Toms306's China HDi Estate 2012

[Toms306]

Nothing retains its value, depreciation is ridiculous - drive a car off the forecourt and you lose a few k.
At least with the 306 you can fix it cheaply, and keep a relatively decent car going.

Hmm...I've lost money on every 306 I've owned.........I only lost ~£100 on the Golf...and still have stuff to sell. Not bad for a non runner!

Everything does depreciate, but Mk4s havent really lost any value in the last few years (annoyingly! Seeing as I'd never pay £3k for one, its still a 10 year old car at the end of the day) but 306 resale has died more recently, they're just not worth anything now, theres still the same high priced ones on ebay that were there months ago when I was driving the diablo!

New cars depreciate badly I agree, and all cars will depreciate, but some more than others (I mean 12 years ago some poor bugger had to pay £13k for a 1.4 306 meridian! ) but look at things like Audi diesels, especially the diesel estate Audi A4s hold their value so well even now. Or BMW diesel estates (you can see a trend here....) the cars that have better spec, better engines and lower running costs all hold thier value too well. Hence GTi6s/XSis/1.8ts/V6s all being ridiculously cheap these days.

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Re: the exhaust, £3 tin of gun gum, slap it all over the place. Will hold for ages and one less thing to moan about...

Whats the point? Something else will just break anyway!

[cully]

tom stop your winging if you want another golf buy one!
if you cant aford one by a 306 and stop complaining about the cost!

i paid nearly £3k for my 306 and have spent probably £1.5k on servicing and repairing it
i dont expect to see enything back when the time comes to sell
my opinion cars are a work horse and work till they die!

[Eeyore]

Tom what have you actually spent on yours? Discs and pads all round and some cable ties?

Remember I bought mine for £300 and then spent another £400 on parts, MOT, servicing etc. Its all in the fun of having a 306 and also I feel good because I saved mine! Even though it has a wobbly front end from an accident its all in the character! And the story that it got broken into in Amsterdam and stolen by the police is just another epic story to tell. Also by remapping it and fitting an FMIC it will be getting one good last bit of life before it eventually does break!

[Toms306]

I can afford to buy a Golf, just don't wanna pay the ridiculous price they go for considering they're they're still just a shit 10 year old car and all done over 150k now. Do I want one? Not really, didn't 'want' the previous ones...but I can't find anything else that even comes close in terms of spec and cheapness to run for the same price.


Discs and pads, front suspension was replaced because of a leaking shock, drop links, seat height adguster (which is actually still broken), god knows how much wire and crimps fixing the door loom and the radio loom etc, wiper motor, service/aux belt/tensioner (which incidently, still sqeals like a bitch), handbrake cables, various bulbs as this car seems to just eat them....and after all that its STILL broken - no heater blower, droning wheel bearing, horrible gearbox feel (maybe the wheel bearing noise is the diff breaking, who knows...), something engine wise is f*cked because its stupidly slow, Im guessing turbo as I can't even feel the boost, MAFs probably f*cked as with all of them, airbag lights intermittently on even after the wires being crimped, the interior literally falls apart and has most of the screws missing - theres only one holding my tailgate plastic on ffs, and theres nothing holding the centre console in!! Something clutch related is f*cked as its so juddery, as said earlier the exhausts blowing, theres an oil leak which I think is turbo oil reurn, coolant drops alarmingly quickly, and as you know it drinks fuel, I could go on but I wont! It'd cost hundreds of pounds to even get it to a half decent standard which is just isn't worth.

I've had enough of it already, not looking forward to the next 6 weeks of it at least.

[Eeyore]

meh you could fix that easily for a few hundred...

[Poodle]

The "cost of owning a 306" is nothing to do with the cars, it's you mate. Not being funny, but every time you buy a new car you spend weeks moaning about it's problems and spending money fixing them, then decide to sell it just as it's beginning to resemble a motor that somebody would actually want. If you want cars to stop costing you so much you need to do two things: 1) stop selling half-decent cars and replacing them with sheds 2) actually finish the job of fixing one and hang on to it.

[Ruan]

I've owned two cars since starting on this forum... I've lost count of the many other have had...

