120Y Coupe 1995 Skoda favorit estate
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Donald
East of England
Posts: 112
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Excellent road trip and a really cool truck as well.
I have done a few road trips down the years as well. Once got the train from Inverkeithing to Manchester Piccadilly one evening. Arrived in the middle of the night to be collected by the vendor. Went back to his house, had a cup of tea, loaded some spares in the cars and drove my "new" Triumph 2000 back to Fife overnight. I also took a flight from Edinburgh to Bristol, got on a train further into the West Country and collected my gold mk1 Fiesta from Bridgwater. Again, fuelled it up and drove it back up to Fife. I understand that some people circumstances mean that they can't afford the time for these odysseys but if you really want something you have to get off the sofa and go and get it. The upside is that you invariably meet some splendid people and enjoy the curiosity of those you meet at service stations and suchlike wondering just exactly what that strange vehicle you are driving actually is. Looking forward to whatever comes up next now. Really fancied the Fiat 131 Sport in Malta but that might just be taking it too far !
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