Tahrey1043 wrote:
91 Carlton CDX 3.0i 12V Estate Agreed value £0.50 (long story) - limited to 1K miles per annum
never mind the length, you're not leaving here alive without telling us that one!
(hang on - 3 litre 12-valve?? a SOHC straight six or something then..)
They are all straight sixes....... (cept the polo)
They all have 12 or 24 valves...... (as above)
The Carlton CDX Estate - hmm where do I start
I'm doing some building work at home (5.5m ext to the garage and 4m x 4m two storey extension to the hoise) so needed a skip - needed several actually - I wasn't gonna cart stuff up to the dump in the LC was I? - besides anybody know the costs of skips these days £120 min each hire and I needed a few.....
I bought a copy of the local wed free ads and started hunting for a big load carrier, van, estate, or pick up anything would do in the under £500 section - criteria was cheap (real cheap - less than a skip or two) big and with a bit of tax and test to cover a couple of months use.......
Well I spied a carlton estate 2.0 - bugger all description, just high miles and MOT'd for 3 mths and tax for 4 days £200 ono - must go by the weekend was about the sum of the add
I rang on the fri nite - and the guy said it would be there untill sat 0800 when the scrap dealer would be rung to pick it up - while he was at work - he'd bought it as a tow car for some reason but he'd had a lot of problems with it and now had bought some tonka toy and it was now stored on the road outside his house and the neighbours had been moaning and he new one of them would shop the car as soon as the tax ran out and he couldn't afford to insure it again to tax it.
Well by this point I realised he was desparate to shift it and the ono bit might not be so near........
I turned up at 8am in a mates car and looked round the car was bloody awfull scruffy dented wings rotten tailgate busted ignition key bonnet release cable snapped, interior filthy, not a single tyre that matched and most were near to legal minimum. It obviously had its fair share of mechanical maladies I drove it up and down the road propshaft was knocking like a t**t, the ABS light was permenantly on, the air assist rear shocks were not being assisted by any air at all and the exhaust was blowing - in fact the complete opposite of what ever advice I've given to anyone looking for a car

It was a SHED
I pointed out the faults and gave some rough guesses as to repair/replacement costs - I think he knew I was very clued up and had obviously was aware of some of the faults and had costed some of them himself
I asked him what it was gonna cost him to get a scrap dealer to pick it up (knowing it would be a min of £50) he said £60 - so I said well what ever I offer will save you £60
He agreed and I held out 50p and said the offer lasts untill I get in the car to go - once he picked his jaw off the floor we'd already started walking, he tried the well how about £50 by which time I was almost in the car to go home - I just laughed and said 50p no more and I'll drive it away now
So thats how I got it for 50p
I got it home on the fuel that was in the tank - intention was to use and abuse it trailering and carrying rubble to the dump and topsoil to a mates farm.......
It had done most of it's work inside a month - garage was up and I decided to rest it till the house extension started - get a few faults repaired in the lay period get it through another MOT and use it again but thats another story
PS It was a 3.0 not a 2.0 the free ads paper got it wrong and by way of background info only 17 Carlton 3.0 CDX Estates were ever built with manual gearboxes - so suddenly I found I had a car that was rarer than the LC cos they built 287 of them!!!!