It's cheaper to keep a car that's OK on fuel than keep changing... It ends up costing you a fortune... You seem to not appreciate the correlation between price of car and running costs...

[Toms306]

The "cost of owning a 306" is nothing to do with the cars, it's you mate. Not being funny, but every time you buy a new car you spend weeks moaning about it's problems and spending money fixing them, then decide to sell it just as it's beginning to resemble a motor that somebody would actually want. If you want cars to stop costing you so much you need to do two things: 1) stop selling half-decent cars and replacing them with sheds 2) actually finish the job of fixing one and hang on to it.

What? Where did you get that idea from?

I sold my ph2 with a broken clutch and 'box.
I sold the diablo ph3 because it was never right after the coil pack spiked the ECU and I wasn't paying for another ECU, kept running like shit and overheating and stop light and various other dash lights - I should've learnt at this point that 306s are rubbish, but I didn't.
I sold the china 1.4 with its 3rd gearbox failing and a couple of other issues
I sold the 1.8 because it was f*cking awesome - except for doing 35mpg! Thats the only one that was decent when I sold it.
I sold the silver Golf when the DMF was just starting to go
I didnt sell the blue Golf, I broke it as it certainly wasnt in a tate that anyone would want.
I didnt sell the estate, as I never bought it lol
And this estate will never be a car that someone 'wants' now, too much of it has been ruined by ruined by previous owners, which is the worst thing about 306s. I have noubt that if I owned owned one from new it would've been much better....

Only one of those cars was half decent when I sold it, the 1.8, and only sold it because I couldn't afford the fuel and needed a rattly smelly old diesel....

I've owned two cars since starting on this forum... I've lost count of the many other have had...

It's cheaper to keep a car that's OK on fuel than keep changing... It ends up costing you a fortune... You seem to not appreciate the correlation between price of car and running costs...

No, I see the corrolation.

Buy something cheap and it'll keep break which is inconvient and wastes time and money to fix. It'll use a lot more fuel and cost loads to tax and insure (how a mapped, lowered 306 costs more to insure than a mapped Golf I have no idea!). And it'll depreciate like hell as no-one wants them these days hence the majority getting broken for parts.

Buy something more expensive to start with - it'll be much better on fuel, cost half as much to tax. Cost less to insure. Be quicker to start with, despite being cheaper to run. It'll be much better specced. Won't be perpetually broken. Will be more comfotable. AND will still give a good return when you come to sell it, even if you break it!!

The ONLY thing that puts me off buying a newer car is the fixing cost when anything major goes wrong, but as things like a turbo or DMF will be once in a cars lifetime you've got to be pretty unlucky to have one fail.


I've realised what I've been doing wrong now anyway - modifying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The next car I buy will be under 10 years old, under 100k miles and most importantly will remain standard!! Oh and be bought from a decent dealer with warranty so they can fix it if it breaks.

[gareth7]

Buy something more expensive to start with - it'll be much better on fuel, cost half as much to tax. Cost less to insure. Be quicker to start with, despite being cheaper to run. It'll be much better specced. Won't be perpetually broken. Will be more comfotable. AND will still give a good return when you come to sell it, even if you break it!!







Get some money together then Tom and crack on mate.....maybe then you'll be happy eh?!

[Toms306]

Doubt I'll be happy lol, money doesn't buy happiness unfortunately. But thats what I'm doing, turned down money for a better car twice already, won't make the same mistake this time.

[Ruan]

Only once you've had a turbo on/off your car over 20 times can you come to me saying it's just too far gone...

Sometimes when you have NO money you just have to deal with the shit that goes with, when I was working in schools for near minimum wage and driving around to feeder primaries - I was doing ~17,000 miles a year, I couldn't afford a "better" car - I did the work myself, I've had rear beams fail (x3), Turbos fail (admittedly most of them my fault, but at least 3 of them weren't - I had a T2 fail on a 100% stock car because it eat a jubilee clip), Head gaskets fail (x4), Hubs (x2 pairs) and the list goes on...

I dealt with the shit, admittedly I tried tuning it to beyond double stock power in the process, but even if I didn't I'd have still had loads of problems, but the result is that I've almost DEFINITELY spent less than buying a "better" car and taking it to a garage - even with the tuning I've done!!

