1.7 Thunder - What's it worth?

[gargravarr]

Hi guys,

So this marks the beginning of the end of my Puma ownership. No doubt some of you remember my long complaining threads and my epic rant in Therapy. I'll admit, if I could make a career out of complaining, I'd be a rich man!

Anyway... Wildcat. It pains me to have to get rid of it but I can see no alternative, especially now I have the Supra. Of course, herein lies the problem - what should I be asking for it? In its favour, it's a 1.7 Thunder, okay a silver Thunder, but a Thunder nonetheless. It also has 76k on the clock, and for all my moaning and groaning about it, vital work has been done. All of the issues I've made threads about have been addressed, so in real terms the car is in good condition. I just can't justify spending any further money on it.

The bad part of this is that some French idiot sideswiped me out on a back-road in northern France, and didn't stop of course. I can't afford to have this put right, so there are some scuffs down the passenger side and the rear wheel arch looks quite bad - it's punched through some of the rusty bits. I don't know what to do about this. It's in the garage at the moment so I don't have photos, but I would put them up in an advert. The driver's side looks leagues better.

Here's the low-down:

• Bought in 2012 on 67,000 miles, now has 76,000
• Cambelt, aux belt and water pump all replaced in 2012
• New clutch and rear shocks in 2012
• No oil leaks I'm aware of (finally!!), fresh load of Castrol GTX
• Two nearly-new front tyres (doubt I've put 3 figures on them)
• Driver's wheel bearing done, plus two new lower wishbones and anti-roll-bar links
• Leather all in good nick, Thunder alloys all good although the centre caps could do with replacing
• Bodywork is fairly straight apart from the sideswipe
• Both mirrors are black instead of silver, again due to the sideswipe and I couldn't get a silver
• No CD changer, but I've put in a Sony CD/radio
• AC works but needs regassing
• No codes or error lights, all the engine/electronics work
• Pretty extensive rust repairs last year, new front coil springs
• Original mats, owner's manual and document pack, some service history from when I've had it
• Currently SORNed with no MOT, but I'd MOT it for a buyer
• Despite how long I've had it, it's spent more time in the garage than on the road
• Edit: browsing around here reminded me I have a roof rack for it in the garage, it's the brandless one that I was told was Ford OEM

So I bought Wildcat in 2012 for £995. I had hoped that buying the special-edition would help its value, but then of course I had all the problems. I was originally hoping that in an ideal situation it would be worth £1,750, especially given all the work that's gone into it, but having looked around eBay and Autotrader I'm starting to think getting 4 figures is impossible. All told, I've likely spent £1,700-1,800 on repairs to the car, so not even getting that back is going to be hard to swallow. I just need to extract the most I can get out of the car and then move on.

What do you guys think my chances are?

 

[quest63]

Unfortunately the purchase price and the amount spent on any car don't necessarily have any relationship to the selling price.

In fact I found high maintenance didn't even have much of a bearing on the cars value when the Boggie got written off, for example it having a very recent £400 longlife exhaust made no difference whatsoever to insurance value.

Money spent on items like new clutch and cambelt job make the car more sellable but not necessarily more valuable. When I sold the Boggies engine with its near £400 of cambelt water pump tensioner idler rocker gasket etc it took months to sell for £150.

If I was you I would either get rid of the other car and use the Puma to extract maximum value for money or break it for the same reason.

Sorry cant be more optimistic.

 

[gargravarr]

If I was you I would either get rid of the other car and use the Puma to extract maximum value for money or break it for the same reason.

I'll pretend you didn't say that, I absolutely adore the Supra

I get what you're saying, I was just hoping in some way that spending money and having all the work done on the car would reassure buyers they were getting a good one. At the end of the day it's still driveable and in good mechanical condition, so there's probably little to be gained from breaking it.

 

[stu brown birkenhead]

Mate just get a full mot on it and put it up for what you bought it for or near offer and see what happens its got leather seats and that it ahould go for a good price regardless ov the damage the rear panels usualy get done anyway because they rust thats just my opinion anyway mate bit i am a cheeky git anyway and can sell ice cream to a snow man

 

[quest63]

Well all I can say is that over a period of time and with patience and graft I got £1300 back in parts on my base model Puma which I doubt I could have sold it for before it was written off.

And that doesn't take into consideration the new stuff I used from the Boggie on my Thunder or the damaged front end bits I couldn't sell, or stuff I gave away.

A Thunder with all its front end stuff intact should sell for more, so if you consider you wont get four figures for yours (which is highly likely) you could double your money breaking it. :thumbs:

 

[stu brown birkenhead]

Bagzy 1st dibs on the seats haha

 

[gargravarr]

To anyone interested in Thunder parts, this could well be your lucky day. Since it certainly isn't mine.

I tried to get Wildcat MOT'd, but the tester took one look underneath it and said there was no point. There's bodywork rust near the passenger trailing arm mount big enough to put a finger through, and the subframe bushes are rotten. Whilst I am glad it didn't cost me any money to find this out, I've had enough. I can't sell it as a roadworthy car, so now let's open up the floor to parts offers. I made a FS thread that received no interest, so I'm putting up a new thread in Parts and Spares.

There's a link to photos in that thread. Remember - good engine/gearbox, suspension mostly fine, leather interior all good, alloys all good.

I don't have the facilities to properly break the car, so I'm in favour one or more of the following:
-Bring Your Own Spanners (or borrow mine and I'll help), and you can take the parts you want from my driveway, so long as I have a rolling chassis I can give to the scrappie afterwards
-Buy the whole car and break it yourself
-Buy the whole car cheap as a restoration project

I want rid of this thing now. I've had enough. I've just had to deal with my Supra failing its MOT because of rust. I'm not spending any more money on rust repairs for this car, because it's encountered more of it than my 80s Japanese sports car. I know I rant about this car a lot, but it's a joke considering I owned a mk4 Fiesta from 2007-2012, used it very heavily and nothing like the problems this car has given me. In comparison, in two years I've done less than 10k miles in this Puma, and the amount I've had to shell out in repairs is beyond belief. Cost per mile driven is insane.

Please, someone help me get rid of this thing!