I bought an RS1600i in 2004 for £995
and sold it six months later for....
£995, Years MOT with no advisories
Nobody wanted them. I look now and cry a little
I'd always been a cheap car buyer. Sweaty Betty was the best, a 1983 MKII Fiesta in powder blue with two weeks worth of tax & MOT for £50 as the owner was going abroad for university.
Needed rear arches and sills but was sound, we ran it for nearly 4 years after deciding to just keep it for 6 months. I got a job from it as the neighbour watched me repaint the arches and made the car look as presentable as possible. Car boot ford hubcaps in pearlescent which topped it off nicely. Car boot stereos too.
Sold it in 2000, my gran gave us a bit of cash for an upgrade after it struggled with the three of us to get up the hills out of Brighton
Cars are expensive now and the problems they have with damp modules can end up scrapping them.
Even a 2016 Kia Rio nearly ended up as a parts donor - the ECU had a fault and non of the usual refurbishers would touch it. We found one supplier who managed to match the part number exactly (so it matched all the options on the car) Nearly £2k to fix a perfectly normal car that would start, run for a few minutes then stop for no reason barely 6 months out of its manufacturers warranty - Kia wanted £2k just for the part.
A 2013 Renault horsebox banjoed due to a delaminating multi-layer module that Renault no longer produces - its on 'back-order' - which means they dont have any, anywhere. Alternator alternates, battery charges, module sends a fault to the dash that brings up 'battery not charging!' message. We cannot bypass it or delete it
The problem now is that many components were manufactured in Ukraine and are simply not available until alternate sources come on line.
That leaves car repairers waiting on parts that could be 6 months to a year away. Or relying on 'refurbished' from dubious sources
Anyway, as soon as that Focus starts giving weird starting or central locking faults, its the clocks
clocks clocks clocks
21014 Octavia - hazard lights always on - needs a new ECU as the original is damp and has blown a chip, made in Ukraine so its a refurb or 2nd hand one.
2012 Citroen Berlingo, only one headlight, BCI fault, new one from Britain available, but his was a Ukraine BCI - unavailable, so 2nd hand or refurbished
I could go on
and on
and on