If you want something 100% reliable, just go and get yourself a Nissan Micra 1.3 or an Almera 1.6... They will go on forever, you may have rust issues, yes, but buy yourself a welder and patch it up... We've had 2 Micras now, I used and abused one, finally it was scrapped due to rust (that was a 1996..) and the other I abused for a year and is still going today, does 45-50mpg everywhere no matter how you drive it, it's SHIT, it's SLOW, it's CHARACTERLESS but until you can afford bigger and better things, that's the realm you have to stay in...

And for the record - if you say the Micra isn't big enough - on my way back from Uni I had my entire worlds posessions in the back of a Micra (bikes x2, computers, clothes, chair, uni paperwork, kitchen stuff) plus a Concept2 rowing machine... It's incredible what you can fit in the back of a small car if you try... It was tight, I was sat on clothing and had a bike wheel covering the gearstick so I could only get 1st 3rd and 5th...

[cwspellowe]

Only once you've had a turbo on/off your car over 20 times can you come to me saying it's just too far gone...

True opening salvo is true.

The only reason I scrapped the GTi was because I painted it myself and the paint started literally falling off the car.

The estate? It's a f*cking riot and if anyone knew half the shit i've done to that car, NOONE would want it. You know what the solution is? Keep the car. If you sell a car with broken bits you have to price it accordingly taking labour costs into account. If you fix it yourself you get dirt cheap parts and a couple of hours worth of effort. So straight away that's money lost.

Then the new car, whatever it may be. You either stump up cash on top of the money from the old car, or you buy a shitter car and end up on a downwards spiral of money being thrown down the pan. And then what? You've spent yet MORE money, which would probably have fixed the problems with the previous car, only to have a car that realistically won't save you much money in the long run.

Say you sell a 306HDi for what, £1k? And then you buy a Golf at, say, £3k. Straight away that's £2k outlay, and if you only get an extra 15mpg or so it's pretty unrealistic you'll make that money back when you take depreciation and servicing into account on the Golf.

I'm beginning to see that you seem to want the champagne lifestyle on a lemonade budget.

Personally i'd love to have a newer, better put together car but for the wages i'm on it's not a viable option at all. So to hear you harping on about how the HDi is shit, you want something better spec'd, you want this that and the other is really frustrating. In fact it annoys me greatly.

You really need to learn to live within your means. If you can't afford to run a HDi estate then you really need to start looking at other cars, and unfortunately it looks like "high spec" is something you don't have the luxury of having in a car.

[Niall]

Tom i really dont understand where you have got this idea from that a newer/more expensive car is automatically better just because its newer and more expensive. As i said to you a while ago, my 9 month old skoda had a new clutch at 29k. Its also been to the garage more times than youve had shits to sort silly little issues. Most of our kias have had new engines (the record being a new engine in a car with 790 miles on the clock...yes 790!) And they are all serviced when they should be, by dealers, with genuine parts. Ive spent 3k on a car before and the general interior build quality was better and it was faster and comfy but it still broke down and it still had its fair share of age/mileage related issues.
TBH tom, i think you just hate 306s and therefore want to pick on these things. Even the newest ones are 10 years old now but i challenge you to find a car with the same spec, for the same money that doesnt rot too badly, is cheap to run (even the petrols are cheap to run compared to same age equivalents), cheap to insure and above all in your case, cheap to fix.
Even if you blew an engine in your HDi, you could replace it with new fluids and a cambelt for less than £400. Would like to see you do that in a golf and dont tell me you wont need to because your last golf did!

[Toms306]

I could replace aGolf engine much more cheaply........I still have most of one spare in the Garden.

You completely contradicted yourself there Niall, saying that why is a newer car better....then said your £3k car still had age/milage related issues - so a newer lower milage car will have less of those issue!

My Mums NEVER had a major fault on any newer car she's bought, and she does more miles than anyone else I know, at one point she was doing Ipswich to Barnesly and back every single weekend. She started with a an Volvo when I was small, I remeber various faults with that, including the acc cable snapping and the car overheating, not liking sainsburys leaded petrol (showing its age!) and having to be drained and then dumping its coolant which is when it died - old, cheap, shit, unreliable and not worth repairing.

