I haven't been on here for a while, but I thought I would share my (totally unbiased) opinion of this car.
I have made a decision to take my BMW off the road for quite some time when the weather warms up, and bite the bullet with some overhaul work. I was considering buying this to use for that period, and, then depending on how much work it needed, sell as is, break, or fix up and keep as a toy, when beemer is fixed.
I phoned the seller, and made him an offer of £800 cash, sold unseen, provided it ran OK on petrol. The seller declined this offer.
I had a very long phone conversation with him. His name is Nigel, and he runs a small joinery business, which is why he has the Estate car. He has just changed this car for (from memory) a 2005 Honda Civic. I may have got the year wrong, but I'm sure that's what he said.
A few things to note
- All of the work described in the add has been carried out by the sellers God son. He works with Japanese Cars, I am sure he said Honda, and has done most of the work on this Omega, including the thermostat, DIS pack, but not the suspension work, and not the cambelt, because he didn't fancy doing that (Fair enough if he's not done them before!) and probably didn't have a locking kit.
- The LPG tank is not in the spare wheel well, it's a cylinder behind the rear seats. Better for range, but useful information because it's useless to someone who wants to use an estate, for, well, an estate.
- There is an issue with the hydraulics and brakes of sorts. The seller stated they work fine, but when his god son changed the brakes, he did a fluid change, and has put some sort of synthetic fluid in there designed for new Japanese cars, and as a result the brake operation is very light. Apparently they stop you fine, but the pedal feels extremely light - as does the clutch pedal to an extent.
- No diagnostic work done on the LPG system to find the fault. The godson thought it was the dispack, but it wasn't. I think he said it's been missing on LPG a few months.
Personal view is this
Seller turned down £800 cash sale. He said he's been inundated with contact via ebay and had over 50 watchers. He said he wants to let the auction run because he's hoping for a higher price.
Personally think he will struggle to achieve this without an MOT.
Bit odd not popping it in for a test IMHO, as a car with only a few days is pretty worthless. You can insure a car for a day with numerous providers for a v good rate, and if going directly to the prebooked test, tax is not required. I am cautious about it not being presented for MOT.
The brake fluid thing is what concerned me. I have always used DOT4 in Omegas and don't know about the different types. I don't know if they can be mixed or are backwards compatible, or if a newer type of synthetic fluid might even be dangerous or cause long term damage? I simply don't know - as brakes are not my area of interest - so this worries me.
The non working LPG worries me. I wonder if it's an old install and if the tank is shagged, which is what happened on Entwoods car IIRC. That said, if it's a frontend issue, and not easily solved, you could soon pop a stag kit in there, as lots of the work such as manifold drilling and pipe runs has been done. Has it been running lean, with poorly running LPG, and possible burnt a valve slightly, or caused increased cylinder wear, causing the misfire? (Remember misfires show easier on LPG than petrol, so running on petrol may mask the problem, not eliminate it). As such it may be a problem with the engine as opposed to just the LPG system?
Ultimately it's a second hand car, and I am a firm believer with cars of this age that you pay your money and take your chance with no comebacks - especially if it's sold unseen.
To sum up, I think it's quite a gamble. For some perspective, if it were not a manual, I think it'd be a dead horse being flogged with the issues and lack of MOT.
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Topic: This might be of interest, but it won't go cheap... (Read 12069 times)