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To buy or not to buy!

5K views 70 replies 9 participants last post by  JT Dent 
#1 ·
Hi All,

I'm either in totally the wrong place or completely the right place to ask this question!

I have been looking at this: 2004 ROVER 75 DIESEL CONNOISSEUR SE CDTI AUTOMATIC SILVER | eBay

I currently drive a 2012 Mk2 Seat Leon with 40,000 miles on the clock - great car, quick, reliable, good round corners, but zero character - uncomfortable - manual - plastic everything - annoying bongs all the time... and it gets 38mpg driven carefully :( 32 at 80 (ish!!) on the motorway

Could sell this for £6k+, buy and insure the rover and still be £2k in the black - and then save on fuel.

Do I do it?!

Pros and cons please people.

Do average mileage (250 a week) throughout the year other than biannual trips to France 1000 miles in a day which are tough in the Leon... aches and pains is an understatement - thank god for the french roads.

Help...!

PS. fed up of changing gear in traffic!
 
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#2 ·
I would sooner change gear than gearboxes :)

Expensive things them Auto boxes and they take the edge off the MPG generally 5-10 mpg which is likely to leave you where you started.

Looks a nice car on the pictures, 3 and a half grands worth? Im not so sure.Once that mileage goes up the price is going to drop like a brick.If it was a long term thing then resale value isnt an issue and it may well pay off.

Nobody can make the decision for you,but if you went for it,id be low balling him with an offer and work back up he wont have a queue of buyers.While we like to look at adverts and like to believe everything is right,it wont be so leave some left for the un foreseen.

The engines themself are a good engine pretty bullet proof as far as im aware.If its right now,theres no reason it wont stay that way for another 150,00.

Anything has to be better than a seat :)

Good luck,keep us up dated............
 
#5 ·
This one has gone,but to me was a better prospect. If you bought something similar and stuck 20,000 miles on it while keeping it clean in 2 yrs it would have lost very little and been very cheap motoring.

ROVER 75 2.0 CDT CONNOISSEUR 1 PRIVATE OWNER FULL SERVICE HISTORY NOW SOLD SOLD | eBay

I rarely ever buy low mileage cars especially older ones,let someone else take the hit.Often they are no better cars anyway,yet you pay more for them.
Nothing is more destructive to a vehicle than being stood.
 
#7 ·
Nothing is more destructive to a vehicle than being stood.
Maybe not 'nothing', but I agree with the sentiment.

Diesels are designed to do miles. Being stood or do lots of short journeys is not good for any car and potentially very damaging for a diesel engine, and negates the economic benefits of having one.

Personally if I was shopping for a diesel (which incidentally I hope never to do again) I would be looking for a minimum of 6k per year with a target of 8-10kpa.

Tidy, low mileage MGRs are getting rarer and there is a gulf starting to open between these (usually £3K+) and the more average examples (£500-1500). Spending more on a low mile minter makes more sense if you intend to keep the car as a cherished future classic than using it as a daily hack imo.
 
#8 ·
JT Dent - that car looks very well cared for at 80,000 miles - a steal. You're not wrong about the high price of the other one from shopping around.

Thanks for all of your input - I'm still no further forward as I really like the car, but am unsure as to whether to "risk it" on a 12+ year old car - Engine bulletproof on the diesels, but it's the other parts that I worry about!! Call me crazy, but I like the thought of a car that will last a long time, not that I will keep it forever, just that it will "go" every day when I want it to!

Torn...
 
#9 ·
Age doesnt make a car brittle,the car if right wouldnt be any less likely to be a problem than the one your running.

The bits i would be concerned with is rubber.Anything made of rubber if not stored right will deteriorate the same as caravan tyres do when stood.

That would only take 10 minutes to assess though.If its been stored right there is no reason with a good service (esp )the auto box then nothing would stop me from jumping in it and driving to spain and back.

The bits to look at closely would be belts,pipes and suspension bushes.Rust is also something to look at with low mileage stood cars.

If everything was looked at and properly serviced then i wouldnt look at it any different to anything else.I dont know the cars inheritant issues are,with that engine i doubt theres much.If its the same engine as the 45/400 its bullet proof.

I really dont get the diesel haters,maybe they watch too much BBC,but a diesel car is generally faster,more torque and certainly far far more reliable than petrols,and most certainly rover petrols.Maybe they just read too much crap on forums vut and paste from other forums,who knows but the truth is always in the different sections,and look on any forum esp this one and you will find petrol issue after issue,yet almost nothing for diesels other than the odd split pipes.
A well maintained diesel will go on forever no matter what you do with it.
 
#23 ·
Thing is its the same people who informed us that all of a sudden diesels were horrific killers as told us we would get WW3 should we vote out of the EU.
Ive looked in depth at the 'evidence' and im not buying it.Nor am i stocking up on food cans for impending war.

I do however see the trillions to be made from pushing people into uneconomical petrol vehicles which of course are completely safe and do no harm.

If emissions really mattered we would all be running on lpg which is far cleaner than petrol or diesel but folk went for that only to realize when they had invested,they got duped.Ask Volvo about it,they were infuriated by being conned into spending millions on bi fuels only to find LPG prices were raised to nip that interest in the bud.
Dhl run alot of their trucks on it,but they get a 'special' price.The rest of us, its been worked out not to be cost viable.

Both petrol and diesel will run LPG.

Ive looked at all the options,ill stick with what ive got.A blisteringly fast car that can return 50mpg.

As for HGF on diesels,never had a single one and ive had diesels many wouldn't even know existed,some examples would be Horizon 1.9 pug diesel,bmw 2.4 diesel,rover sdi diesel,granada diesel.It does happen but people also win the lottery.

As for the OP hes probably looking for a petrol to get the sensation lol.
 
#34 ·
Thing is its the same people who informed us that all of a sudden diesels were horrific killers as told us we would get WW3 should we vote out of the EU.
Not heard of any scientists reporting on an impending World War.

I do however see the trillions to be made from pushing people into uneconomical petrol vehicles which of course are completely safe and do no harm.
Of course petrol engines cause harm; anything that involves the combustion of fossil fuels causes harm, be it to the ozone layer, the trees, the birds or humans.

I doubt legislation will push motorists back towards petrol cars. The ICE in any form is old tech. With its substantial reduction (or removal) oof tailpipe emissions, electrification is the next leap forward.

Government taxation and grants have encouraged the use of hybrid and electric vehicles for years and as such they have slowly become mainstream. Obviously once the aim of getting everyone into electric vehicles is achieved then the government will change tax law accordingly (they have to make money from motorists somehow) but until that point, they offer many benefits.

Whether EVs and HEVs are environmentally-friendly as they are made out to be is another debate all together (the emissions from electricity generation and the cars' manufacturer is conveniently ignored) but there's no doubt electric is the future. Diesel certainly is not.

On the subject of hybrids it's worth noting that the vast majority of hybrids are electric motors paired with petrol engines. :)

As for ****ty ,wet and cold grab work,we all after start somewhere :)
Can we get this in English please? :dunno:
 
#50 ·
Very profound. Not always accurate, but I understand the sentiment is that we are merely custodians and seldom actually own.

I can quite confidently say, however, that I own my two cars. To suggest I am their custodian suggests their existence would continue beyond my ownership. But when I sell them, it will most likely be to be the scrappy :lol:
 
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