She then got a Micra, it was only a few years old at the time, NEVER had any work done on it, wasnt even serviced, even ran it down to Bognor Regis with the oil light on and not even enough oil to touch the dipstick! She only sold it cos she was given (not bought. ) a Y plate Skoda Fabia by my Grandad - now this skoda had a faulty wiring loom from the factory, but my Grandad wouldn't take it back cos he was a stubborn old guy at times haha. Anyway, it was always shit, they changed various sensors for her, and in the end they said 'f*ck it' basically it needed a new wiring loom which may or may not have solved the issue. She traded it in for a new skoda fabia, and I know for a fact the other one was just auctioned, so some poor guy buying a second hand car from a dodgy dealer got that shitter!! Anyway she had no problems at all with that new Fabia until it was 6 years old and had done 96k miles - then the cat broke and it would've cost more than the cars trade in price to fix (£1500) because small pov spec petrols depreciate like hell. Anyway, she then got use of a Hyundai i10 and realised she wasnt 80 years old, it was wank on fuel and my Grandad had broken it in the few years he'd owned it, so she traded both in for a Suzuki Swift, first nice car she's had imo, and no problems in 6 months and ~8k miles so far.

What I'm saying is it is the luck of the drawer whether a car is good or not - generally brand new cars have faults from the factory (think of the billions they make, theyr enot all gonna be perfect) but they'll be rectified under warranty. Then cars go for a few years without any major issues, until they start getting old and rusty and deteriorating - this was the thing with the 2nd Fabia, if it'd been a VRS it would've been worth fixing as the rest of the car was still perfect, the only rusty part was the exhaust, everything in the bay was still in perfect condition. The interior was still in perfect conditon. That car could've been driven anywhere knowing there was very little chance of anything at all going wrong. And this is what it's about for me, reducing anxiety levels, I'm scared to drive hard or even overtake in the 306 cos Im always thinking 'what if the turbo dies when Im on the worng side of the road, what if the clutch fails, what if a wheel falls off etc. I can't drive this anywhere near as hard as I drove the Golf, and what the hell is the point of owning a car you're scared to drive anywhere?

My problem is theres only a small distance area where I can buy cars from (again, other issues creating barriers) and the thing with that is I dont have much choice in what I buy for ~£2k, so I take what I can as there'll only be one HDi, or one PD Golf, or one 1.8 306 in this small area. Using a bit more money (which as I've already said, my Nan wants to give me) that opens up a lot more choice, so I can be more picky rather than having to take the 7 owner, 130k, longlife serviced Golf just because it was the only one around...just as an example lol. And if I can find a car that I'm comfortable with that I can trust AND would be cheaper to run, then that would at least reduce stress in one area, as theres no way I can reduce stress at home currently from the seems of it.

I know we'll have different opinions on this, but the fact is I've made my mind up now.

[Niall]

No I didn't Tom. Read what I said. I've given you several examples of where new cars have failed which goes to show that newer cars arnt perfect like you think they are. All cars break down Tom, difference being that a clutch in my skoda cost skoda almost 4k. A new clutch in my 6 on 70k (which didn't really need doing) cost £220. I know that's two extremes of the scale but shows that there is no benefit of owning a newer car other than the snobbery of saying you've got one. And don't be under this impression that if a car is under warranty, it will be automatically fixed because it won't. My car was gone for 3 weeks because they had to strip it down then send the failed parts back to the manufacturer for inspection to decide if it was user error or premature failure. It's very difficult trying to claim on a warranty just like insurance. It's in the companies best interests to protect their money and not pay to repair your broken car.
Granted, if you were buying a car from the 1980s, I'd agree to an extent that they are not as reliable without more upkeep due to manufacturing tolerances being substantially lower then. A car hitting 100k then was going well but even cars like the 306, this forum just proves that 100k is just wearing it in. I've seen gtis go on to well over 200k and seen several 406 diesels with over 400k. I got into a old banged up 406 cab once that was on 45k. When I said to him, this is on bloody low mileage for its age, he said nope, it's been round the clock once and I believe that. Look after a car and there is no reason why it won't last but you seem to be under this dillusional idea that if you have to replace any parts on a car, it's crap, expensive to run and unreliable. Not true. Like all things, parts have a limited shelf life but this can be extended with proper maintenance but you don't seem to understand this.
Go ahead and buy your newer car and see what happens. You will be pissed and wishing you still had a 306 when your at a dealers getting a cambelt done on a newer golf and they present you a bill that's in 4 figures.

