Ben26

Right where do i start:S

Ill try and keep this as short as possible. but defo worth a read if not for a laugh, unfortunately at my expense

anyway
On a saturday last month I sold my MINT WRX , I got her clean but was not really my cup of tea TBH



as she was gettin a bit expensive to run, so after looking for a clio cup of some sort for the last month or so i came across one on autotrader. ticked all the boxes ,Pictures looked mint , its what I wanted in everyway, saying 63k in the add , MOT till oct and tax till end of may, Happy days i thought

Problem was it was in Bradford, im in Torquay , 5.5hrs drive each way, cut a long story short i got my self and my wife on the mega bus from exeter £26 each suppoes to £140 each on the train , managed to get a lift to exeter from a friend for 8am in morning , again happy days

7.5hrs later we arrive in leeds bus station scratchin our heads but managed to get onto the train that would take us to Bradford, 10miles away, all the time ive been texting and speaking to the seller, telling me I want be disapionted and car is "mint " ( you might see where this thread is going now)

Got on a short train ride to bradford station where he said he would meet us outside in a transit van
Got outside and there was a tranny van waiting for me and the wife to take us to the new toy.
knocked on the window , he wound it down and i said "STEVE" he said yes "im the one for the car mate " ( van stank of weed !!! ) get in he said lalalalala , normal generic convo commenced.
2 minutes of small talk pass by when he turns to me and says the padlock is in the passanger door, padlock is in the passanger door ????, confused i asked why would i need a padlock, he said for the side door as it doesnt lock !!!!!!

***** ALARM BELLS ******


Why would i need to lock the door mate Im not buying this transit ive come to buy a car , as soon as i said that my phone rings, answer it and its "STEVE" saying im outside the train station in my transit still waiting for you . WTF !!!!!
Very kindly pot head dropped me back of to the station after a couple minutes of laughing about it , nice block TBH for him to pick up the chap he was originally waiting for and for me and the wife to jump in with the real "STEVE", what he forgot to say was that he was in a connect !!!! idiot ,anyway after alot of laughing i jump in the back and wife jumps in the front

3 miles down the road he pulls into an industial estate ,postcode BD10 8Sx, friars ind est if anyone knows it ??
As we pull up i see the car , its looked cleanish in dull light as the sun was heading down it was to dark imo to see a car properly , but in my head im thinking about the pictures that were in the autotrader . I get out and start scanning the car over.
Lets go back a few paragraphs where he replied to my text sayin " what is the body work like ? any dinks, dents , scratches or rust ?? " he replied with "no scratches dinks car mint" &" mint mate " ( ill let the pictures do the talking there tbh )
So where was I........

Checked the millage and it said 68,900 on the clock and has been advertied as 63k !
Front tyres are down to 1.7mm
Ripple on front bonnet , looks like someone has closed the bonnet on some tools !
Scratch on rear bumper
Window washers dont work
looks now like its been cleaned with a freaking sand ! swirl marks for fun
all wheels are kurbed, the photos must of been taken when the car was days old . lol

Now Im in the middle of bradford with my wife who i forgot to mention is pregnent looking at this car that is "MINT "
I told my self I have to buy this thing otherwise we are going to die here in the ind est next to this car if I dont buy it. lol
Chap gave me the folder with the docs's in it, looked at the MOT and it runs out in 2 days time WTF !!, not Oct like the add stats, so i say WTF is going on mate, again cut a long stroy short, he give me back £40 back for the MOT saying it will fly through !!! again im thinking f**k off mate, waiting for his mates to jump out and rob me of my dollar ive got for him.

Next thing he says that the V5 is still in the post from his son who sent it away and he is the trader ? and told me that he would send the V5 to me.but he did give me the green slip which didn't have a name written in it .

Foolishly I hand him over the 2k minus £40 for the MOT , but what u gotta remember I was in a right situation with where i was at 5oClock in the middle of Bradford, well somewhere in a ind est by a shit load of houses with my pregnent wife , so it was just my ticket out of there TBH.
After about 5 mins of f**king around he literally got into his van and shot off !!!! now all this time the engine had been running and sounded ...............OK , the best thing i could say.

