I'm a 19 year old music student from St Helens, near Liverpool Studying at the Birmingham Conservatoir (not as great as it sounds, i hate the place)
My car history is as follows:
learnt to drive in a brand new Renault Clio and passed my test in the may after my 17th (which was december 12th - if anyone wants to give me presents
)Bought myself a 1987 1L Nova from a friend of my mother for £300 as it had only done 34,000 miles, and i figured the resell value alone after a quick spit and polish was worth it (it had been delcared SORN for many years, but was mechanically solid, theoretically having the guts of a 4 year old car). I bought this in the May, and it served me very well, I hammered it, as it was only a 1 litre and therfore needed to be thrashed to go anywhere with anything more than a minimal load (and I'm hardly a minimal load!) in the first 15 moths i covered 22000 miles, and over the summer last year took it 500 odd miles down to newquay with my (then) girlfriend, wilst driving aimlessly around cornwall I smelt a plastic burning smell, and started seeing smoke from the sides of the bonnet, so I pulled over and flung the bonnet open, armed with a fire extinguisher nicked from a bus. and got a face full of steam and smoke. we got it towed home on the RAC, and once home, performed an autopsy on the damage. found that a HT lead was tracking on the fuel line, whit ignighted the fuel. causinga fire. The flames burnt through the heater hose, and the resultant spray of water/coolant extinguished the fire, but not before it had eaten my air filter and several other plastic items nearby!
Total repair bill £8 for scrap parts
back on the road, 9 months passed virtually incident free, despite the many jokes from my friends about cigarette lighters, and various other fire related things no more problems. until after a VERY long trip to birmingham and back I suffered a cracked cylinder head gasket complete with overheating, and steam/smoke, got another tow home and again fixed it myself for less than £20 (many thanks to the boss at my local motor factors)
I finally lost all faith in the car (which despite the 2 "explosions" had been a very solid servant) when the lack of decnt grip (semi due to driver error, but I had plenty of distance to stop and it was dry) sent me into the back of a brand new company Renault Laguna, and sent one of the front end supports through the radiator and, to all insurers wrote the car off.... (final fixing bill was £38 and a few pints!) total cost to respray the other car's bumper - £551.72 (settled out of insurance, big thanks to Bridgewater Contracts for that)
I lost all faith in the safety of the nova, and decided i needed something a bit more "secure" which is where my dads old, red, 340 1.7GL came in. a year older than the Nova, but due to the ease/cheapness of repair I'd seen with the Nova I snapped it up, finishing all my overdraft on it, at £250. I replaced the stereo/speakers with my Nova's rig (whic sadly, sounds nowhere near as good, mainly down to interior size, but it just means a redesign is in order) I drove the volvo back from my uncle's, and was aslmost frighteneed by the insane amount of power in comparison to the nova, as it stands, it's a boy-racer beater on any straight, which, after one or two embarassments in the nova, is just what i needed if only for a day or two!
here I am upto now, the Volvo is the best car I've ever driven, I prefer it over my mums s40, my sisters mini, and anything my mate's have (all newish cars pug 307, Vaux vectra, Honda civic, flawed fiesta)
I'm also after a few things for the car, mainly cosmetic, alloys, new front bumper (it doesn't look right, badly fitting on one side) maybe a 360 spoiler, undecided yet, also like the look of the bodykit so if anyone's giving these away or knows of a salvage yard with anything worth keeping, I'll keep my eyes peeled in the offers section
Joined here a few days ago, member 100, go me!I'll probably be hanging around here quite often as I've got little else to do
Once I get my Digicam back, ill whack some pictures up for you all
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I enjoyed to read it! 