[Toms306]

I' never said new cars are perfect, infact I showed above examples where they aren't lol...

Infact the best most relaible cars are big petrol engines if you have the money for petrol - no turbos, no DMFs, the only expensive things on those are the injectors which are made MUCH better than the older ones these days. How many issues do you think my Dads had with his 150k 2001 Mondeo V6 Ghia X....yup, none, except a tyre with a screw in it that couldve happened to any car. Yet he's had several older cheap pov spec mondeos on ridiculous milage that he's just scrapped - he eventually learnt that buying £400 cars and having to scrap them after a few months was wasting more money than just buying a nicer, newer one to start with.

And why on earth would I buy another Golf lol? Nah, its something without VAG tax this time. Also a PD130 cambelt doesn't cost much, about £300, the one on the silver golf was done just before I got it, and tbh a '6 belt probably costs more in labour. I'm not sure where you seem to get the idea from that newer cars costs so much to fix. Yes a brand new car does, and yes a top end car like a Saab does........but your average family salloon/hatch even at ~05 plate really doesn't cost much more in eqivalent parts than a 306. Labour often takes less time as well do to parts not being seized and due to not breaking extra old parts (caliper nipples for a start). Essentially, a belt is still a belt, a cable is still a cable, pads and discs are the same. A clutch even costs the same, its only when you have to change a DMF or a VNT turbo that newer things cost more, but thats not equiavlent to a 306 anyway.

[cwspellowe]

Bob Geldof. Love it.

[Ed Doe]

[Toms306]

[Niall]

Tom your parents have been lucky. It's proven that there is no link between a car being new and being more reliable. My old 106 was almost 20 years old and never broke down once in the 15k I did in it. And believe me that was a hard 15k! Yet I've had newer and more expensive cars that have broken down. It's just pure luck. You could go to a dealers to or row and buy a brand new car, never service it and it just carries on working yet you could also go and buy a brand new car and within 1000 miles, it does a Matt and shits a rod. Difference is is a repair on a older car is generally more simple, cheaper and doesn't need dealer intervention (don't forget modern cars rely on obd2 substantially more than 10 years ago). For someone like you who has sod all money to run the car (because really you should be factoring breakdowns and maintenance and consumable parts into the running costs) a cheaper older car is the way forwards. I understand that you need something reliable because of your anxiety but trust me Tom, newer cars are not more reliable!

[Toms306]

OBD2 is much better - I can just stick the code reader on to check fault codes and test sensors and view live data streams. Much better than guessing 'ummmmm, this might be broken, I'll stick a new one on and see'. Say I bought an XUD and 'something' went wrong in the fuel pump. I'd have absolutely no idea of how to sort it and would still have to take that to a garage, but not just any garage because a lot won't mess with VE pumps as its a skilled thing to set up.

I totally understand your point Niall, but what I need to find (and am researching atm) is a middle ground with a type of car that is usually reliable (and factor in expected faults with that car) that I feel comfortable with that isn't brand new and overly expensive, but also isn't old and falling apart - I'm afraid the majority of 306s owned by Joe Bloggs are in the old and falling apart category now, as they are just used and abused as a cheap workhorse. Then try to find a car thats already had the major item replaced if its on higher milage (say a Mondeo diesel with 80k, with the DMF already changed). Its no guarantee that it won't go again, but its less likely. I've been looking into it for a few weeks and have made my mind up that I'm not keeping the estate for various reasons, I'm not sure what I'll replace it with yet, but thats what I'm still looking into.

[Niall]

See that's the difference between a mechanic and someone who's just walled out of college with a qualification in working on cars. You rely on heavily on obd which can be wrong and misleading a lot of the time. A decent mechanic can just use a multimeter or other methods. Most garages don't bother with obd unless its something obd specific they are doing like programming a new key.

