as started above when do you decide its time 2 just get rid ive spent a whole day trying 2 repair my sump changing it over cos the alternator put a hole in it and now i must have put the gakest on wrong cos its just pissed oil everywhere. ive been working on this car for ages now and trying 2 get it sorted b4 the summer but every time there seems to b a another problem.. anyone else feel th pain cos im getting really fed up of this now and i cant send it 2 a mechanic cos ive fallen out with mine 4 one and i dont really have the money to fork out repairing it, but on the other hand i cant sell it cos ill get fu*k all 4 it just really gettin 2 me

 

feel like that all the time mate.series one now owes me ten grand and it still pisses me off with problems

 

my coss pisses me off but when i look at it i think balls to it ill keep going.

 

yea but what keeps you goin its just like every time i touch it sumthing else goes wrong

 

patience..

 

i actually dont know what keeps me going.i think all my mates naggin me probably.if not i would have thrown the towel in long ago.

 

but ive spent the whole day under that thing 4 fuck all cos i gotta do it again, well ive got all my m8s and my parents just sayin get rid of it get sumthing senseable

 

i thought that was the character that appeals to owners of rattly old fords?

 

Just think of all the people on here that have said the classic "wish i'd never sold/let go of that car"

Ive had my ERST for 3 years now and only had a month of solid driving tops. I just think of all the effort Ive put in and what a waste it would be to get rid of it now.

 

yea i spose but ive not got another car im trying 2 save up 4 a van 4 work and fix this aswell. my last one i had was spot ona dn i got rid of it cos it had abit of rust appearing and brought this heap of crap. well least we got bank holiday next week so ive got 4 days to do it sigh

 

I have given up.
I have had a cabby for 6 years. out of that I have had it out for 1 summer and that was in 2003!
I had had countless arguments with the wife about spending some money on it.
She always says no!! TBH I cant be arsed with her moaning about it.
One of the last straws for me was when it slipped off the jack and put a nice dent on the lower 1/4 just above the sill.
I have just been given a Saab 900 turbo for nothing by a workmate. It needs a couple of bits of welding and it will have a ticket on it. Needless to say she wasn't too happy when I told her I planned to sell it on and get the cab painted and sorted up!
After more moaning from her, I have now decided to break the cabby, sell my sensible economic Fiesta that she is using for Uni, sell the Saab and a Zafira that is in my mums garage and buy something else. I fancy a BMW or an Audi S4. Fuck her economy!, she can get her motor converted to LPG is she wants.

 

thats the thing im not into any other cars really i want a saff cossie but cant afford one and this is the only car for me atm i just want it workin

 

i feel very sorry for lads that have to run car purchases past the mrs or parents, i say "oy duck what you think" and if she says i don't like it its too fast etc i just buy it anyway. my mrs didn't like my jag but one nice day out in it and she says are we keeping it ??

 

yea my car is fucking me off now only had it a month.
First blew turbo up
had to change oil pump water pump.
today was putting it together and i was just one thing after another.
Going to the work shop tomz to finish it

 

lol.
My Mrs aint all that bad, I would agree with her in that the house and kids etc are priority, but I disagree when she thinks the bedroom needs done up for the sake of it. just seems like any time I have some motivation to do something with it, something else comes up and the cash gets diverted elsewhere.
In the years my cab has been off the road, I have got married, been to Australia 3 times, bought a house, sold it to buy another and went from £23k a year to £11k a year so I guess I cant complain.

 

my ex was sound about my cossy and even now when she just nipped round sed it looks nice and how was it doing,what keeps me going is its my dream car,ive wanted 1 all my life and my mates always took the piss saying you'll never get one,pissed on their chips and i swore id never give up on it,and i wont,just shut garage door,have a few beers and chill,go back to it with a clear head tomorrow

 

this fiesta was sooo reliable when i had it before i broke it for spares, used as daily driver, missed it too lol

 

yeh it came to me 2 weeks ago then broke the car asap ! got a skyline now never looked back

 

£5.18 a gallon of petrol and a box of matchs

 

I was felt the same when i first got my cossie cause it had running faults.I fixed that then something else would go wrong.I just took my time with it and touch wood its been ok for the past year.

 

 

itll burn just as well with 95ron at 90pence a litre and youll save yourself £1.13.

