What should we do?

[Tumble]

Righty.. Situation:

Brought Lynni's car - 1998 Ford Ka (in red) - over here with the intention of Manxi-fying it. Over 3 years old so goes for Manx Road Worthiness test. Fails on some minor bits that were expected and two insignificant little rubber bushes on the rear suspension that weren't that bad anyway.

Fire it at a garage who ring up necessary parts bods, who kindly inform them that the bits we need are not sold as separate items and that we'd have to get the entire rear axle assembly. He's still looking for an alternative for us, BUT it's gonna be expensive anyway - talking 6-7 hours to replace these two bushes

Plan A: get it fixed, tested and back on the road.

Plan B: Sell it to a breaker and use wedge gained to deposit on a new(er) motor.

Everything on it works like it should - it's the basic model, it goes, stops and turns corners. Everything it says on the tin. Just these bushes stopping it from being "road-worthy" (which entirely depends an how nice the examiner's cuppa was that afternoon, apparently).

With that in mind I reckon I could coax at least a grand out a breaker for it... gotta be a gold mine broken up into bits... Whaddya reckon?

EDIT: Just seen this - http://www.parkers.co.uk/pricing/use...buyorsell=sell

breaker/part ex option is looking everso much more viable atm....

[5lab]

do the work yourself. with a haynes manual i woudlnt think a ka is too hard to work on, and you can get a rear axel from a bereakers - do the whole thing for a couple of tonne.

[Tumble]

£2k? That aint a figure I'm prepared to spend on a 7 year old run about thats been fair driven into the floor. I havent got the tools, or necessary lifting gear to drop an axle off a car, which is what I'd have to do to replace the bits anyway, or for that matter do i have the time or the technical skill to do it. The car is going anyway if it gets fixed or not sometime in the near future... If I can get a grand for it, by doing nothing instead of spending over £500 to get it fixed then that's what I'm going to do.. just sounding the boards out to be fair, mostly to convince meself...

OH, and by all accounts, removing the rear axle is an absolute horror - the 6-7 hours quote was from a proper garage with all necessary tools and many carlifts.. not something I want to tackle personally...

[5lab]

i'd get a quote from a backstreet garage - your garage may be ripping you off (who knows..) - but i'd still give it a go myself

2 ton = £200

edit : which bushes are they? http://www.superflex.co.uk/SuperFlex_Ford_Ka_Prices.pdf

[Tumble]

ahhaaa.. you see you confused me.. you implied a tonne in the metric sense, which say a thou to me

[jon bda]

edit : which bushes are they? http://www.superflex.co.uk/SuperFlex_Ford_Ka_Prices.pdf

Rear beam axle bush looks promising...

[Tumble]

it would if thats the bit we needed. What we need is /deep breath... rear-suspension-front-mounting-bushes (exact words of examiner). They always seem to fail the motors on the least accessible bits tbh.

[Honoop]

If its all down to the mood the examiner was in at the time can you not simply get it tested again somewhere else??

[Konan555]

I'm not 100% sure on the KA, but 6 to 7 hours getting at bushes on the rear beam doesn't sound too far out.

You've got to get to them. Then you've gotta hope they come out. THEN you've gotta hope the new ones want to be going in.

It can be a hellish job.

[5lab]

or get rid of it as a trade-in - if yer dealer pays you £1500 for it, its his fault

[lynni]

Its got to go tumble was quoted £900 this morning to fix. The bushes bit (sorry im not very tech ) is £350 alone and £30 an hour for labour as well as everything else which needed fixing.... we said £500 tops, and we could afford that between us...

The garage wont be ripping us off, the island is so small that it simply cannot afford a bad reputation. The test centre is the only one on the island, I was fearful of putting back into test, incase having fixed its problems now - a different examiner tests and finds a whole set of new problems & it still fails.

Oh well, its been a good car... Ive had it 3 years and it was a good second car for me I always said when I finished uni and qualified (which Iam ) that I wanted a new car, just abit sooner then I expected

[Konan555]

You saying £350 for parts on just worn bushes?

[nev_payne]

ouch...lot of money for repairs. Mind you - my friends car is costing her £350 for the air filter manifold, and another part to do with the carb I believe.

[lynni]

You saying £350 for parts on just worn bushes?

Im not completely sure.... i didnt speak to the guy on the phone this morning, tumble did. Will get him to reply later and tell you exactly

However, I rang them yesterday cos we hadnt heard and Im rather impatient the bloke sounded rather concerned that they wernt able to just find the bit they needed for the bushes... I think THINK they would need to replace the whole axle in order to fix the one bit we need, cos the parts arent seperate...

I dont know, so dont quote me - just my understanding

[Moby-Dick]

I sounds like you have already talked yourselves into getting a new car. But without an MOT & Tax ( or equivilent ) , dont expect much for the old one.

[Tumble]

You saying £350 for parts on just worn bushes?

Yeah thats right.. can't get JUST the bushes, you can only get them as part of the rear beam assembly. Add to that front lower arms, a steering joint UJ and some exhaust work.. plus labour for the lot you get the picture.

I think the only way for this is to sell it to a breaker - everything works, so it'll be a good buy for them. Hopefully be able to get 8-900 quid for it.

Oh and Moby - MoT aint a problem - doesn't exist over here. This car did actually pass it's MoT 1 month before it came over... but apparently that's worth less than the paper the certificate's printed on here. Ar$es