[Ruan]

Engine management has less of a clue than you do...

It's not intelligent, all it can read is sensors and say there's something wrong... Is that the sensor or is that the actual part it's sensing that's at fault!? Replace the sensor at £100 a pop...

Honestly, don't use that as an argument... Why do you think there's Diagnostic Technicians paid £40k to diagnose these faults that no one can find... MODERN cars are inherently problematic... As said, just get a frikking micra or almera, it won't go wrong... You keep saying you don't want failing DMFs etc, but you're looking at Mondeos on 80k which do have issues with EGR, Injector Calibration, Turbos and BMWs that eat swirl flaps, chew DMFs and HP pumps...

Also with regards to an XUD9 - VE pumps DON'T go wrong if you leave them alone... They can eat turbos, but they're £50 a piece and a morning to change, clutches don't tend to go and can be limped for years, they're not smooth, not very powerful in stock form... But they ARE reliable if you leave them alone...

OR why not get a DW8 NA?

There's SO many SIMPLE cars out there, but you're going for Golf IVs, 306 HDis etc... All ECU controlled bollocks... Get something SIMPLE for once. You had your 106 1.5d which was perfect for you, but you decided you didn't quite like the way it handled, even though it was definitely fine, it's just a shit car, but you'll just have to cope with that... You DON'T NEED to overtake everything..

As Chris said... Champagne lifestyle on a Lemonade budget...

Sometimes you HAVE to make compromises, and I think your car will have to be one...

[1616six]

Thing is Tom, you're wanting to do what i've just done.

I've always driven under £1000 cars, my ph3 XUD was the best car i've ever had, it was a decent spec, decent power, looked nice & got fantastic MPG, but I still had the same idea as you.

I spent £3100 on a 54 plate Vectra SRI 150 & personally I don't regret it at all.

If you had my car, there would be threads up saying how shite it is, I can almost garuntee that.

My car is fairly big, it's an SRI CDTI 150 so its got a nice spec, it gets 54 MPG all day long & it ticks every box for me. Its now just shy of 200bhp and it handles really well, it sticks to the road, it fits everything I need in it & I also love the way it looks.

If you had it, you'd probably say it looks like every reps car on the road, its too common, boring to drive, MPG should be 60+.

I'm 21, got 4yrs NCB as of feb, my ELEPHANT renewal (NO discounts before you ask!) is £418 comp. The vectra is £93 for 6 months tax, as I said gets 54 MPG, and it's a nice place to be! Ideal car for you from where i'm sitting? Yet when I was going to buy it, you said you drove one & thought it was slow & horrible to drive. I welcome you to drive my car and say it's slow, & handles VERY well for a big car (In my experience of 37+ cars)

What ever car you have, you will want more, because your ideal car doesn't exist. If someone said to you, "Tom, what car do you WANT?" what would you say? Just straight outright what car on the market today ticks every box for you? If it's a car that gets 70+ MPG, you can pretty much rule out any good looking, quick, good handling car. Fact.

[Eeyore]

tom youve never had a dturbo before. Get a dturbo!

[Toms306]

Engine management has less of a clue than you do...

It's not intelligent, all it can read is sensors and say there's something wrong... Is that the sensor or is that the actual part it's sensing that's at fault!? Replace the sensor at £100 a pop...

Honestly, don't use that as an argument... Why do you think there's Diagnostic Technicians paid £40k to diagnose these faults that no one can find... MODERN cars are inherently problematic... As said, just get a frikking micra or almera, it won't go wrong... You keep saying you don't want failing DMFs etc, but you're looking at Mondeos on 80k which do have issues with EGR, Injector Calibration, Turbos and BMWs that eat swirl flaps, chew DMFs and HP pumps...

Also with regards to an XUD9 - VE pumps DON'T go wrong if you leave them alone... They can eat turbos, but they're £50 a piece and a morning to change, clutches don't tend to go and can be limped for years, they're not smooth, not very powerful in stock form... But they ARE reliable if you leave them alone...

OR why not get a DW8 NA?