Just up the road there was a morrisons garage and i had to fill up with fuel, so I pulled out of the ind est to be greated with the mother of rumbles/banging from under the car. like a bang bang bang !!, i think its the exhaust TBh after closer inspection and as i pull away the whole car judders , as i got out at morrisons to fill up ,the engine was alot louder now, and i mean alot louder than 10mins ago in the ind est !!!
so i thought this is mental ill phone him......................... IT DIDNT EVEN RING !!!!! straight through to answer phone, face in hands i was f**king pissed right of now, knowing ive just had my pants pulled down by "STEVE " no surname , no address , no reg number of his connect, no receipt , f**king nothing !!!

Phoned him 4-6 times and nothing .
Just about to cry i thought f**k it , its mine now, i think ?? if the V5 turns up so went to pop my sat nav on to show me the way home. WHATS THAT , THE 12v SOCKET DOESNT WORK !!! ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and the sat navs internal battery is f**ked **** KILL ME KNOW ****

Rush hour middle of bradford somewhere , loads of massive roundabout , loads of traffic lights , im cuttin across lanes like a piss head looking for signs for the motorway

The wifes phone had ran out of battery as we intended to use the megabus plug sockets but they didnt work and i was down to 30% on my samsung note 2 witch would last 2 minutes if your lucky, so with using google maps for seconds to save the battery ( as i didnt even know if the car was going to make it home i wanted to save some battery for that call to the RAC !! ) I some how got my self onto the M62 and then M6 to follow the road home, and sat back at 70mph as i wanted to nurse the car home as i really thought the engine was gonna go bang on me

This story isnt over im affraid, go make another cuppa lol

RIGHT....................
its 9:40pm now im on the M5 southbound Between J2-3 cruisin at a steady 70-75 and see this bmw marked police car with lights on come race right up my arse then pull next to me, i look over thinking WTF and he point for me to pull over so he pulls in front and i just follow him, no less than 10secs later i see another set of blue flashing lights come racing up my arse, its another copper in a marked X5 !!

now me and the wife are like wtf , being escorted in to service station my 2 tarffic cops with lights flashing is not good and i defo wasnt speding. would seem a bit ott even if i was speeding TBH
We all get out and he comes over and basically tells me there is a marker on this car as it has been involved in a burglary. F U C K O F F !!!!!!! this day can not get any worse.

Said i didnt have insurance as well , but cleared that up as i had got insurance the night before for the drive back, showed him the email THANK FOOK , I asked him how he saw me as i defo didnt see him, recons he was on the otherside of the motorway driving north and his rear camera picked up my plate up , bearing in mind it was pitch black with him doing 70mph+ and me doing the same on opposite sides of the road , WOW fare play , there cameras must be s**t hot. after about 20mins of telling him how i just had my pants pulled down by a bloke called " STEVE " he then had a call on his radio that sounded pretty crazy, shouting a screaming and then he said cheers for insurance details and they both got into there cars and shot of. leaving me and the wife just stood there looking around a dark service station car park
What a bloody long day

I couldnt make this up if i tried could I

Anyway, i took some pics today of the car to see what im playing with. as its defo going to be a from rags to riches car as im defo in to deep now.

I know ,I know i should of walked away when i saw the car but please fellas u have to understand the situation i was in

The add was on autotrader as well, cant link it as its now been removed !!
"STEVE " seemed like a really nice bloke as well, maybe im just to bloody easy blag, but its not like im a novice with cars.

The banging i hear when i pull away must be the exhaust as its all over the place , the centre clamp is not even done up , its just floating up and down the pipe , pics show that the rear backbox rubber mount is defo gone and im suspect to thinking the bottom engine mount has gone adding to the bang bang noise, when grabbing the engine should these engine move much??


I think that this car has not been looked after at all ( no s**t sherlock ) i know , i know , why am i saying that i hear u all shout
The oil filter has rust on it and god know how long its been on there, oil on the dip stick is pretty black and stinks. but im thinking do i drop the oil and put fresh in to just find that the engine is f**ked, sounds like a proper tractor on the top end, i dont mind if i have to rip the engine out and rebuild it but i bought this car for a daily as the wife is preggers and dont want to spend money on the car to get it on the road.

