Blogathon 19/15 – lights out?

Bangernomics is the name attributed to buying an old wreck of a car for not much money, and running it in to the ground, and then beginning the cycle again.

I tried my hand at Bangernomics a good dozen-or-so years ago.

I went to several car auctions.

I studied form (such as the form of cars is a thing that can be studied).

Eventually I bought a Rover at an auction.

It had a valid MOT.

I insured it, put some tax on it, and ran around Somerset and Bath for a few months.

One day, just after a torrential downpour, I noticed, when I parked up, that the carpet beneath my feet was damp.

I peeled back the carpet and discovered that the floor had rusted right through.

I took the car to a garage for a once-over.

They declared it a loss.

It wouldn’t pass an MOT.

It was mostly held together by fibreglass and resin stuffed with newspaper, and spray-painted over.

That was my first and only deliberate venture in to the experience of bangernomics.

Having got the motorbike bug back – and the itch is worse/better than it ever was – I discarded the notion of having a car as my main form of transport.

I sold my Vectra, and trundled around the countryside on my two-wheeled transports, and thoroughly enjoyed every single mile.

The winter of 2013/14 threatened to be a bit grim.

My commute, at that time, involved a fairly short, but infamous stretch of the M1 motorway.

Leicester services, and J21a.

I decided to buy a car.

In October 2013 I found the Jaguar.

I went to see what could possibly be wrong with a ten-year old car of that marque, that it was on the market for such a small amount of money.

The brakes didn’t feel quite right. And there was a suspension-related knock from the offside rear.

I paid £1,500 for the car.

I found a decent independent garage who confirmed it needed new discs all round, and that it was the brushes that needed attention in the offside rear suspension.

The total price for all of the work brought the overall purchase price of the car to just under £2,000.

That was about 18 months ago.

This winter the car has had much more use than last.

My week-long commute is a touch under 350 miles, but 320 of those miles is divided between my Monday morning trip to work, and my Friday evening trip back home.

And the weather, this winter, has been sub-zero for a long stretch.

With snow and/or heavy rain thrown in.

So the bikes have stayed in the garage, and the Jag has been copping all the mileage.

A couple of months ago the car needed a new offside front main/dip bulb.

The old one, I discovered, had burnt out and had melted part of the plastic connector.

A mobile vehicle electrician sorted that out for me.

Today I noticed that the same light has stopped working again.

I’ll replace the bulb – probably this weekend – even though it’s a right bitch of a job, and involves having to remove the car battery to create sufficient space to do the job.

But I reckon the writing is on the wall for the Jag.

My plan is to nurse the car through what’s left of the winter, and get back on the bikes.

I’ll sell the car for around £1,000 as soon as the weather becomes bike-commutable.

And maybe buy another one as the winter of 2015/16 approaches.

I saw a lovely-looking, one previous owner, full dealer service history X-Type on Autotrader earlier this evening.

I think it was on for £1,500.

Who knew that Jags were so cheap?