There's SO many SIMPLE cars out there, but you're going for Golf IVs, 306 HDis etc... All ECU controlled bollocks... Get something SIMPLE for once. You had your 106 1.5d which was perfect for you, but you decided you didn't quite like the way it handled, even though it was definitely fine, it's just a shit car, but you'll just have to cope with that... You DON'T NEED to overtake everything..

As Chris said... Champagne lifestyle on a Lemonade budget...

Sometimes you HAVE to make compromises, and I think your car will have to be one...

You and Niall have kinda missed the point about diagnostics though. Say you go out to your car and it won't start - well, where do you go from there!? Obviously check the battery, check the fuel pumps getting voltage, but then what? You could start poking and prodding randomly with a multi-meter, but thats pointless and wasting time. Or you could plug in the fault code reader that, for example, brings up an injector circuit fault, excellent, you can now go straight the problem with the multimeter, find the issue almost instantly. Thats the idea of it, I don't think anyone would just whack a new sensor in without testing the old one first though. UNLESS youre in a garage, where the auto-electrician costs too much for them to use so they just go off the code reader and possibly replace a part it didnt need because its cheaper to do that (yes, I saw it done, luckily it was under warranty).

The problem with saying a turbo is £50 and a morning to change - you forget that what takes you a morning would take me a week!

And I got rid of a phase 2 after an extremely narrow escape on a wet road with a transit van. Tiny brakes and no ABS isn't something thats gonna reduce anxiety levels, that 106 NAD was honestly THE most dangerous car I've ever driven, forget a heavy golf with 180bhp and 350NM of torque - I had more near misses and kerb bumps in that bloody NAD than any other car I've driven. As well as the fact it was awful joining motorways with, to the point where I'd go through town wherever I was going to avoid having to go on the motorway at busy times. There is no point at all owning a car like that for me.

I do/have made many compromises, in order to keep ONE thing I want which is a half decent car. I don't do anything else, I don't buy anything else, I even buy less food to spend more on fuel. I've gotta have something nice, where am I even gonna attempt to find any motivation if literally everything is shit?? My car is the only place I can get away from everything else, the only place I can be myself, and if I hate it (NAD...) I don't want to go out in it and end up more depressed in the end.

Also I don't agree with a champagne lifestyle, I'm not looking at Aston's lol - more a lemonade car on a tap water budget is probably more appropriate.

Thing is Tom, you're wanting to do what i've just done.

I've always driven under £1000 cars, my ph3 XUD was the best car i've ever had, it was a decent spec, decent power, looked nice & got fantastic MPG, but I still had the same idea as you.

I spent £3100 on a 54 plate Vectra SRI 150 & personally I don't regret it at all.

If you had my car, there would be threads up saying how shite it is, I can almost garuntee that.

My car is fairly big, it's an SRI CDTI 150 so its got a nice spec, it gets 54 MPG all day long & it ticks every box for me. Its now just shy of 200bhp and it handles really well, it sticks to the road, it fits everything I need in it & I also love the way it looks.

If you had it, you'd probably say it looks like every reps car on the road, its too common, boring to drive, MPG should be 60+.

I'm 21, got 4yrs NCB as of feb, my ELEPHANT renewal (NO discounts before you ask!) is £418 comp. The vectra is £93 for 6 months tax, as I said gets 54 MPG, and it's a nice place to be! Ideal car for you from where i'm sitting? Yet when I was going to buy it, you said you drove one & thought it was slow & horrible to drive. I welcome you to drive my car and say it's slow, & handles VERY well for a big car (In my experience of 37+ cars)

What ever car you have, you will want more, because your ideal car doesn't exist. If someone said to you, "Tom, what car do you WANT?" what would you say? Just straight outright what car on the market today ticks every box for you? If it's a car that gets 70+ MPG, you can pretty much rule out any good looking, quick, good handling car. Fact.

What I've realised is this - I don't know what I REALLY want. What I THINK I want, I can't afford (a big petrol, but it was actually a massive anti-climax when i drove a '6). What I NEED really doesn't exist, everything in cars is a compromise.

