Advice on buying a 2 door saloon

Post by **Pikey** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 4:44 pm

Ive been to view a 1969 2 door saloon today, with the possibility of buying it and have a couple of queries regaring it.

Firstly I noted a couple of concerning cracks. One is where the near side rear window front pillar attaches to the B post, just to the rear of the front door handle. The crack is so bad I would say that the winow pillar may not be attached to the wing anymore.

The second crack is on the off side and where the roof is attached to the rear wing along what could be referred as a horizontal moulding. The cracks about 10" long and is showing rust through the white paint

Being an LCV man I dont know if these are common issues with 2 door saloons, Sorry I just dont know. Is it a sign of weak sills and the car is flexing. The owner said that the sills have had under sills have been replaced and the rear spring hangers all look to be good shape except for in the boot where the whole area is patched up to get through MOT's.

Secondly the price is £1500 is this a fair price for a car which is in a genuinely original condition, the engine is totally untouched and covered in fourty years of grime and smokes a bit of blue. The interior also needs complete replacement too.

Regards

Steve B

Post by **PSL184** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 5:17 pm

First off it is way too expensive - I'm about to put mine up for sale which sounds much better and for only £800. (No cracks and no welding needed - just paint and interior tidying). The cracks are common but only after a significant amount of flexing has happened so at some time before the cills were replaced it has been driven with a weakened structure. I'd pay no more than £500 for the car you have described and that is generous

Post by **aupickup** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 6:11 pm

yep definately too much to pay

Post by **Pikey** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 7:17 pm

Hmm thanks a lot. Thats given me lot of food for thought. The owner said that it had been resprayed just to tidy it up after the sill work had been done, so I suspect the vital boxing plates are rotten and the car may still be flexing, which is sort of what I expected after seeing the cracks.

I dont think I'll go for this one then, I only viewed it because it was very near me.

Shame really the chap was very friendly and I dont believe for one minute he knows the car has issues.

Again many thanks to all.