Morris Minor Owners Club

good evening

i am thinking of buying a 4 door saloon, it is in good condition and has just passed its MOT, it is a 1970 has 68000 miles on the clock which i believe to be genuine, The chap who is selling it brought it 6 years ago for 3500 and wants his money back, i have looked at many adverts to get an idea of prices, they seem to variy a great deal and most of them are for 2 door ones
are the 4 door ones and 2 door comparable in price? and i know its hard to value but is 3500 too much, its nice but it has a bit of rust on the bottoms of doors

many thanks for your time

Steve

Welcome to the messageboard.

Without seeing the car it is very difficult to advise whether it is worth the asking price or not. Although there were less 4 door saloons made, pricewise they tend to be comparable to 2 door prices. As you say, prices are very variable but £3,500 is towards the top end for a saloon price so for that I'd expect something in very good condition with no rust. How bad is the rust at the bottom of the doors? Have you checked for signs of filler? (using a magnet is a good idea). Unless the mileage is very low, and can be documented, it doesn't really have any bearing on price - it's how the car has been maintained that's important. Although it has a full MOT and looks nice you really need to conduct a thorough inspection before you buy and if you are not familiar with Minors or older cars take someone with you who is. It's all too easy to look at something with rose coloured specs on!

(I've removed your duplicate message from the 'for sale' forum as it's better to keep any responses on the same thread)

I agree with Louise (just this once - promise..) it sounds expensive unless in absolute tip top condition. Ask to see previous MOTs to see how many miles per year it has been doing (and has it been garaged during his ownership) - look under the bonnet - is it clean and tidy? Lift the front and rear carpets and look under the rear seat base.....and have a good poke about in the spare wheel floor area. Rusty doors are a relatively easy fix - but if the owner couldn't take care of something as visible as that - I would wonder if he bothered with the underside... A good look underneath for any 'new' underseal - or cracks and splits in old underseal may tell a story. I suggest £2000/2500 is more realistic value. Is it any better than this one at £1650 (which unfortunately is an ex C Wares car...) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Morris-Minor- ... 1c34849512

Thank you both for your opinions both I agree with, the car was MOT'ed yesterday where I work, it has had some repairs to the rear spring hangers but it has been done very nicely, I think it may have been restored at some point as it looks like it has got new bolts holding on the rear wings etc, so I think it is in good condition, the rust on the lip of the doors isn't that bad it's just starting to bubble, as I said I wasn't sure of the price as I couldn't find any others to compare it with, but if you both say the prices are comparable then that's good enough for me!!
Thanks again for your advice, I feel there may be an offer going in!!
Oh and it's far better than the one on EBay
Regards
Steve

Get an estimate for restoring and painting the doors. It would cost at least £200 to repair and paint each door properly (ie welded in repair sections and not just filled and painted over!!)
So for each rusty door take £200 off the price. That is assuming the rest of the car is in good condition.

Two of my friends recently sold their tidy solid 4-door saloon for £4500, the only blemishes on the solid underside was some light surface rust ( which they didn't paint as they didn't want to hide anything. But then this car also had an excellent interior and was mechanically tip top. So deduct according to how much needs doing to this car.

2-door or 4 door the value depends on condition more than how many doors the car has!

BTW have read your post _" doors not as bad " is misleading as slight bubbling or a gaping hole require the same level of repair, I.e new door bottom skins and probably frame repairs as well!

chickenjohn wrote: As far as I know there are similar numbers of 2 and 4 door saloons around and they fetch the same money. Don't let anyone ask for more money because "4-door are rarer" because they are not!

Interesting, but I think there are definitely less 4 doors around. From production figures held (some years are missing) 637,209 2 doors were built but only 365,834 4 doors, so quite a big difference. As said though, prices are comparable for saloons regardless of how many doors they have.

Edit: having just checked the figures it seems there were almost 3x as many 2 door saloons as four doors at the Hop last year. It's just we seem to have a lot of 4-doors in the East Kent branch!

Some folks prefer the wider doors of the 2 door (I do!) whereas folks of slighter build seem happy with the convenience of 4 albeit shorter doors....

Got any pictures of the car in question, would make it easier to value.

Only photo is this from yesterday, doesn't really help much!![frame][/frame]

That looks quite tidy - but it is the underside that MATTERS.