But now ive found out the noise is the dephaser pulley ! so not the end of the world there














Ill be posting more pics showing my progress with this car

So there we go, DO NOT BUY CARS FROM BRADFORD


Ben

Ben26

Im in the process of cleaning up everything first and was just about to take off my rocker cover and found out it actualy holds the cams in place ( bloody french barstards )




So anyway starting taking it all apart today to see what im dealing with and TBH its not as bad as i thought, its not been looked after and needs TLC which I will defo give her.

My exhaust mounts turned up today so hopefully that will solve the terrible banging when I pull away and under load when driving


Here we go...........
So to take my battery out and removed the fuse box cover to find it looking like this



looks like metal fillings, very strange, nothing the pressure washer cant sort out .....................


as i guessed .These look very very warn



Never seen machine work like this before in the inlet ports, looks very wavey
When having head work done do most machine shops smooth these out a bit






Went to take the Securing screw out for the disc, and guess what it didnt come out easy, weld on a nut , job done


Took the arch liners off for a proper clean , found this mount of crap behind, must be as old as the car


Looking a but s**tty for my liking



Came upright TBH



Dont know if renault use jubilee clips to secure there CV boot but this one is a beauty




Found out the top engine mount threaded stub was totally ripped out from the rubber bush its self, another £56 there :banghead:











Bought some more bits n bobs



Thought i would pop a few pics of how she stands this morning

Do people fob this unit off, as it wasnt even connected to the intake anymore as the car had a K7N on it, it just had a vacuum from it to the underside of the T.B ??? Is it renaults version of a MAF sensor ?








Few more essential bits



Cheers Renault, makes life a bit easier




Below is a before photo of how she looked when i took off the carpet/heat shield





As you can see from the background it all came up nicely after a good clean, renault were a bit stiggy with the amount of paint they used under the bonnet TBH, and thats the subframe being painted after a good clean and preasure wash


With all the lines taken off cleaned and all put back on this is how she now looks, Im even using the original master cylinder and bottle, they both came up very well after a bit of TLC

More Renault bits , what we have here is 2 new outer A.R.B bushes and bolts as one wanted to snap when I took him off and 3 sump bolts as they seemed to want to stay in the block !:quiet:


And then 2 new ball joints with new bolts and they also came ith 2 new pinch bolts , happy days







and that's how it stands today, still loads more to do

Twins

iTrader: (18)

Will look great when your done.blimey you could not make it up though,what a story

bagginsRSturbo

iTrader: (1)

Fuck you definitely been had but like you said what could you of done,can't see how people do it myself .
Well live and learb mate, )least it's getting fixed tho but not what you needed from a daily r

Ben26

that was the idea. Just use the clio as a daily and the wife use her 206 but now im just drivin the pug

CrOwSoN15

Quality

Would of done the same in your position though mate.

Looks like it's coming up well! Dephaser pully is a common thing, gets louder when it gets warmer IIRC.
Certainly not mint though

Chopshop85

iTrader: (4)

I think these days if the car is described as "mint", you shouldnt even bother going to look at it.

What an adventure though. Should be nice when you've finished tidying it up.

rallycross

Never bother with cars in Bradford not even worth you to look at them unless you are very lucky will be substandard with a funny story in its history.

Stage6

What a C**t.

Steve needs a good slap.

Best colour for a Clio cup in my opinion.


Hope you get everything sorted mate, sounds like it was a fooking nightmare!!

Ben26

yes yes and yes

But it will all be ok in the end ............................ famous last words

drsrst2zvh

How easy was It to strip down? I'm considering buying a spare subframe and rear axle to get mint and then swap over.

matts1

agree, great colour and so nice to see a car over 10 years old that aint rusty hahah.

I had a similar thing years back, went to see a damaged car miles away early one sunday morning. Meet the bloke in a car park (he looked like a giant pikey fighter), follow him at break neck speeds across the city to a remote industrial estate with nobody around and inside his unit with the misses next to me I see instantly that the car was not what I wanted.