I also ruined 75% of cars by owning a damn quick, high spec Golf. Yes it handled like shit, but it was so cheap to run, so practical, unbeleivably torquey (once you'd got over the lag!) and comfy and well specced as well. I know most of you won't/didn't like it and I don't blame you, this is afterall a 306 forum. But now most cars seem slow against it - I went back to the 306 cos I thought handling would make up for lack of torque, and it really didn't! Because I don't dare push it hard anyway (especially on T1Rs!) so that handling 'upgrade' over the Golf was irrelevant tbh. And it just seems like with the 306 I'm paying out a lot of money and getting nothing in return, I've really tried to enjoy the car like I enjoyed the 1.8, but it just does nothing for me, and I can only assume it's having a 'nicer' car thats ruined that.

So sod the handling, sod the looks. Go on value for money to run - not just cheapness, I'm not fussed about saving 2 mpg if the car only has ~60bhp to start with (NAD vs Golf). And as well as that, has to be comfortable, when i say I want spec I think people assume I mean satnavs and teles or something, when I really mean ABS, sports seats, heating, central locking, stuff like that. I'm not looking for anything better specced than the HDi tbh, CL, EW, EM are the main kind of things that would be necessary but most cars wome with those now anyway.

I do like the look of your Vectra tbh Jordan, and with 200bhp and still averaging 54mpg cant fault that - then cheap tax, and you say only £500 to insure??????? The HDi costs double that! See it's things like that make me dislike the HDi lol.

[Bananalad]

tom youve never had a dturbo before. Get a dturbo!

Lol

[Niall]

Tom i think you need to get into the real world of mechanics and not the college way. I spent most of my weekends when i was younger working with my old man who was a master tech for jaguars as well as other jobs so i learnt the proper way to do these things. Not the college boy way.
If your car wont start, you check for fuel to the rail. Got fuel? If so, check for a spark. Got a spark? If so, move on. Is the rail pressure correct? Check pressure, Correct? Start checking sensors (which i will say is substantially easier to do with a multimeter than a code reader).
If you went into the real world of mechanics tom, you would discover that code readers are rarely used by proper mechanics. Problem is, the ecu doesnt really have a clue whats going on. If you had a car running on 3 cylinders because of a stuck injector, what could the code reader tell you? Maybe rail over pressure or if the wiring to the injector is damaged, a open circuit fault on that injector. Neither of them really tell you the fault.

Dont mean to sound harsh on you tom but youve never really worked in a garage. Not properly anyway. You might not be aware of this due to the fact that you haven't met him but Ruan is a highly knowledgeable person when it comes to cars. Tbh if i was stuck and needed help i would take his judgement over most on this forum and certainly you because yes youve done very well in college with your distinction, but its like i say with all courses. Its all well and good having the knowledge but you dont realise how applicable or not it is to the rear world till youve done it, which you havent.

[Ed Doe]

you dont realise how applicable or not it is to the rear world till youve done it

Also Tom.... Not pushing it on T1R's...?!?!?! They're great in the dry. Stop being such a vagina and enjoy how the bloody car handles!

[Toms306]

This is England ed, I haven't had a dry road since buying the China! But now with what sounds like washing machine at full spin on my osf wheel I'm constantly worried the bearings gonna lock up or the wheek fall off or something so I darent push it at all now.

I have worked at garages though niall, and at ford for example they're not allowed to do any warranty work until the diagnostic computer (and the ford system) has decided what's wrong - and for the record, the system isn't always right. I spent more time on a laptop doing fuel pump learns and stuff like that than anything mechanical tbh. Oh and didn't touch a multi meter once. Was the same at Honda, didn't even see a multi.meter there lol, but did have to do a few things with the scan tool including live readings while the tech drove, you can't do that with a multi meter!

If your dad worked at jag, I can see it could be different with a.much higher labour charge etc, but unless he still works there, I'd assume times have changed even there now. The fact is, on warranty cars and with this 'brilliant' bonus scheme, in a normal average car garage, jobs are done as quick as possible for as little money as possible. And to get the bonus, more jobs are done in a set period of time. Everything is governed by money these days unfortunately. So that means stick the scantool on, wait for confirmation from the warranty guys to change the part, change it and retest. That's literally what happens these days.

I would also take ruans advice on most things, but I don't agree with him about diagnostics being pointless, if they were, obd2 wouldn't still be built into cars now...