to beleive that driving a series of clapped out old wrecks inculcates a worthwhile sense of independence and capability

[OrmRenewed]

and that you can tell people whose first car wasn't old with a decent amount of rust, by how ridiculously distressed they get by a small problem, and who don't know how to change the oil or even open the bonnet.

Isn't it a rite of passage to have a car whose door's don't always shut properly, and who heating never works and whose windscreen wipers only work when they feel like it? Not to mention the place where the upholstery got torn when you tried to put someone's bike in the back seat.

I am always mildly horrified by teenagers who get given a new car by mum or dad. Just seems wrong somehow...

Yep.

GetOrfMoiLand Fri 12-Feb-10 10:58:21
And everyone has got to experience driving a car where the window mechanism is broken, and the window is hel up by a screwdriver jammed down the gap.

Hee hee, you have just described my car!

The exhaust on my first car used to fall off all the time. I was fleeced by kwitfit the first time it happened, so I just learned to fix it myself. I also never particularly liked turning left for some reason, and a spare battery that was helpfully left in the boot by my brother leaked and ate the back seat of the car away!

My second was a nightmare - ended up by the side of a motorway with a 9 month old baby for nearly 3 hours waiting for the AA, which was no fun at all. It finally died late at night, and half the population of my town must have driven past me trying to push the fucking thing on my own before some good samaritan stopped to help.

We pick our new car up tomorrow - but seeing as this one is 12 years old forgive me if I don't hold out much hope!

Lily - our 'new'car is almost that old and it's a diamond! It's been well loved and we keep it serviced. OK so there's a small issue with the central locking but it's been very reliable.

The best thing about having a crappy old car is knowing that I paid slightly more for it three years ago than many people shell out for one month's repayment on their new car. makes me feel most smug

My friend had a little car with rust copper tinting and holes in the roof panoramic windscreen. I think it is good for them too, he loved it.

I also remember having to push start my mum's little fiat to get to school every morning and she had loads of stories about fixing her little mini on the way to Glasgow after a lorry splashed her and it broke down!

I however don't drive at all and have no desire to, I think she put me off!

Always had old cars myself. My first car was a Morris Traveller, it grew mushrooms on the woodwork and had a sticky petrol pump which nessitated the use of a sharp whack with a shoe when stalled at traffic lights. The one after that was a 71 Beetle, which eventually went to the great scrapyard in the sky due to excessive rust! Managed to get more for it selling the parts from it, than I paid for it 15 years earlier! Now the proud owner of a clapped out Skoda. Fills me with fear when I have to hire a car and the brakes work, am used to anticipating my emergency stops now.

Oh yes, new-car brakes!

Whiplash, anyone?

I do remember i used to drive my very very old metro to college and dream of a day when I had a car that had heating - that seemed like my idea of luxury at the time!

I used to take a hot water bottle with me in the winter. I'd leave it on the driver's seat covered with a blanket so it was marginally warm when I went home!

Agree with OP (i drove my mini without brakes ), but the equivalent 'old' cars now are very modern by comparison, non? Teenagers I know have T,V,Y reg fiestas, which I would happily drive myself.

Oh this makes me so sad!

My first car was an extremely ill-advised (literally, my Dad tried really hard to make me see this!) 1972 Ford Landliner. It was basically a converted Ice cream van, and I drove it round the Welsh hills and finally got to Manchester, where I lived in it for a while.

It was terrible. Every time I took it somewhere, a bit would fall off.
I remember climbing around on the roof trying to stop the leaks with gaffer tape and 'chemical metal'.
The stove was dangerous, the shower (ha ha HA HA HA) was not worth the effort, and well, just everything really.

Poor old Lil.
Sold her to a dealer and didn't drive again for 12 years when my parents got me a brand new fiesta with blacked out windows and alloy wheels. I feel ashamed to drive it.

here she is!!! or her second cousin anyway.

My God.

What a beauty flight!

When a friends eldest DD went to university her mum and step-dad bought her a car. And she asked DH and I to come and have a look at it with her. I wondered round the showroom looking at cars that were only 2 or 3 yrs old yearning to shout out 'but this is so wrong! This isn't how it should be!' But I didn't. The car died horribly in car accident a few months later.

Loving this thread. My first car was a Vauxhall Nova which someone had bought to "do up" but hadnt quite gotten round to finishing it.

Had a lovely black tail fin to contrast with the bright orange/red paintwork and the driver side window was stuck open by about 2 inches so if you were driving in the rain you were soaked all down the right hand side.

Wouldnt start in the cold, so on the days I really wanted a car would end up waiting for the bus!

My favourite ever car was a Fiat 126 with 'go-faster' stripes. I used to use about £8 a month in petrol and I drove all over the place.... how green is that?

I always wear my coat in the car, while DH always takes his off. He claims that this is because he can't drive with a coat on but I know it is because he has always had namby pamby pansy company cars with ridiculous extras like decent heaters unlike myself, who has struggled for years keeping a motley crew of old shitheaps on the road.

welcome to my world. one clapped out old motore and another one not quite so clapped out - described as such as you don't have to defrost the inside of the windscreen neither do you need windscreen wipers on the inside

I'm still driving my first car 7 years later! Fortunately it was only 3 years old when my mum helped me to buy it (actually I gave her £500 and hoped she'd match it and bless her she got me a 3K car!). Still 7 years later with 2 10 year old 3 door cars (the second one was given to us when I was PG), a toddler and a baby on the way we are starting to think we need to get a newer car, for safety reasons (and god I'd love 5 doors!).

How the hell to people afford to buy newer cars? I just don't know how we will manage it, but it scares me when I drive past an accident scene on the motorway, knowing my car wouldn't stand a chance

DH and I were fondly remembering the days when we used to have a clothes peg to keep the choke out. And I was highly familiar with that stuff you lob in the radiator to stop it leaking. Knew that if the fan belt ever went a pair of tights would do the job and kept a hammer in the car in case the starter motor stuck. And the feeling of dread at the MOT, I still feel shocked when the car goes through.

My cars were so bad that when my lovely blue mini got nicked after 2 weeks, a friend said to me "insurance job was it?" I have never been so insulted in all my life !

My succession of old heaps came to end when we bought a Toyota Corolla which went on effortlessly for 6 years until we traded it in a year ago for a bigger Corolla Verso which I'm hoping will follow in its footsteps.