Having sold the Faithful Freelander I was reduced to using my bikes and the M3W for transport. This was actually quite good fun – not quite so good in the rain and luggage capacity rather limited though. I started looking for a replacement vehicle but realised I would have to ride there and back to look at it which rather limited the search radius. At around this time Alexander mentioned that he was on the look out for a new car too. He has recently moved from the centre of Limoges to a cottage in the countryside and ideally needs a second car for Laurena to be able to get to work without relying on him. There is the small issue of Laurena passing her driving test but he seemed quite hopeful that might happen soon…
It seemed to me that if I could find a low budget car for Alexander I would be able to use it for a while as a temporary runabout until I sorted a longer term solution. Completely unlike the UK, second hand car prices in France are ridiculously high – finding anything running with a valid Control Technique (CT – same as the UK MOT) would be at least 1,000 Euros – somewhat more than Alexander’s budget.
Before long I spotted a Ford Focus on one of our local Facebook Groups – this was a RHD car (which the French don’t want so are relatively cheap over here), but it was French registered. Registering a UK car in France used to be relatively straightforward but BREXIT has made it much more difficult. The car was cheap but had no CT and needed work. I went to look at it…
It was a 150Km round trip but fortunately the weather was kind and the ride was great fun. The car was in a bit of a sorry state – the interior smelled like a dustbin – the lady owner did explain it was mainly being used for trips to the dechetterie (tip) and for transporting what was evidently a very smelly dog. The owner had been to see a friendly local mechanic to see if it would pass a CT and had come away with a list of faults..
- Driveshaft needs replacing
- Water leak – possibly the thermostat
- Two tyres needed
- A few light bulbs not working
On the positive side the body looked in reasonable condition, the car started and ran OK and had recently had a new clutch. There was no evidence of the cam belt having been replaced which was a bit of a concern – the car was on 129k miles and was 17 years old – a cam belt change should be done every 100k miles or 10 years. What can possibly go wrong ? A bit of haggling and the deal was done…
Went to pick up the car a few days later and managed to drive it home without incident – apart from needing to put some oil in it (was below minimum) and the fact that it drank a litre of water on the journey. Let the fun strip down begin…
Over the next few days I stripped the car down and made a list of eveything that needed doing, ordered the parts (which cost more than I paid for the car) and generally had a great time. The pictures below tell most of the story…
If at first…
Not too surprisingly it didn’t pass the CT… Fortunately it only failed on one thing, unfortunately this could have been quite expensive. The failure was on emissions – the Inspector thought it may be a pre-catalyst air leak but there was also the possibility that it might need a new catalyst…
Running the engine and examining the exhaust manifold didn’t reveal anything, so I borrowed Susan’s leaf blower and plumbed it in to the exhaust – in fact it was a perfect fit..
The next step was to cover the manifold and catalyst in soapy water and look for a leak…
So I found the leak, but after several attempts at welding it up in- situ I gave up and decided to remove the catalyst to get better access. Unfortunately I then dicovered that the catalyst was fractured and in several pieces. I may have contributed to the damage during the removal process…
So it appears that although there was an air leak there was also a significant problem with the catalyst which looked like it had overheated and melted in places. So I ordered a new one…
Pleased to say that on the re-test the car passed and is now good for 2 years motoring….