A Sad Day!

[marvs]

So a week or so ago I sadly had to say goodbye to my '93 LS400, due to a bad MOT failure that would've been uneconomical to fix :(

Here she is being taken away by CoPart, who collected on behalf of SellTheCar.com:

Incidentally, SellTheCar.com offered me more than double what any conventional scrappies would, and about £100 more than any of the other online car purchasers. There were no hidden 'admin' charges, and pick up went very smoothly. (I'm not affiliated with them in any way, just want to recommend a good service when I receive it!)

Edited September 8, 2014 by janey
non-gold

[The-Acre]

So a week or so ago I sadly had to say goodbye to my '93 LS400, due to a bad MOT failure that would've been uneconomical to fix :(

Here she is being taken away by CoPart, who collected on behalf of SellTheCar.com:

Incidentally, SellTheCar.com offered me more than double what any conventional scrappies would, and about £100 more than any of the other online car purchasers. There were no hidden 'admin' charges, and pick up went very smoothly. (I'm not affiliated with them in any way, just want to recommend a good service when I receive it!)

That's just how I saw my 93 LS go, on a car transporter. Had I been wearing one I would have removed my cap to the old girl. 5 years of virtually trouble free luxury motoring!

Edited September 8, 2014 by janey
quoted non-gold

[Bluesman]

Your being very shy about how much you got for her, would be interested to know what these type of business pay for a car like that. Mike

[marvs]

Your being very shy about how much you got for her, would be interested to know what these type of business pay for a car like that. Mike

£297. The next highest quote was £195. The majority were between £100-£130. Scrap value round our way is about £85 per ton.

Considering I paid £585 14 months previous, I was quite happy.

[takman]

what exactly was the " uneconomical fix"?

[royzels]

Hello, Sorry to hear that you have lost your beloved car..

Edited September 8, 2014 by janey
written prior to edit of intial poster

[marvs]

what exactly was the " uneconomical fix"?

Major emissions failure (mainly I suspect due to an exhaust leak), all brake hoses needed replacing, all brakes needed something doing (disks and/or pads), at least one tyre. I'm sure that there was more but I can't remember the details.

The nail in the coffin was the advisory list though, which was two pages long and included pretty serious corrosion to the whole rear underside, and bushes all around that will need replacing soon. So when I was offered almost £300 to have it picked up, I felt like I had to take it.

I had also been having issues with power loss and rough idling, which I'd been planning on attending to myself when I got the chance, but with everything else going wrong when it did, and my current circumstances, I didn't feel like I could justify spending the time and money on them.

[Gbneil]

Wow, I didn't think these old barges rusted....every days a school day...

[marvs]

Wow, I didn't think these old barges rusted....every days a school day...

Yeah, I was surprised.

I think the previous owner lived near the coast, and I don't think he looked after it.

My mechanic said it looked like it had been parked in the sea!!

[cleverdick]

If only I'd known!

I have a '94, same colour, which also has its MoT in a couple of weeks (3 weeks in advance, just in case). I'm hoping for the best, but what I could have done with was the driver's door. The previous owner has caused slight rust under the chrome trim with the use of vinegar-based glass cleaning products, and has also attempted to remove said trim clips from inside the door, with the result that it's now a bit loose in places.

But anyway...

Please don't suggest I contact somebody whose name comes up on here quite a lot - I bought some front hubs from him once and they were rusty to the point of being quite useless. And, he refused to refund my money. A lesson there, I think.

[Malc]

Maybe I shouldn't be saying this right now BUT I would always be suspect of an MOT Advisory on rust ........... my Mazda 323f now 20 yrs old, is on it's 2nd year of rust advisory, several paragraphs; they cover themselves, the MOT tester discusses his views ( coz that is all they are with Advisories ) with my indy and there is bugger all real rust to worry about atm BUT the Tester is obliged to cover himself .. when in 2 or more years time, when the MOT tester thinks there might be a real need to do summat about it, it's likely to be a simple and very contained floorpan plate welding job ... maybe an hour or so each side in the front, the biggest job will be not buggering up the carpets too much to lift them to plate the floors.

I would treat Lexus Ls400 MOT Advisories as just that, maybe absolutely nowt to really be concerned about for years to come ( fingers xd )

Malc

[Scribe]

Malc has a point. Last year my Lexus MOT had a few advisories including 'general corrosion to rear suspension components' and 'corrosion forming to offside and nearside rear sill areas.' I was disappointed but my mechanic (who doesn't do MOTs) said not to worry because the car was absolutely fine. He thought there was a new tester at the MOT station who was trying to prove himself. And sure enough, this year the car was tested at the same place but by someone different, and it passed without a single advisory.

But it sounds as if marvs's was much worse. Sad to see an old car going on its final journey - I had the same experience with a 19-year-old Volvo 121. Everything went wrong at the same time and it just wasn't worth repairing.

[Malc]

aha .... but today the Volvo 121's the amazon ? is a really sought after and collectable and comparatively valuable car !!

Malc

[Colin M]

My experience of rust advisories accords with Malc's and Scribe's, and it does seem to vary between MOT testers.

Sometimes rust advisories can be helpful e.g. when I bought my 1997 LS400 at the beginning of this year it had a short MOT and advisories at the last MOT of slight corrosion on rear brake pipes. Before taking it for a new MOT, I rubbed down the corrosion and repainted the pipes, to make sure it did not fail on this. It did not. But I would not have wanted to ignore this because it could soon become a serious safety issue.

Other advisories are less helpful e.g. rust on rear springs, which I had a couple of years ago on my Merc 190 2.6 (now sold and replaced by the above-mentioned LS400). The rust was nothing more than surface corrosion and, given the thickness of metal on rear springs, rust here is nothing more than cosmetic. Scribe's 'general corrosion to rear suspension components' sounds as though it is in the same category.

So I would pay attention to some advisories but not others. Some are matters of no concern but others might be.

[The-Acre]

That's all very true. When I first bought my 93 LS400, an older MOT had a mention of severe rust on the exhaust down pipe. 5 MOT's later, and not a mention of it, or a problem.