A "thought for the day".

[Carledo]

I won't say Cavaliers don't rot, but my 95 Cav looks considerably better than your 97 Golf! But I bought a good-un in 2004 and have put some effort (and the benefit of much experience) into keeping it nice. But it still lives outdoors and gets used in all weathers (its hopeless in the snow) as does the Carledo (even more hopeless in the snow) with which it shares daily driver duties, week and week about.

What I think constitutes a classic and what other people consider deserves the title is not something I feel the need to go into. Even if I do accept that some cars are more deserving than others of classic status the division is far too subjective to accurately quantify. And probably elitist as well (not that I am in any way PC)
As far as i'm concerned, if there is an owners club, thats good enough for me, enough people must love them to qualify - and there are owners clubs for Lada, Trabant, Allegro....... Even my beloved MkIII Cav has one!

Steve

[Galileo]

I broke my car buying golden rule to be fair to that Golf, never buy a car from a coastal location, and it came from Hastings! I guess I should be fair to the Cavalier as well, it was one of my infamous 'specials', as in paid £69* for something that looked like next stopping place was the scrap yard and then kept it going with mechanical sympathy for far longer than perhaps it should have. Similar thing was the 1L Metro I had for 4 years, bought it for £25 from an old lady who had rammed both wings perfectly into two concrete pillars, me and a welding mate stuck on two wings and rattle sprayed it, lasted until the MOT inspector prodded the rear subframe and broke it's back, he suggested that I drove it carefully to the scrap yard at the top of the road...

Raf.

*Why £69? Because I needed the quid for the bus fare to go and pick it up, money was tight back then and I thought I'd be able to knock them down a bit more but they weren't having it!

[Howard81]

Moderns don't rot? My brother's 80,000-mile 2008 Golf has holes through the front wheel arches already! He's having a long ongoing battle with VW as they're tying every trick in the book not to honour their 12-year anti-corrosion warranty

[Toledo Man]

This was the rust that was on my Astra when it was MoTd back in March.

The garage told me it had got bigger by the time they'd got to clean metal. It was right under the airbox and the wheelarch liner was beneath so it was well hidden!

[cliftyhanger]

But we forget, most triumphs had dissolved within 10 years, in fact many had rust issues within 3-4 years. We have the ones that amazingly survived!

I reckon most of the rust issues on modern cars is down to poor body repairs. Body shops are supposed to protect repairs to a very high standard, however, as the insurance companies also refuse to pay decent money for th erepairs to be carried out, and the companies harass the workers to be "more productive", corners do get cut, and a few years later the results appear.

Fords are about the worst cars for rust (I asked the MoT tester about which cars survive best) but they are still far superior to anything built pre 1990's

And yes, there will always be the odd exception. But in all honesty, there are very few rusty cars out there.

[captain_70s]

Hmm, I guess 1997 is relatively modern and therefore I'm happy to confirm that moderns such as my 97 Golf GTi 16v Anniversary are not immune to tin worm, the other side is even worse! And don't even go there with rust free Cavaliers, my MK2 rusted so badly that the clutch pedal ripped clean out the bulkhead one day, luckily right near a branch of Wickes, a length of 2x4 was purchased and jammed against the steering column where it lived until the next MOT was due.

No car is immune to rust, even the modern tin, just look at a 1990s Mercedes or a 10 year old Mazda 3! There is a '04 Mazda 3 in the works car park that has rustier arches than my Dolomite and front wings made of filler, although it has to be said the Dolly is on it's second set of rear arches and has had plenty of welding done despite being ziebarted from new!

It's rare to rear stories of a car failing it's first MOT on structural corrosion, which wasn't entirely implausible if you'd bought an ADO16 or a BMC Mini back in the late 60s! It wasn't uncommon for a car to have a full (cheapo) respray at some point in it's life to hide the deterioration a bit!

[Carledo]

It's rare to rear stories of a car failing it's first MOT on structural corrosion, which wasn't entirely implausible if you'd bought an ADO16 or a BMC Mini back in the late 60s! It wasn't uncommon for a car to have a full (cheapo) respray at some point in it's life to hide the deterioration a bit!

Oddly enough, the ONLY car I have EVER failed for corrosion on it's first MOT was a Dolomite, A Pimento red W reg 1500HL with rot at all 4 front subframe mounting points - disgraceful really, not even a high mileage or coastal car either.

Steve