General Seicento - One "Chav" previous owner

[signwerx]

This is going to be a long story, but here goes.

Even though i seem to have my own car park full of centos, the wife wanted one with power steering!

One came up through my Brother-in-Law who works at a local garage who collect the Uninsured Cars that the Police remove from our roads.

It was a red X Reg Seicento Abarth with 70k on the clock. Rather rough round the edges but ran just about ok! The Brother-in-law had put the timing right by 9 teeth on the belt before i had seen it, but it still wasnt great.

From initial looks it needed.....

Front Bumper (Cracked)
Tailgate (Rusty)
Drivers Window (Scratched like hell)

Anyway, after bartering with the owner of the garage, who incidentally sqeaked rather loudly when he walked, we agreed on £400.

 

[sei16v]

Any pics?

 

[signwerx]

So, i went to collect it.....

I immediately noticed that it lacked 50 of its 55 horesepower, but we struggled home rather slowly. (OK, i must confess that i did not drive it before buying it!) Yes, i know, i'm a muppet for doing this, but its' a cento. - What can possible go wrong????

Anyway, driving back, i noticed that it had a bit of a wobble at 30 and by the time i (eventually) managed to get to 60, it was uncontrollable.

My thoughts were.....
-Bent wheel
-Egg shaped tyres
-Knackered driveshaft

So, after a long list of service parts ordered from Mick at EuroCarCare - Top Top Man!!! (Cheers Mick!!!) Which included....

Cam Belt, Tensioner, Full Top End Gasket Set, Head Bolts, Filters etc.

and then a trip to my local APD for Oil, Wipers, Brake Pads, Disks, Rear Shoes & Handbrake Cable.

I then thought i would tackle the front brakes in a vague attempt to start getting things up to my kind of standard.

Then it all started going wrong. Badly wrong!

Whilst taking the wheels off, i noticed that the bolts were very very long and the end of the thread was completely ummmm "flocked" Cough Cough

THen, when the wheel fell off, two different wheel spacers fell out. Not 3mm and 2mm but 10mm and 20mm spacers! The bigger of the two was fitted on the inside and had no way of aligning the hub!!!! (Hence my massive uncontrollable wobbles whilst driving)

Discs were a right state, although pads were pretty new. (So whoever had this car ran the pads to the metal, screwed the discs and just put new pads in.)

 

[Adrian Bravo]

Reading the first post I thought you where going to retrofit power steering from a sei into a cinq My sister never stops complaining she does not have power steering.

 

[signwerx]

A quick break from the story, as it will be a long one.

Why am i writing this??

Well a few reasons really.

Firstly, i cannot believe the stupidity of some people. Stupid things like 30mm wheel spacers with no support on the wheel. Knowing that after you fit your obviously wrong wheels with massive spacers that your car handles like Fred Flintstones MOT failure.

Secondly, as a matter of safety. This driver was taken off the road because of having no insurance. But not only did he have no insurance, but he must have known(he definately knew) that his car was a death trap. It scared me to drive it! He had total disregard for anyone elses safety whilst he was driving this round, knowing that he was in a half cocked weapon that could break apart at any second.

Thirdly, how can anyone fail to look after something so basic as a Cinq/Seicento??? This car has been ragged and abused. Its' a shame, because its a lovely little car.

So over all, i have no time for the idiot who could not be bothered to bring his car to the same standard as the rest of us. He is lucky he didnt kill someone in this car and just having his car taken off him is not enough for someone like this..

I keep saying "he" because i have been told that "he" was 19 years old from Cam, near Dursley, Gloucestershire. I hope someone knows him, because he is going to get rightly shamed by this thread!

 

[whitz]

car was a death trap

thats pretty much the reason i ended up breaking my cinq i bought thinking of it it could of been a pile of rust with some cinq in it :chin:

 

[signwerx]

So whilst the wheels were off, i noticed that the arch liners were held on by 1 lonely bolt on each side and that they were worn through to bare metal on both sides of the car. (Pics will follow with an edit)

Not only this, but the drivers side was also worn through INTO the washer bottle.
- Through the pump wiring, through the pump and even through the pipe.

What caused this, i hear you cry?????

Tyres being too big for the car!!!!

So the standard wheels has been removed and 14x6J wheels been fitted (4x100) with an offset of 6!!!!!

Extra long bolts had been used with a 1.5pitch (Not 1.25 pitch)

They wernt wobbly bolts either.

