To buy or not to buy...?
 

Originally posted in the "welcome newbies" forum but I've copied it here to get a little more exposure..

I am currently contemplating purchasing a 2003 CDT 75. I should point out that I live in Malta where cars are "expensive" but this is something of a bargain (here) at 2200 Euro.

The condition is less than stellar and the car has 173,000 kms. It also had a lovely hole in the offside front door B pillar that I'd need to replace.

It was advertised as a Connoisseur and it did have a full leather interior, AC and electric seats etc but the interior had a lot less "wood" than I was expecting.

I'd say the car was in "OK" condition, my main "annoyance" was that it was advertised as having 140,000ks and in reality it had 33,000 more. Here that means the VRT (MOT) will be annually rather than every 2 years on a car with under 160,000ks.

Out of interest, what's the estimated lifespan on the turbo on the CDT? I know the engines are pretty good so have no real worries there but I just scrapped my Audi A4 after it suffered diesel runaway (after a turbo failure) and grenaded itself, therefor I am reluctant to buy a car where the turbo is almost at end of life.

On the plus side, it had a new clutch LOL, on the negative I have no idea if they changed the flywheel at the same time..

Unfortunately, as is common here the seller wanted to meet somewhere, so i haven't heard/seen the car start from cold. We did stand in the car park with the engine running for 15-20 mins on a reasonably warm (28C) day, the fan seemed to be running the whole time.

I was quite excited at the prospect of the 75, so really disappointed in how badly turned out the car was, it was full of the families rubbish, had the B pillar hole, was dirty and the alloys were oxodised - all things that a day or two of elbow grease and very little money would sort I know.

Any thoughts?

The flywheel very rarely goes wrong on a 75. In fact I don't think I've ever heard of one failing.

I can't say much about the turbo, however I've been on this forum for quite a while now and not seen any threads concerning turbo failure.

Only the dash had wood, however you can add more if you get in contact with a chap on here. He lives in Bulgaria, but the quality of his work is excellent, and postage is cheap.

Don't worry about mileage on the Diesels - they're built like tanks, and are capable of interstellar mileages.

Hope this helps. :)

Such a long list of negatives Julian. I would let that one go if I were you.

Simon

Thanks guys for the responses. To be honest finding a "cheap" car here is a bit of a challenge, there are some road licence "complications" to be aware of (basically there's a pre-2009 scheme and a post 2009, the post 2009 licence is 2-3 times the cost of the old scheme) so I am limiting my search to pre-2009 cars and also cars REGISTERED pre 2009, (so not imported after irrespective of age). That limits the pool somewhat.

I sold my 2005 S Type Jag just prior to moving here as the licence (road tax) would have been ~1000 Euro a year on that. I bought the Audi here in October last year and paid 2300 Euro for a 1995 Audi A4 1.9TD and that was basically a POS.

I can find a boatload of 1.2 Puntos but aside from one Hyundai Sonata that I narrowly missed out on this is the first "well specced" car I've found in my budget.

I've already decided that it is not worth owning a expensive car here, it's just going to get burned to death by the sun or dented/scratched by the drivers here so a 3k budget is all I ever envisage spending.

I haven't fully discounted that 75 yet, the major issues I could see were cosmetic and I have enough free time on my hands that I could resolve them easily enough.. I don't know,i was just quite excited to be going to see it, then disappointed by the condition..

It doesn't sound like it needs too much work to get it nice apart from some tlc. These diesels do go on forever if treated ok and things like the trim plate on the B Pillar takes 10 mins to replace and are often to be got from fleabay or one of the traders on here. The clutch is probably the biggest single expense but you should be good for plenty of life out of it if it's been replaced. Change the PCV filter to save the worry of turbo runaway.
It would probably be considered expensive in that condition in the Uk but you know your market there better than we do so you will have to use your own judgement on the value of the car.

Amen to that. All cars here in Spain have touch parking sensors. They run the full width of the car front and back. You just gently or not so gently keep moving until the sensor touches an obstacle. At that point you just stop, regardless of the space / gap between the obstacle, leave the car and go off and you own thing.

Oooohh Malta...I think I have some fondish memories of trying to traverse the gut with some RN chaps.

I wonder how well they manage if treated really badly/ignored? (half joking).

I guess the other couple of considerations are the DPF/EGR side of things, certainly for the DPF it's worth noting that the entire island is 27km long and 16km wide. It is a RARE day indeed that you can get up to 60mph, and even then it'll be for under a minute.

I suspect I am overthinking it though, in all honesty I probably won't need a car now until "winter" (it drops to around 15C in November) so I can either wait, or buy something now and work on it a little now..

I hate to be the one to dampen the spirits here, but parts can be a pain to get in the UK let alone Malta. (love Qawra by the way). For cheap trouble free motoring, the 75 or ZT is not it, especially a leggy and not particularity card for one.

These engines don't have DPFs so that's one less thing to worry about. :}

Hiya, contact Jim Jamieson thro this form, hes on holiday in Malta just now, hes egg spert on Rover 75s and he knows all the problems on them. cheers Walter. :getmecoat: