The Deal.

[Clivey]

So here it is. "The Deal".

As of last night, the eagle-eyed amongst you may (but probably won't) have noticed that on my profile, I now appear to own two cars. My "old" car, my Corsa is shortly going to be put up for sale for about £4,500 - £5,000*.

The reason being that my Grandad phoned me a couple of months ago with an offer that I'd be stupid to pass-up. At that time he owned a 2005 "55-reg" Astra worth in the region of £9,000. He said he'd ordered a new Corsa and asked "If I wanted" his Astra. He said that if I sold my car and gave him the money I got for it, I could then have the Astra.

So in other words, I'd go from owning a £5,000 car to owning a £9,000 car for very little work - and as some of you know, I'm looking to buy a bigger family car. This deal gives me a greater contribution (The Astra's worth more to trade in) towards said car.

*The only complication is that I have a personalised registration plate on my Corsa, and I'm waiting for the paperwork to come through to change the plate back to it's original one ready for sale.

Anyway, without further ado, here it is:

2005 "55-reg" Vauxhall Astra Club 1.7CDTi (80ps) 5-door

Only 12,000 miles BUT unfortunately my Grandad has a few bad car care habits:

• He washes his car using one bucket of water (to do the whole car) and instead of using car cleaning products, he uses washing-up liquid. As a result the paint gone really dull when I picked her up on Friday night.
  
  Since a quick wash with Auto Glym car shampoo/wax the paint's regained it's colour

• After then noticing small marks on the paint (due to improper cleaning), he determined the car had a "bad paint job" before applying an insane amount of 'touch-up paint' with what looks like a paintbrush. Yes. A paintbrush. This means the car's covered in this stuff, and I'm wondering how I can get it off because it looks terrible.

• He also insists on using an outdated steering lock when the car's parked, despite it not being necessary on modern, immobilised cars. this has taken some of the finish off of the back of the steering wheel, and it's annoying that you can feel it when you hold the top of the wheel (whilst turning)

Also, the car has a couple of other "imperfections"...

• Apparently, when parked in a car park, some muppet drove into the front right wheelarch of the car and leaving a dent before driving off. In order to cover the scratches, my Grandad also used a liberal amount of 'touch-up' paint on that.

• When on holiday in Scotland, he tried to get onto the seafront using a narrow track. Unfortunately he realised too late that the track was too narrow and couldn't prevent scratching both rear wheelarches and the right rear doorhandle in an effort to reverse back. yep, you guessed it. More touch-up paint

Despite this though, the car's in great condition - I may seek some posters' advice on how to bring the paint upto scratch (no pun intended ) but I don't intend spending much money on it as I plan to trade it in for a better car.

I'll show the piccies now but there'll be a full "review" of the car later. Enjoy.

EDIT: Photos Added

[adamfraser]

Clivey, if the paint's still poor, try sourcing 3m Finesse-It (3m code 09639), we use it on the Scoobys at work, and if the paint is fading, it brings it back up beautifully. Can get a bit expensive if you need to do a whole car though.

When you say he touched it up, do you mean he touched up actual scratches or dirt marks due to improper cleaning? If it is paint over dirt marks and there is no actual scratches, maybe try take it off with a little heat and some "G3" by Farecla.

If you go into more detail later on, and provide some pics, could maybe help you out a little. (I do paintowork and Valeting at a local Subaru garage.)

Well done on the car, you got a cracker of a deal.

[Clivey]

Originally Posted by adamfraser

Clivey, if the paint's still poor, try sourcing 3m Finesse-It (3m code 09639), we use it on the Scoobys at work, and if the paint is fading, it brings it back up beautifully. Can get a bit expensive if you need to do a whole car though.

When you say he touched it up, do you mean he touched up actual scratches or dirt marks due to improper cleaning? If it is paint over dirt marks and there is no actual scratches, maybe try take it off with a little heat and some "G3" by Farecla.

If you go into more detail later on, and provide some pics, could maybe help you out a little. (I do paintowork and Valeting at a local Subaru garage.)

Well done on the car, you got a cracker of a deal.

Thanks for being willing to help. From the above photos you can't really see any of the damage (you may be able to spot the dent if you're good), so I've taken some of the damage specifically so I'll resize and add those soon.

Please ignore the tastelessly applied side stripe. That's coming off as soon as I get the chance to proplely clean the car. Another one of my Grandad's habits!

EDIT: First up: The dent - pictures added.

[jediali]

nice now you have lots of torks

[adamfraser]

Nice stripe!

Looking good, when you get the damage pics i'll get back to you.

[Clivey]

Originally Posted by adamfraser

Nice stripe!

As I said, it's days are numbered.

Here are the "damage pics"...there are a couple more of these patches around the car and I'm hoping I can use something to get this stuff off the paint.

To answer your question: I don't yet know what's underneath the 'touch-up' paint but that can be sorted out after I get the crap off the top.

[Clivey]

Originally Posted by jediali

nice now you have lots of torks

Except that I don't. It's the 80ps / 74BHP version of the 1.7 diesel, an engine that dates back over 10 years. It takes 14 seconds to get to 60 and tops out at 106mph. That's the only other problem with the car besides those already mentioned.

The upsides are that it's a very well tried and tested engine, and that it returns 70mpg on the Motorway...which is nice seeing as I'm a poor college student

[adamfraser]

Christ almighty

Let me get back to you tomorrow.

[Clivey]

Originally Posted by adamfraser

Christ almighty

Let me get back to you tomorrow.

Haha, it's that bad, eh?

TBH even with the car in that state, it was still easily a worthwhile move, because as I said, it's worth more as a deposit when I trade it in for something else.

[digitalcraft]

Nice, lucky you!

[whiteballz]

Lower it.

[Cotterik]

Great stuff! I will say one thing about the astra. Its incredibly smooth. I think it's the 1.6 version that you can hardly hear the engine. Amazing. I was quite impressed when i was a passenger in one. But the seating and dashboard make you feel like a dwarf i found. But a brilliant deal you got yourself! well done =)

[ripper46]

needs a respray

[fisetdavid26]

Nice one Clivey. The dents are not that much of a deal, but good luck fixing them anyway. I've seen worst! The only downside IMO is that it's slower than Kitty... and that's abysmally slow

Enjoy it!

[Blue Supra]

drop it like its hot.