20k 1998 Festa. Good idea?

I will check.

I was talking to a mate earlier that buys and sells cars now and again and he said you would be surprised how 'light' a pair of new tyres on the front make a non PS car feel ... for a few miles anyway. ;-)

Ok.

Ah, course (transverse v in-line)

Hehe.

Funnily the Mk1 auto started not picking up drive straight away and I was looking round to see how much a recon might be. Phoned a place in Sauf Lundin and he asked me a few things then said "even with the oil on the full mark, stick a bit more in". I did and it was fine thereafter. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Interesting, Cheers (I've used Burton for some bits in the past).

I was about to swap the 1300 Kent in the old jeep kitcar for the 2L Pinto out the Sierra when I broke it but then all the tax / insurance / fuel prices started going silly so I put it all on hold (only after uprating the front springs and shocks, fitting a bigger modded rad, finding the right sump and buying a few other bits of course).

I've also got a 1600 Kent I was considering as that would be a fairly straight swap (just have to swap the turret brace for the taller one).

Might convert it to electric now and use it as a local runabout (£0 TAX no MOT (or wasn't on my electric Moke a few years back) and lowest insurance.

It's weird when you first get an EV ... "I'll give it a service .." .

Cheers, T i m

I've plugged her last 1,925 miles worth of fuel use on the Belmont into Fuelly(.com) and it's come out at 38.3 mpg so far.

Not sure if I've missed any but I can see how it goes from here.

I've not managed to get a look at the Fiesta yet as we keep crossing paths.

Cheers, T i m

She rang us back this morning as she had only just picked up our message on her answerphone service.

"Very sorry but I didn't think you were interested so I sold it to his old next door neighbours son".

Oh well, she said she got £800 for it but as he was a very good neighbour to the old boy for a few years she may well have given it to him (she's not short of a bob or two herself) and we are happy about that.

Anyway, in the light of the Festa possibly only doing a bit more mpg than the Belmont (38.3 it turns out) it might not have been meant to be. You win some you lose some etc.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice etc.

Cheers, T i m

I think that in your particular case it was best avoided.

Yeah. Sods law says either of ours may explode tomorrow but I think you may be right.

The only thing I would particularly like is an estate again and we have talked about getting something half reasonable and as economical as you can get when it suits us, rather than when summat just happens along (although they are sometimes 'meant to be' like the £100 218SD that's done 25K with me with little in the way of attention and still doing ~50mpg). It's also handy to have summat you don't mind chucking anything in, on or behind (1/2 tonne goods trailer / boat / motorbike trailer/ folding caravan ..).

Cheers, T i m