what would YOU do?

[Alex Haspel]

well, theres two cars that are basically mine right now, and i am unsure wether one i should repair and register in order to make it become my very first car.

 

one is this here:

it is a 1982 VW golf series 1 with about 140thousand kilometers on the clock. i got it for free from relatives 4 years ago, as they wanted to get rid of it and it was standing around open air, unprotected during all seasons since then.

it has a 1500cc carburetor engine producing 70bhp and would cost me about 700euros taxes and insurance per year.

it would also need a new windscreen, and the electrics are faulty and need to be changed completely in the worst case. on the other hand there is hardly any electric stuff in that car, which is something i really like about it. no fancy computer sh/t, not even electric windows. except for the heating it offers no luxury that does not serve the purpose of making the car move. this car is build to drive, and for nothing else, it is rather pure motoring. i love that.

 

the other one is this:

a volvo 740 from around 1987 or so, i dont exactly know.

it has about 230thousand kilometers on the clock and is equipped with a 2,3liter engine with fuel-injection, producing 130bhp, but standing at 1800kg it is also exactly a ton heavier than the golf. the volvo would also cost me twice as much on taxes and insurance, but it is the bigger, safer, stronger car and more suitable for longer distances. it also has rear wheel drive, which should be more fun in winter.

 

 

i was very much biased towards the volvo until i had to get the golf to another storing location a few days ago.

we opened the hood, and it was looking nasty in there. after all, the little golf had been standing in all kinds of rain and heat over the past 4 years, it was even buried under 2 meters of snow at one point last winter, and its little engine was buried under lots of leafes and various other dirt. but my dad and i decided to give it a go, put in a new battery and some petrol, and it started! after some coughing and puffing it STARTED! i considered this really moving, i think i even almost shed a tear. the breaks were not stuck, no, they even worked properly. every frigin thing worked properly. we put on the temporary license plates, i hopped in and drove the 80kilometers to the new storing location without ANY problem.

i know this is an entirely emotional thing, but after this heartwarming experience i kinda considered the golf an option again.

nevertheless, as planed, i drove the volvo to a mechanic today, with his temporary license plates also. the volvo has also not been moved, if only for one year, and it had enjoyed the luxury of standing in a garage. and it proved to be a bit of a diva, since the hood opening mechanism was stuck somehow, so it took some time until we managed to apply the new battery. anyways, the volvo started also, but as i was arriving at the mechanic, the it was loosing lots of petrol and engine oil...

the mechanic said he will be able to tell me what it would cost me to make the volvo street legal again by monday. .. so im really unsure which car to go for, besides the cost thing the volvo seems the rationally better car, but i adore the little golf way too much to just write it off...

 

so, what would you do?

 

ps: yes, i dont like new cars. in my opinion they all look awful, cant think of a single one that would not turn my cheeks red of shame while sitting in it.

 

pps: yes, this topic was motivated by boredom completely.

Edited August 24, 2007 by Alex Haspel

[Michael Nash]

Wow. There's "off-topic" and then there's WAY off-topic! :P

 

It all depends on what you're looking to get out of it. The simpler, cheaper car is usually the better option for economics.

 

I'm somewhat given to Volkswagens and their combination of grace and simplicity. I've grown up with them (family had them since before my time); my first High School car was a '76 Volks Dasher wagon (fold-down rear seat ;) ) and my first "real" car (college) was a '70 Karmann Ghia. "Many" years later I still miss that car.

 

I don't know your situation but it sounds like you're young and just need transportation at minimal cost. On that alone I'd go for the "free" car and see what it really costs to get it road-worthy and safe. Forget longevity; if this is this is a first car you just need to get it working at minimal cost. Maintenance is another factor -- the simpler car will be cheaper to maintain over a longer period, however long that may be. Consider any "known issues" with the particular year/models you're considering.

 

Of course compare these options against other used cars out there (and there are A LOT of them); figure what you want to spend on the purchase and the operation (maintenance, insurance, fuel, etc.), and then compare the cars that fall into those reasonable estimates.

[David Auner aac]

Volvo! Hands down. How else would you fit your camera gear into the car? Even better get a station wagon!