The hubs are so bad that only three bolts were holding the wheel on. The 4th hole was stripped bare and none of the bolts go in straight.

(Pics of all this will follow)

 

[signwerx]

So, today, back on the phone to Mick at EuroCarCare telling him that he will be hearing a lot from me over the next few weeks.

I have now ordered new hub flanges all round along with new wheel bolts.

I currently have another set of wheels on the front of the car. The backs will be swapped this weekend.

All this because some young monkey spanker (My own take on cockney rhyming slang) thought that he was a mechanic!

So far i have spent £400 on the car and £200 on servicing bits. Now i have had to spend £100 on hubs and wheel bolts. (The wheels and tyres i have already, but the old ones need to be melted down for scrap!)

I am determined to get this car back to what it should be. It will still be an 1108 (for now) but at least i know that it will be safe for whoever is driving it and for all the people who come near it whilst it is being driven!

 

[signwerx]

Things like the cracked bumper, rusty tailgate etc will be sorted last.

I have also noticed the following other things wrong with it....

Fag burns in all seats
Lock set has been replaced (Drivers door and Steering column)
Steering lock has been removed completely
NO HANDBRAKE WHATSOEVER!!!
Ignition key doesnt work in the lock properly - key goes in too deep and wont turn
Drivers door handle sticks out, so door wont catch when closed
Drivers window seam has been forced out and glass has intense vertical scratching.
Spare wheel in boot is an old cento wheel with huge dents in it.

Man, the previous owner deserves to have his arms cut off with a cento door key!!!!

 

[Whiley]

feels good to vent dont it lol

 

[sei16v]

At the end of the day, its a £400 car! If i bought a car for that kind of cash, id expect some cash needed spending on it...

I know you want to 'name and shame' the guy, but to be fair its probs his first car, and he doesnt know much about them...

we all start somewhere!

 

[RobW]

poor thing, like a neglected hound that you have rescued from pikeys

previous owner was a fool/clown/disgrace/liability and i am very pleased he got done by the rozzers:slayer:

ironic that someone from cam couldn't time his

 

[Renrut]

And there was me thinking I got a raw deal with my 1998 Sei for £350 and then spending another £200 to get it MOT'd. From the sound of it I got away lucky with some bald tyres, badly adjusted steering, worn bushes, a leaking rad, a dodgy gearbox and obviously handbrake problems.

I feel your pain. but struggle on, the car will be worth it when its done, as it looks like it'll be a nice car once its all sorted.

 

[blu73]

Glad to hear someones making one good instead of just using it for the scrappage scheme you have my utmost respect right now, as much as i love these little cars i just would've gone and got another one probably..

PS. i used to have a cento with 'MEN' on the numberplate, always amused me for some reason

 

[J333EVO]

And the silver lining is the X-Men reg plate

 

[Pep0]

And the silver lining is the X-Men reg plate

Yes see if you can sell the plate to an idiot recover some of the expense...

Noel
Oops meant to type 'buff'.

 

[signwerx]

And the silver lining is the X-Men reg plate

X-Men plate is for sale.

Wife has a private plate for it.

 

[signwerx]

Update: Copious parcels arrived from EuroCarCare today.

Seicento is now up on industrial axle stand type affairs ready for the big assault on the brakes tomorrow.

Front will need hubs replacing and new wheel bolts

Rear will need handbrake cable, new hubs, new shoes, plenty of WD40 and guaranteed to bring lots of rude words. Oh, forgot the new wheel bolts!

Also on the agenda for tomorrow...

Find a spare head from the cento shipping container

Strip the head down and get it ready for skimming.

Photos will also be added tomorrow to break up the intense boredom of my grumbles so far.

Thanks for Adz182 for dropping in a spare set of wheel bolts along with lockers!!! Cheers!

 

[Pep0]

You probably need copperslip as well then, e.g. on the mechanical pivots on the mechanical actuators in the rear brake drums, they wont pivot for long after your free them without a trace of copper loaded grease.

Noel

 

[signwerx]

You probably need copperslip as well then, e.g. on the mechanical pivots on the mechanical actuators in the rear brake drums, they wont pivot for long after your free them without a trace of copper loaded grease.

Noel

Ah, my favorite type of lubrication. (There are other types, but wrong forum for that!)

I swear by copper grease, everything gets rebuild with it! Apart from loctited threads of course!

I have a big tin of it that i have been slowly working through since my first car - a 1971 VW Beetle - with more rust than metal!