Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Hudson]

I have seen some Omegas for sale at £300 !! Most have a decent mot and look sort of ok ? Can these be run for a year and if they would cost too much to pass the next mot just get £200 scrap and get another  Has anybody done this and simply run them until they drop then scrap them.

[Broomies Mate]

All I'll say is (and I don't know where you are, so apologies if outside the UK);

You'd be lucky to not have to PAY to scrap a car nowadays.  ShiteSteel is at about £15 a tonne.

[05omegav6]

All I'll say is (and I don't know where you are, so apologies if outside the UK);

You'd be lucky to not have to PAY to scrap a car nowadays.  ShiteSteel is at about £15 a tonne.

Neither of my nearest places pay, but will collect for free...

[05omegav6]

I have seen some Omegas for sale at £300 !! Most have a decent mot and look sort of ok ? Can these be run for a year and if they would cost too much to pass the next mot just get £200 scrap and get another  Has anybody done this and simply run them until they drop then scrap them.

Buy one you like the look of and spend the Mot sorting all the bits and you should have a good basis for a keeper

[tunnie]

As per your other thread, you need to do similar work no matter what the initial outlay you spend. I paid a 3 figure sum for my 3.2 Elite, that was 4 years ago 

Look for examples with good body work, as everything else is easily fixable.

[terry paget]

So long as you are able and content to maintain and repair them yourself I reckon it makes excellent sense. I run six Omegas for my family, and we all enjoy luxury motoring at small cost. Access to cheap spares, trade club supplies, and secondhand bits are important, and excellent advice and camaraderie from this forum are paramount.

 I play table tennis with four other old scientists at Culham laboratory every Friday and they all envy me. They pay £400 plus for a service and pay vast sums for repairs. They suffer breakdowns and are without transport not infrequently. They pay £1000 plus to have trivial dents knocked out. They worry about their cars being stolen - it never worries me!
 

[Nick W]

They are cheap for a very simple reason: they have common faults that will, or already do need money spent on them. If you cannot do mechanical work, then these jobs are extremely expensive. If you can do repairs and have the tools to do them, then a well chosen car is viable. One that needs an exhaust system would be a good choice; DIY fitting of the systems recommended here will make big saving. Any Omega that hasn't had front suspension work recently would be a poor choice for a beater, because you are looking at much more than the purchase price just in parts. Unfortunately, even the expensive Omegas fall into that category.

The price of scrap has dropped through the floor, and you would be lucky to get £30 if you weighed in the car yourself.

Unless you need a big car, there are better choices for a beater. Spend your £300 on a scruffy petrol Astra or Focus.

[Andy H]

I have seen some Omegas for sale at £300 !! Most have a decent mot and look sort of ok ? Can these be run for a year and if they would cost too much to pass the next mot just get £200 scrap and get another  Has anybody done this and simply run them until they drop then scrap them.

Omegas are cheap because people are scared that they can be expensive to repair and run. If you are aware of the common fails (inner edge wear on front tyres for example) and if you do your own maintenance (or use one of the excellent travelling mechanics) then they are cheap way to run an executive class car.

If you want seriously cheap motoring then get something with 4 cylinders and front wheel drive (and don't be too fussy about the colour .............)

[TheBoy]

As others have said, if you are prepared to do DIY servicing an repairs, they can be reliable, cheap motoring. If you rely on garages, the Omega may not be your next car.

I bought my first for a whisper over £3k. I didn't care about running costs, as it was bought as a luxury milecruncher for a trip to the South of France, and was intended to be sold as soon as we returned. That was 12yrs and 140k miles ago, and we still have it.

[TheBoy]

£3k back in 2003 for a 5yr old MV6 was definitely "bargain basement" territory back then.

[Nick W]

I bought my first for a whisper over £3k. I didn't care about running costs, as it was bought as a luxury milecruncher for a trip to the South of France, and was intended to be sold as soon as we returned. That was 12yrs and 140k miles ago, and we still have it.

I've done that, but it was a Capri that cost £25 for the fuel that was in it. Fitted a £75 Cortina engine the weekend before we left and did 2000 miles in a fortnight. I scrapped it 5 years later with another 130,000 miles and at least 200 1/4mile passes on it. I still think it was a good buy. But that was a simple car, and complex modern cars are much less suitable for this sort of use/abuse.

[Sir Tigger KC]

I bought my first for a whisper over £3k. I didn't care about running costs, as it was bought as a luxury milecruncher for a trip to the South of France, and was intended to be sold as soon as we returned. That was 12yrs and 140k miles ago, and we still have it.

That's funny, as that's exactly how I bought my Omega and like you I fully intended to sell it on when I got home.    10 years on I still have it! 

[EMD]

I paid £175 for a 2.5 manual saloon a few months back , fixed the smoking cam cover gaskets and sold it for £400  Once you know what the common problems are they are easily fixed . Could have kept the manual and ran it but it had too many pedals 

[deviator]

Mine cost me less than 300, flew through the MOT. Since then it's had an oil change, it's due to the next one. I've only just had to spend some money on it, front brake pads and a pair of tyres. Both of which are wear and tear items.

However I will add, I feel mine is losing GB oil and I need to get it on ASAP. I've even bought a runaround so I can take my time. Granted this wasn't the only reason to buy the runaround.

For me, I call that amazingly cheap motoring. If I have to scrap it tomorrow, then I won't have lost on it. My mate said, 'You paid less for a car than my monthly instalment on my new car'.

[Hudson]

Cheers guys, i was looking at the one below and thought it was cheap for what it appears to be -

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201512319740839?search-target=usedcars&make=vauxhall&model=omega&quicksearch=true&page=1&radius=1500&sort=default&onesearchad=used&postcode=m34hh&logcode=p

Not much service history and some bits of poor bodywork.