 

Cheers, Dave

[Steve Wallace]

Volvo! Hands down. How else would you fit your camera gear into the car? Even better get a station wagon!

 

Cheers, Dave

Agreed, volvo!

[Phil Rhodes]

I don't drive, but even I can tell you the Volvo is liable to be the far better item.

 

Phil

[John Sprung]

Find the Haynes books on both cars. They're published in the U.K. Then get a compression gauge, and check the readings against what Haynes says. That'll tell you whether you have major engine trouble coming soon on either of them. Tune them both up according to the books, and sell off the one you decide not to keep.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[James Steven Beverly]

Go with the one that runs and drives. I speak from experience, project cars are a pain in the ass so for your first car, go with reliability. OH, and plan on selling it in a year or two and buying a better one OR sell both of them and BUY a car in good condition to start with. NEVER fall in love with a car. B)

Edited August 28, 2007 by James Steven Beverly

[Daniel Sheehy]

Go for the smaller engine capacity. ;) ..with the price of fuel as it is these days, the cheaper running your engine is the better.

 

I drive a 1990 Toyota Starlet with a 999cc engine.

[Alex Haspel]

time for a little update..

 

i went for the volvo, which i got for free, but it turned out to be in worse shape than i expected, and making it road legal would have cost quite a bit more than what would have been an equitable amount of money to put in such an old car.

 

so i bought another volvo.

it is a 89 volvo 740 estate in winered, even old enough to have some chrome aplications on it.

it had 284000km on the clock when i bought it one and a half weeks ago and now has 287500 or something.

but within that distance driven it has not used/burnt one single drop of engine oil, it even drives and feels like a car thats 3 years old, not 18.

i do have to admit that the water pump is leaking a little bit, but i already bought a new one which cost about 50euro. and unlike with a new

car i even think to be able to change it myself on this one, no fancy but unnecessary plastic engine covers, no on board computer that needs to be reprogrammed or something after changing a part...

one other good thing is that it has the same 2,3liter fuel injected petrol engine as the blue one, so i might be able to get one or the other part from that one if something else breaks.

 

here are some pictures of a spontaneus road trip from vienna to berlin and back i did with a friend 2 days after buying the car:

 

Edited October 7, 2007 by Alex Haspel

[Hal Smith]

Go with the one that runs and drives. I speak from experience, project cars are a pain in the ass so for your first car, go with reliability. OH, and plan on selling it in a year or two and buying a better one OR sell both of them and BUY a car in good condition to start with. NEVER fall in love with a car. B)

Your advice is too late: There's a 1960 Bugeye Sprite sitting in my shop waiting for me to relive my boy racer childhood. One difference is that I plan on working on the brakes first, then getting the engine sorted out. In my boy racer phase it would have been engine first, then brakes.

[James Steven Beverly]

Your advice is too late: There's a 1960 Bugeye Sprite sitting in my shop waiting for me to relive my boy racer childhood. One difference is that I plan on working on the brakes first, then getting the engine sorted out. In my boy racer phase it would have been engine first, then brakes.

 

Hey, nobody mentioned a Bugeyed Sprite, I love those little suckers! Post some pics :D

[Hal Smith]

Hey, nobody mentioned a Bugeyed Sprite, I love those little suckers! Post some pics :D

Will do - I think I might be able to drag up a pix of my Bugeye racecar also.

[Hal Smith]

Hey, nobody mentioned a Bugeyed Sprite, I love those little suckers! Post some pics :D

Here's a quicky cellphone photo. I've misplaced my album with some racing photos in it.

 

 

The chrome wheels aren't original but I bought a set of originals off eBay for it. The car's an ex-autocross racer and has a moderately warmed up engine- larger carbs, etc. The guy I bought the car from is a truck mechanic and told me that my Bugeye was in the warehouse that the "Smokey and the Bandit" Tower of Coors scene was shot in during filming. He said he didn't know if the car can be seen in the movie itself - but probably is in some of the out-takes.

 

PS: The black rack to the right of the red box is my complete Dolby SR CP200 theatre sound system!

[Bill Totolo]

Well, what you do is a COST/BENEFIT analysis, right?

