Hey all, I just wanted to share with you, Connor, my sons journey into motoring. He's my youngest, just coming up for 17 and its his first car.

I've already been through this with my daughter, and more recently with my 2 eldest sons, so have bought about 8 cars in the past 3 years, including 5 Renault Clios, 1 Ford Mondeo ST Tdci, 1 Vauxhall Vectra C 1.8 SRI and 1 Vauxhall Astra 1.4 SXI.

Now my youngest son has got the driving bug, we bought this 1.4 Astra 04 plate with 65k miles a few days ago for £1000, seemed like a decent deal!

Seems in decent enough shape, just needs tidying up some.

It came with FSH and 10 months MOT, 4 almost new tyres with a brand new spare. Everything from electric windows to CD player and AC all in good working order......

Brakes etc all in good working order too and recently serviced with new plugs, oil & filter change and new air filter.

To be fair, she is / was a little tatty as the previous owner "attempted" to polish her.......white polish residue in every crack & orifice, the interior a bit of a shed, rusty calipers n hubs etc, but otherwise ok..

See pics below of before and as bought.....














I started by ordering a few items as follows.........

Road tax 6 months
1 set of new wipers
1 set of new carpet mats
1 new tax disc holder (Vauxhall of course)
1 set of valve caps ( Vauxhall again )
1 new set of number plates
1 chrome exhaust finisher
1 bottle of black trim restorer
1 large bottle of elbow grease

My eldest son decided to chip in & help, which was great and really sped up the process. Even so it worked out around 20 man hours to tidy her up, and she really wasn't that bad

We gave her a good wash, then set about removing the polish from all the crevices, nooks & crannies, everywhere basically.

The interior was done throughout, including the boot, everything removed and cleaned then replaced after a good session with the vaccuum and some microfibers it was looking much much better.

All the vinyls and rubbers were treated with Autoglym vinyl and rubber care. The windows were rolled down and washed / dried inside n out.

The new plates, valve caps and chrome exhaust finisher were all fitted too, each step making her look just a little better than before.

The wipers / mats and tax disc holder were added aday or so later when they arrived.

The engine was then cleaned to within an inch of its life and was a serious improvement

Then she was raised in the air and the wheels removed and cleaned......8 years of tar and general crap removed, whilst the hubs & calipers were painted stock silver with hammerite smooth after a good sesh with a wire brush of course.

The wheels were actually welded on to the hubs and took some serious effort to get off.

Once these were put back on, we turned our attention to the black ( or grey / white trim as it was) on the body panels and window surrounds. These were treated with Black trim restorer and again, really made a difference.


The front grill and rubber spoiler got the same treatment too.

All in all it made quite a difference and she looks pretty good for her age.....

She was suffering from a slight hesitancy through the gears and was a little sluggish in 3rd especially for some reason.
We de-restricted the airbox by removing the inlet and outlet pipes so she could breathe a little easier. Then we removed the throttle body and it was an oily coked up mess......so an hour or so with carb cleaner and rags and all buttoned back up......what a difference

One of the rear lights was plain and the other smoked, so I got another smoked one ( used ) and replaced that.
The only thing in the otherwise immaculate interior letting the car down was the grubby centre console.
I located a GSI one that was black with aluminium inserts and removed and then replaced to finish the look...

Finally removed and replaced the cabin filter and that as they say is that.....Job done.


See pics below











Thanks for looking

 

Jim, nice job with the car and parenting. Your boy will remember this day for a long, long time.

 

Nice work gentlmen! Conner should be very proud.

Congrats Jim and btw where are you parking all those vehicles(?).

 

Fast forward to next weekend:

Dad - I sold the Astra for £1500 and bought a 'INSERT MAKE & MODEL here'. It needs a bit work but .................


Great job. Congratulations to Connor and aging parent.

Graham

 

Thanks for the comments guys.

Lol - Graham, I did check online and there were several there that were same age / mileage going for £1600 - £1800 and of course a few dealers looking for £2300+ so it even crossed my mind

Give him the £1000 towards a new car and make a quick profit...lol
Its a keeper though.

He's keen as mustard to get started on the driving + I'm looking forward to it.

I had some great times with both Jamie & Pater especially as they were learning at the same time. I'd bought them a Renault Clio 1.2 and used to take them both out almost every night.

Just last night in fact Peter & Jamie were both talking about the laughs we had when we were out......In between all the serious stuff and Mirror / signal / manouevre etc we had a lot of fun. Good times that we all remember.

Even better, they both wanted to take their test in their own car as opposed to going with the driving instructor who took them out maybe 6 or 7 times each. I went with them and was allowed to sit in the back as long as I remained quiet.

They both did very well, Jamie passed first time in the morning and Peter passed right up until about a mile away from the test centre on the way back, at which point he got caught coming from a roundabout and the tester failed him.....this was in the afternoon of the same day.....such a shame.

It was such a great day for one and such a low day for the other, but Peter stuck with it and put in as soon as he could, 2 weeks later and passed with flying colours.

I just hope things go as quickly and as well with Connor and that we have as much fun too.

 

Nice looking Astra Jim.

It came up a treat.

Now, get him, White Van radar detection.

Enjoy your time with him.

 

Awesome car and great job Jim!!

 

Thanks Eric......

 

Looking good, just wait till they start google red top conversions

 

Thanks for the positive comments