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Tomsy's GTI


tomsy

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Now i can upload some photos thought i'd start a proper suym thread about my GTI. My story starts back in july 2011 when i picked this up on ebay.http://www.evo-host.co.uk/getimg/28900.jpg Now there are certain rules you should adhere to when purchasing second hand cars

1 Never buy a car with out viewing it

2 Never buy a car with no service history

3 Never buy a car when its wet

4 Probably the most important never bid on cars on ebay while under the influence of alcohol

I broke all these on a wednesday night back in july, i'd been looking to get back into escort ownership after owning a fairly new sportka for a couple of years then a pug 207. So your probably thinking why did i want to go back to owning such an old car, well since i passed my test in my mk1 escort back in 1987 i've owned 8 other escorts of all mks apart from a mk2 and before that my father had a few so i've got a bit of a passion for them. The plan last year was to sell the pug for about 5k then find myself a GTI or RS2000 for about 1,500 tops and then spending about 2k on it to get it as good as i possibly can. This didn't work out the pug wouldn't sell and the right escort couldn't be found.

 

This all changed on that wednesday night put my normal search into ebay escort gti and up it popped escort gti 1998 spares or repairs the advert described it as having been dry stored for 5 years they had got it started and driven the 10 miles back to their garage with no undue noices or problems. The body work was descibed as ok apart from the usual rust aound number plate on tailgate some bubbleing on nsr arch and some small dents on top of drivers side wing,i looked at the super size photos and made my mind up it was worth a bid, so i banged in £400 had another look at advert finished my drink and went to bed. to be contiued

Edited by tomsy
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You haven't got that car now, and it wasn't a GTi

 

What are you saying mate?

 

nothing yet

 

 

Just realised who this guy is - you really need to change the number plate off the front mate, as this got me very confused

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You haven't got that car now, and it wasn't a GTi

 

What are you saying mate?

 

nothing yet

 

 

Just realised who this guy is - you really need to change the number plate off the front mate, as this got me very confused

Let me guess, you sold that bumper to him and you were thinking " i scrapped that car" xD

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First can i apologise to wayne over the confusion with the cars number plate, but when i got the bumper the screw heads holding the plate on were badly rusted needed to angle grind them off but didn't have access to one but wanted to get some pics of the car with the new bumpers and bonnet on that you supplied,thanks again for them still need that rear card plastic seat belt trim piece if you've got one.

 

Secondly car is in hg bodyshop Mike, when i saw Guy today he said someone had been in with a GTI where abouts are you from?

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The story continues woke up on the thursday with part of me hoping i'd been out bid the other thinking if i win it how am i gonna get a car with no tax or MOT from Reading to south wales. Didnt have chance to check how my bid was doing till the evening, clicked on my ebay i was still winning bidder but someone had bid upto £395, auction didn't finish till sunday so i was kinda hoping i'd get out bid. Dont get me wrong i did want the car but the hassle of getting it home was putting me off,there was no way i was gonna risk driving it.

Sunday comes hadn't given the car much thought was really expecting to be out bid, had been out all day checked my emails there it is congratulations you have won item number ............ escort GTI OH FOOK. Spent the rest of sunday evening trawling the internet for vehicle transportation companies without much success. Got to work on monday still thinking how im gonna get this car home when the first of a series of fortuitous events occured, was telling a mate about my predicament when he told me about his friend who had a business preparing rally cars and that he regularly picks up cars from all over the uk with his trailer. A quick call to him and the seller and the car was to be picked up on the wednesday, also for the price of £180 he would give it a once over to make sure it was as descibed in the advert . To be continued

 

Got a call about 3ish on the wednesday to say the car had been dropped off at my local garage, where i'd arranged to have an MOT done first. Went straight down to inspect what i had bought,first impressions i was very happy at this point i should have taken some photos but the following pics were taken after about 2 months, in this time the 2 bumpers were changed and bonnet hence the confusion at the start of this thread. These were changed because both bumpers were badly scratched and bonnet was stone chipped and scratched.

http://www.evo-host.co.uk/getimg/28912.jpghttp://www.evo-host.co.uk/getimg/28913.jpg

As you can see the rest of the body work was in pretty good order, passenger side was pin straight not a mark on it drivers side had small dents in top of wing and minor scratches by filler cap and it seemed to have all the original paint apart from the side skirts appeard to have been resprayed. The interior was quite dirty and musty smelling due to its 5years in storage no doubt, plus a couple of plastic trim parts missing,on the plus side though there was a folder full of bills for work that had been done and all the old MOT's confirming that the mileage of 101,000 was correct.

The first 5 weeks of owning the car it stayed at the garage where the first job was to put it through an MOT, the only failures were the usual suspension arms and it needed 4 new tyres. With a new MOT sorted the next job was a full service new cam belt and water pump when this car was to hit the road i wanted it to be reliable, as there was no time limit on getting this work done the garage were very good with the labour charges, it pays to have a good relationship with your local garage.

The car came home in late sept where it stayed in my garage just coming out at week ends for a polish and to sort the interior out. With plenty of leather cream and plastic & vinyl cleaner and the missing trim pieces replaced the interio was looking good photos were taken of this with my wifes camera but unfortunately they are to high resolution to upload.

Finally in december i sold my peugeot and was able to put the escort on the road,after 5 months of owning this car i got to have my first proper drive and it drove ok apart from a juddery clutch and a suspected worn wheel bearing.

Edited by tomsy
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First can i apologise to wayne over the confusion with the cars number plate, but when i got the bumper the screw heads holding the plate on were badly rusted needed to angle grind them off but didn't have access to one but wanted to get some pics of the car with the new bumpers and bonnet on that you supplied,thanks again for them still need that rear card plastic seat belt trim piece if you've got one.

 

Secondly car is in hg bodyshop Mike, when i saw Guy today he said someone had been in with a GTI where abouts are you from?

 

 

I'm from Clydach Vale mate, originally Porth, down by Marc (Bongo)...

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