 

You weigh the costs of owning the car against the potential benefits. Take into account how much the vehicle will cost you over the life of the car (or however long you intend on keeping it) factoring in registration, insurance, and in this case most importantly, repairs.

 

I recently had to replace a car and was very close to purchasing a used Land Rover until I discovered a tune-up costs on average around $1,300 us. Well that made my decision easy!

 

So look at all the angles and see what's best for you and I highly recommend going to the user groups/forums out there for each car to discover what the expected repairs and maintenance expenses are.

 

But first cars are supposed to be rust buckets!

 

Good luck with your decision.

[James Steven Beverly]

Here's a quicky cellphone photo. I've misplaced my album with some racing photos in it.

 

 

The chrome wheels aren't original but I bought a set of originals off eBay for it. The car's an ex-autocross racer and has a moderately warmed up engine- larger carbs, etc. The guy I bought the car from is a truck mechanic and told me that my Bugeye was in the warehouse that the "Smokey and the Bandit" Tower of Coors scene was shot in during filming. He said he didn't know if the car can be seen in the movie itself - but probably is in some of the out-takes.

 

PS: The black rack to the right of the red box is my complete Dolby SR CP200 theatre sound system!

 

AHHHHH BABY, That is WAY TOO COOL. :lol: Man, it looks like there ain't any rust in it at all and having a souped up motor in a Bugeye can ONLY be a good thing. You're gonna have a BLAST drivin' that! Where the Hell did you come up with the Dolby system and where are you gonna put it? That is ALSO badass. Hal you come up with the coolest things, amigo. :D

[Hal Smith]

AHHHHH BABY, That is WAY TOO COOL. :lol: Man, it looks like there ain't any rust in it at all and having a souped up motor in a Bugeye can ONLY be a good thing. You're gonna have a BLAST drivin' that! Where the Hell did you come up with the Dolby system and where are you gonna put it? That is ALSO badass. Hal you come up with the coolest things, amigo. :D

The floor pan's a bit tatty but no holes - a good thick layer of Rustoleum is called for there. The car shows signs of body work and bondo here and there - not too surprising in a 47 year old sports car! It's solid as a rock in the places that really count like the spring pockets in the back and the pressed sheet metal frame members the front suspension hangs off of. There's a lot of Bugeyes that have died from rot in those critical and hard to repair places.

 

I put the Dolby together out of a piece here and a piece there. The processor came off eBay, the control unit from a guy in Miami, I built a power supply, the SRA5 SR adapter came from England, and the 280T SR cards for the SRA5 came from Texas. Dolby has really helped me out with service information, small parts that are almost impossible to find, etc. They're really super nice people.

 

I've got a Simplex SP 35mm portable projector in reasonable shape that I made a stereo solar cell adapter for and a homemade LED exciter lamp source. The next project for the projector is to mate the Xenon lamp guts from a high power slide projector to it. Eventually I want to run the projector up in the living room in the house from time to time. The Dolby sounds great on my print of "Master and Commander, Far Side of the World" out in the shop. I've got four JBL4411/4412 12" control room monitors in L,C,R,S out there.

[James Steven Beverly]

The Dolby sounds great on my print of "Master and Commander, Far Side of the World" out in the shop. I've got four JBL4411/4412 12" control room monitors in L,C,R,S out there.

 

Yeah, I would imagine!! :lol: What's next, Hal, a THX setup?!!

Edited October 12, 2007 by James Steven Beverly

[Hal Smith]

Yeah, I would imagine!! :lol: What's next, Hal, a THX setup?!!

Actually I'm sort of there already, I've got a set of the official Dolby test films and can EQ the shop to their specs which are similar to the THX idea. What I'd really like to have is too pricey for me, a Dolby DA20 chassis and reader that will integrate into a CP200 system for Dolby Digital. The cheapest they go for would buy me a nice gear head instead.

[James Steven Beverly]

I had a chance to get a Worral gear head WITH tripod and spreader for $800 bucks and DIDN'T have the money to do it at the time, AUUUGHHHHhhhhha. But whadaya gonna do? Hey, shoot a killer movie, make a bundle and buy your OWN theater with Dolby digital, That's my plan! :D