I was at this point cacking it thinking this bloke is going to go ape shit as me wasting his time - but he was a total gent about it.

andrewmctiernan

im going to go out on a limb here but i wouldnt touch anything from birmingham, bradford or bolton, not being racist just speaking from experience

Nick 172 Sport

or keighley lol

andrewmctiernan

I suspect Steve will not have been his real name, even the garages down that neck of the woods are fronts for all sorts

williamsclio1

How unlucky mate - I think the only way to look at this searching for a positive is that you at least didn't get robbed for the £2k you paid and at least left with a car (albeit needing more work than you had intended)

Look forward to seeing this turn around.

I once bought a 172 Cup - which was soon named the crab (didn't drive straight) by my friends as it was clearly involved in a big accident and repaired with out being declared, any way thats another long story.

Ben26

So so. I bought my old saff from birmingham .

But the guy was white. But im not fused about colour tbh

Ben26

Well the engine was out already so it was very easy. One of the subframe bolts was so tight it broke one of my sockets . Ok i did out a breaker bar into a couple foot long scaffold pole but fuck me it was tight.

withthe engine in i recon it would still be pretty straight forward.tbh

all the subframe suports is the rad , A.R.B , steering rack , gearbox mount, rear dogbone engine mount and of course the lower arms

andrew capstick

good luck with the clio you did go through the mill with all that went on,could make a movie out of that,all the best.

bluntys1rsturbo

bloody hell what an adventure i had the same happen to me a few years back when i was looking for a frst, i did walk away though in the middle of nowhere but the difference was i didnt have the mrs with me.

as said above at least you ended up with a car but its a shame you couldnt of got a bit more off it even if it just covered your travelling expenses an fuel for the way back.

it looks as if your doing all the right things though and renewing as much as the essential stuff as possible as its certainly not been treated to well by its previous owners.

AJC

iTrader: (6)

I can't believe you bought it.

I'd of walked away, premier inn for the night and either found another or bought any cheap car just to get you home/train.

CrOwSoN15

Picked a couple of cars up from Birmingham over the years and haven't had any issues, both were Saxo's owned by stoners

Ben26

In an ideal world yes i should of but like i said with a pregnant wife and it getting dark with minimal battery on the phones that wasnt really an option.
But at least im enjoying the strip down and hopefully if i do sell ill get a few quid for her. Hope .

Ben

toutcos

I work with your dad Ben he was telling me about your adventures on Friday I couldn't believe it , clad it all worked out in the end mate stunning car by the way best colour too

nevsrevs

thats a good read,
thats what standard f4r head ports look like, thought the same as you 1st time I seen one,

rog

iTrader: (2)

Jeez you're not shy of getting your hands dirty! It was an amusing read, but obviously not funny at the time, I sympathise with you though, it was a tricky situation you were in and a valueable lesson you've learned I think

I think you have pretty high standards, the quality and attention to detail for a 'daily' seems to be a lot, but then again if projects are your passion then why not do it properly and enjoy it in the process, even though it was unplanned. The rcar does look ok overall I think, most of the marks (bar the side indicator) will buff out no problem, and the rest seems ok. So apart from a good clean and the mounts and clamps I hope it's relatively reliable.

I have been thinking of getting one of these as a daily for a while so it's great to see this thread and all the detail, and when you do come to part with it, then it will be a brilliant buy for somebody else. Good luck and I'll look forward to reading the updates!

1971dommo

wats wrong with birmingham lol?had similar issues with a ebay twat from telford,but travelled a gud way wat you supposed to do.best of luck

fuzzy

was there any inclination or hint that you were in a tricky/dangerous situation? the guy might have been ok but obviously trying his luck?

Ben26

Well he didnt have a gun in his belt if thats what u mean. It was just awkward and with the wife being pregnant i didnt want to show any signs of stress as she would of stressed as well and not what i want. He Said he was being a middle man for his son who is the actual dealer. There was a row of cars that he said where his sons business but had no price in the window . They just looked like parked cars. Plus when i did get home there was no regestered business in the ind est selling cars ! Lol.

When i said to "steve" you said the car was mint he then turned round and said well show me a 10year old car that is mint !

The day after i got home i phoned him 4 times before he picked up. Then when i said about being pulled over for a tag on the car he hung up. Lol

a week later i got a letter sayin he couldnt find the V5 so he told me to re apply for it. At least i had the green slip other wise it would of cost me.£25.

Ben