Thinking Of Buying A Spares Or Repairs C4 And Need Some Advice

[stormagain]

Hi everyone I’m thinking about buying an MOT fail petrol 1.6 C4 SX. I went to look at it at the garage last night where it is a trade in to clear.

 

The 3 page(!) MOT failure sheet includes the following:

 

Rear handbrake not working (its mechanical, the hand brake was tight so the cables look fine, which means the calipers are probably seized)

o/s track rod end worn

n/s steering rack boot torn

 

I’m not too worried about the fails above as they all seem quite straight forward however I noticed that there was a lot of bulbs marked down as not working, more than six I think. Is there some sort of nasty CANbus magic box that controls the lights that could have failed or was the previous owner just fond of carrots?

 

Also there was only one key with the car, it was an aftermarket one with no remote function so you had to unlock it via the passenger door. How much would it be to have a new remote key cut and coded to the car?

 

The car has done just under 100,000 miles, I also noticed the clutch was biting a bit high but as the car is for sale for £600 I’m still quite tempted, on a plus note the interior and bodywork are both in good condition. 

[paul.h]

Welcome to the forum.

 

These few things would not cost a garage much to fix and then the car would possibly be worth a lot more, depending on its age. So why would it be sold as a spares or repair ? I would want more info from the garage. The clutch needs a good test to see if it may be worn out and slipping - if not it may be normal.

 

The rear calipers need the pistons turning so they retract to allow new pads to be fitted, so you would soon know if they are seized, as well as obvious things such as bad wear, the wheels binding but it could be somebody has tried to adjust the handbrake so it does not free off enough to allow the auto adjusters in the calipers to work.

 

Try fitting new bulbs to see if they only need replacing before deciding to buy.

 

The SX may be the base model and not include air con so worth a check.