oh and what size are the tyres...

i know to check for the heads blowing out the gaskets/ticking
and that the secondaries open, anyone got any other advice?

 

The clutch is very costly to fix (can be up to £600) so make sure it's either been changed relatively recently or is in good health.

Make sure the engine's cold when you first start it up as a warm engine can disguise the dreaded HG tick!

 

So you have bought it without checking these things all ready????

 

bottom arms, and if you do buy it, change the water pump to a metal impeller water pump, the standard plastic impeller pumps can and do break.

 

IIRC the earlier ones had the worst impellers, and the later one's weren't as likely to go.

 

Didnt know that dan, thought they were all the same. i changed mine the first week i got my car just for peace of mind, it had done 57k when i got it, and to be fair, the impeller was in great nick, but as i said, i fitted a metal one anyway.

 

is the clutch due to labour, if so i'm not worried, however if its a £300 clutch, i'm worried

 

its a W reg on 133k

if something major is wrong i'll be walking away, was an ebay purchase

 

The work involved to get to the clutch makes for the majority of the bill, so if you're a good spanner monkey then knock the price down massively if the clutch feels duff!

As for the impeller, my 125K placcy item's still going fine (I bet I live to regret writing that though!)

 

think i got a bit of a bargin, so long as its not fcuked

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=220270690044

 

Dont tempt fate dan, the metal one's are £45 from partco mate lol.

 

how big of a job to replace the water pump?

 

Looks nice mate, hasnt been messed with either, if theres nothing wrong with it, you got a lot of car there for £870

 

About an hour to an hour and a half mate, not difficult, the hardest part i found was getting the old gasket off.

 

is it 205 55 16s or 205 50 16s on the st24 ???

 

its 205/50/16 according to some crap i found somewhere

 

Tyre size is 205 50 16

Have had a few st24/200 and never had any problems sold the last st200 to a mate and other than servicing its had no money spent on it

you get a lot of car for no money just a shame they dont go as well as they should and the 200 is not a lot quicker but saying that i would have another one as a run about

 

thats it, its going to be my daily drive, i'm not going to bugger around with it

thanks for the help guys

 

Well.... what's it like then?

 

left it where it was, clutch was ok but right at the end of its travel, the tyres were totally illegal needed new discs all round , and one of the CVs was knocking its arse off.

engine was fine showed no signs of hg etc, guy said he'd never driven it and that it owed him £750 so couldn't go lower than £850... lying trading lying scumbag

 

i reconed quite alot of work to bring it upto scratch and retail price £500 or mores worth of work without doing a clutch :O

the heated bum warmers were rubbish but after i'd found all the other faults i didn't really want it anyway