Back on the road

[highlander]

Finally, after two whole weeks without my car, it's back on the road!

One new clutch (which had completely failed), one new brake servo (which was on its way out). The bill was NINE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE POUNDS and as a result, the car is back on the road. Um. I could have bought an entire Coupe for that much, and still had change.

So was it worth it? To me, yes. Drove the car to/from Glasgow today, and it feels like driving a new car (the only let-down is the interior trim is rattling a bit; just need to replace the clips on the door cards). I suspect everyone else will think I'm completely nuts, given how much I've already spent on the car this year:

- February - new bonnet lift struts
- March/April - new brake discs, pads, calipers, handbrake shoes, handbrake cables, 2 new tyres, complete set of indicator bulbs
- April - new rocker cover gasket
- July/August - new shock absorbers, new springs, suspension strut top-mount bearings
- August - a bodge-job repair to fix a shredded radiator hose, followed the following day by the total failure of the old clutch, followed by 2 weeks without my car, followed by an enormous bloody bill.

And I'm STILL thinking about taking it to a body shop to get some of the dings ironed out and possibly even a partial respray. Should I schedule myself in for some kind of therapy?

[GingerMagic]

Meh - I can think of worse ways to spend your Birthday money....

Seriously, its a lot of cash to spend on an older car, but a newer car with new brakes, clutch, servo, radiator hose etc etc would cost twice as much, so yes - its worth it.

[Doggy]

That's almost as irrational as spending oodles replacing a perfectly good gearbox, clutch and dmf for the sake of 6 gears

Maybe we can get a club discount at the therapist?

[OllieNZ]

Maybe we can get a club discount at the therapist?

Add me to that list I don't even want to consider how much money I've spent on my jimny over the last couple of months, bloomin' thing cost me less than a grand to buy. .....

[highlander]

That's almost as irrational as spending oodles replacing a perfectly good gearbox, clutch and dmf for the sake of 6 gears

Funny you should say that ...

As soon as the clutch had barfed, I started down the road of sourcing an ML6C from a 407 Coupe, but in discussion over at the Coupe Club, Mark.W calculated that I'd end up with a higher engine speed at cruise than I would with the ML5C, and that I would manage to improve it if I could strip down both ML5C and ML6C, and transplant 5th gear from the ML5C to replace the one in the ML6C. I decided that there'd be no way I'd come out from that with even one working gearbox, so the idea was shelved.

Probably for the best anyway; I imagine the bill would have been even more astronomical as a result.

[Welly]

I can act as Therapist; you only need to chat to me for 10 minutes to learn that whatever you've spent I've spent more and with far more disastrous results.

Welly's car buying experiences in a nutshell:

Buy seemingly good car at strong money.

Find out it needs a lot of money spending to get it 'right'.

Use car for a relatively short time and then sell at a massive loss.

Fin.