 

 

i decided enough was enough on friday
i went to get it out the garage and the alarm decided to pack in so i got pissed off and started pulling it apart there and then
i did wake up this morning thinking what the fuck have i done
but im sure ill feel better when some money starts coming in for the parts

 

97.9 for 95 ron here mate

 

ive had my xr3i cab only a matter of 3 weeks and ive already spent well on £400 and still to spend money on a new roof, kit fitting, full respray, engine strip and rebuild and then interior retrim all this year! its going to be an expensive spring and summer!

it will probably end up breaking down the first run out i have it again but at the end of the day i wouldnt give up for one second at all. taht one day a year that it runs sweet and all the looks and good looks it gets its deserved easily

 

only you can decide, we all have varying love for these old fords and if your love is diminishing and you do not have the ability to maintain it and its pissing you off more than giving you enjoyment then maybe its time to get rid.

 

My frst, pissed me off, threw loads of money at it, restored it, was mint, fresh engine just as said one thing after another

 

lol i take it back! Im starting to give up as well now! lol

engine has done 1400 miles, top hose split yesterday, banjo bolt on the turbo started leaking this morning.. and ive just spent 3 hours in a garage forecourt trying to get my starter motor to work!

old fords definitely have character, just a shame its a temperamental stubborn character!

 

it will happen all the time until people stop doing diy jobs on a Ford

if you saved the money in the first place and got it built properly they will last

just the same if you buy cheap spanners its not cost effective you just buy them over and over again because they break but if you buy snap on stuff you buy it once

 

The problem IMO is most of us cannot afford a professional to do all the work, so we save money and do it ourselves. Then, as we don't have the right knowledge to complete some jobs we have to do them more than once, costing the same, if not more than if a professional done it!!

Then when we do pay the professional its normally the wrong professional and that ends up costing us double or another part thats 20 years old decides it don't wanna work anymore and that packs up!

If we didn't care so much about our cars they would last forever. My old Saph lasted 2 years with atleast 12months of weekend abouse, every weekend. Before it got stolen she was leaking about 4 litres of oil a month and everything was dieing slowly BUT she suffered 50,000 miles of hard abuse and rarely broke down. My Esc Cos broke monthly

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^
Well said mate.

 

that is why its best to take them to somewhere like NMS or STU @ MSD

the engine blows but people build another engine or get another engine fitted but they don't look into why the engine died in the first place you could fit three engines and they will all fail if its something electrical

if they took it to STU he would check over the loom check the fuel pump voltage, fuel map, etc to see if anything made the engine fail in the first place

 

Yeh your right there.If its set up right it will be spot on.

 

In the same boat mate and agree with what fletch says, every ford ive owned ive tried to work on myself, my xr2i, all 3 of my cossies and even the gfs mk4 escort cab, i did a whole loom change, and an engine change in that and still im having to fix things on it weekly!!! and the cossie is still off the road after 2 1/2 yrs as having a house has made my priorities change.

Classic example is my 306 TD, had a noise which was symptomatic of driveshaft on way out so changed the side it should have been, wasnt that so assumed must be the other side, changed that and wasnt that turned out to be the passenger side wheel bearing!!!! strange thing was there was no play in it and could spin but when driving was shaking the whole car!!! I wasted £140 on shafts trying to save myself money, and as said probably would have been chaper just taking it to a garage in the 1st place

 

Today I think. Looks lovely, but is it worth scrimping and saving every month to have a mint garage ornament? No, not anymore.

 

And that's it mate you will get rid and probably buy a Bmw or Audi etc

and it will have full dealer service history but what you won't do IMO is start swapping engines yourself and start playing around with it yourself trying to boost twice its power output and that's exactly why they are reliable

 

Just more modern too.

 

but taking cars to tuners doesnt stop them from breaking down in the sense of split hoses, or popped relays and alike.

you cant be enthusiastic about a car when all you do is drive it. Half the fun of owning and old ford is you put alot of yourself into making it work. Then in doing so understanding how they work, and imo alot of garages etc to botch jobs just to churn the cars out.

The way i justify keeping my car is the price of parts. yeah it breaks down a fair bit, but then i can get replacement parts for next to nothing. Used to have a 3series which cost me £130 for a set of HT leads! and in 3 years of ownership it went through 2 headgaskets all repaired at garages etc.

The day i decide to get a "sensible" car is the day i give up on life all together. Wheres the adventure in driving a car that guarantee's to get you to your destination lol

 

i could drive another car atm cos i do love my frst but on days like thi i think fuck it ill get sumthing else and the thing is ide prob end up buyin my third one so i dont wana do that but after reading all of your storys it has brought my passion bac for it, its just a pain in the arse and i want it 4 the summer at least just running for the summer will do me