Bangernomics

What are bangernomics? In simple terms it is all about buying older vehicles which would normally be past their expected working lives and working on them yourself to undertake any necessary works to keep them in tip top condition or bring them back to a good condition by using your own labour instead of paying others and their profits, for doing it for you. What constitutes a good bangernomics car? Actually any car which is suitable for your everyday use, and is in reasonable condition for its year and has the potential to give several years of excellent service with the least amount of cost.
Begin at the beginning and do a lot of research into many vehicles and find their common problems, any recalls, and tie this in with your skills and abilities so you have the necessary skills to rectify these faults and put a car with seemingly lots of faults back onto the road and give years of reliable service.
What age do bangernomics cover? About 10 years old normally to around 20 years old as most vehicles become modern classics at this age and when it becomes a classic you may get much cheaper insurance, but your mileage may also be limited or restricted.

What, if any, are the benefits of bangers? Actually many, they will have heavily depreciated to the point where they have little value to most people so you lose very little, they have excellent spares availability, most have had all their issues dealt with by the manufacturer and have had most updates done under warranty, or vehicle recalls; they are generally simpler and lack the technical complexities of new cars and their faults are all known about. Aftermarket parts and component suppliers have already set up their facilities to supply service components, recondition components, and a host of uprated components to replace weak spots in these vehicles, and they have recouped their initial investment outlays so their prices are cheaper. Many cars around 10 years old will be subjected to many issues and most will have sufficient rust protection from new to last 10 years, but always be prepared to spend a little on issues and grab a bargain, you can source vehicles with known issues if you have the expertise and equipment to repair them and get them for a fraction of their retail prices if you can do this work yourself.

Are there pitfalls? Yes, and this often comes down to the vehicles past, and its use, its working history, and who has previously owned the vehicle, so let’s explain this in more detail.
Many new cars are leased or rented and a car rental company buying vehicles by the thousand can get excellent discounts, people only want to rent or lease new cars and this generally means they are sold off at 2-3 years old, or relegated, so what is relegation. When a leasing company buys new cars direct from the manufacturer they take out the dealer and these group discounts and the removal of the dealer means even bigger discounts, then add in the attractive prices offered by competing manufacturers to retain future sales means these companies buy them massively underpriced and when they reach 2-3 years old they sell them to themselves. What, how do they sell them to themselves, actually very easily as most car leasing or rental companies own a second wave company which buys them, they then lease or rent them out to customers through the second wave company as discounted rental cars at up to around 5 years old whereupon they are sold, usually at auctions. Many are bought by dealers and traders for their forecourts as cars around 5 years old with average 50,000 miles on them, with full service histories sell well and provide dealers with reasonable profits, and they still have several years of good anticipated service life left.

Other sources are also available and motor salvage auctions are excellent places to buy repairable vehicles with some fairly minor damage but these are generally left to more experienced buyers, but buy an older or non popular vehicle and you can get some excellent bargains, particularly where insurance companies are moving written off vehicles as they are generally sold as seen and without any reserves.
Why insurance write offs? Because with newer vehicles they are based upon value versus the cost of repairs and if the repairs are more than 50% of the cars estimated value then they are written off, and many insurers often have some over zealous requirements for their repairers and generally this involves repairing vehicles with OE (original equipment) suppliers parts and often offering a 5 year guarantee on all repairs. These vehicles are called uneconomic repairs as usually the combined costs of parts and labour required to meet the insurers stipulated standards means all parts are limited to potentially two or three suppliers, and the cost of stripping and painting a damaged area is very high as are the costs of spraying a single or several panels to affect a repair.

Some accident damaged vehicles have secondary issues and often this is associated with various safety systems fitted to the vehicle and usually this trips fuel pumps to prevent fuel being delivered to the engine, or it shuts down the vehicle electronics to prevent it running.
Recently a friend bought one such vehicle which had front end damage to the front spoiler and grille due to debris falling off a lorry and this also smashed the windscreen and heavily scratched the bonnet and trashed one headlight, its market value was around £16,000 and he bought it for £2350 as a non runner because the engine wouldn’t start. He borrowed my trailer and fetched the vehicle and put it in front of my barn which is heated, within 2 minutes I pressed the fuel trip switch which cuts the power to the fuel pump and it started first time, he drove it into my barn and we looked for parts, we found a breaker and got a headlight, bonnet, and plastic grille for £120 and a windscreen contact came and supplied and fitted a new windscreen for £94 and this left the spoiler which we sourced from my local motor factors for a hefty £63 which left only the paint. This vehicle was a flat colour and as the front spoilers are prone to rusting on these vehicles we got some Etchweld primer which is weld through, stone chip, and the colour and lacquer which came to another £81 and we had everything to complete the job.
Work began on a Saturday morning and he sanded the new bonnet back to bare metal while I cut the damaged spoiler out and ground it back to bare metal, I primed the bonnet and etchwelded the bare metal around the front spoiler and the front spoiler itself, we removed and replaced the broken headlight and removed the bonnet which is bolted on, and removed the bonnet catch and its noise absorbing foam. I fitted the new spoiler in position and spot welded it in using the original spot weld positions and we fitted the primed bonnet and fitted the bonnet catch in position and aligned it, we removed the radiator to give access to the inside of the new spoiler and painted it in its colour coat while he removed the bonnet and I sprayed the inside with its colour coat, I lacquered the inside of the front spoiler and the inside of the bonnet and let them dry for about 1 hour. We refitted the radiator and topped it up with water as it was inside, then refitted the bonnet lining and then the bonnet, the front end was masked and the outside was sprayed and lacquered, we poured some cooling system cleaner into the cooling system and ran the vehicle.
With the vehicle on my ramps we went round it and found two back tyres were getting low on tread so I rang another contact and got premium tyres for the same price as cheap tyres, and my mate went out and got new anti freeze and decided to get oil and an oil filter, and a fuel filter, these were replaced. With the paint now hardened it was buffing time and he used my air buffer and some fine cutting paste and buffed the front end, and decided to do the rest of the car, and it was polished with three coats of Auto Glym polish and it gleamed, and having spent so little he decided to coat the underside and all its voids with Bilt Hamber products, including in all the voids and cavities for long term corrosion protection. Our final job was to plug my scanner in and find any fault codes and the only code showing was the fuel pump power shut off, this was cleared.

Other sources of bangers are general advertisements as often you can get a car which has been in the same family from new, they have a full service history and the same family drivers which generally means they haven’t been thrashed or abused and often these people just want to get rid of them and you can haggle the price down somewhat, particularly if you have the cash. Finding these types of vehicles requires a lot of searching and the ability to read between the lines and the ability to move quickly as often the first buyer bags the bargain, and once again speed is of the essence.

One example of this was a little Citroen AX diesel and the family had owned it from new and was being sold with a major issue, the head gasket had blown. After finding out that a radiator hose had blown and a local garage had recovered the vehicle, and it hadn’t overheated, and they replaced the blown hose and filled it up with water and anti freeze, it told a story, the garage were not aware of one of their foibles which is exactly how to bleed the cooling system, and this had caused the problem, the air lock had caused it to overheat and blown the head gasket.
With the engine in pieces I found the usual problem of a slightly warped head so it was taken to a mate who skimmed it and even threw in a head gasket of the correct new thickness for free as it was old stock, so it was all refitted and filled with anti freeze and bled correctly, and it had an oil and filter change and has been a cheap runabout for his wife since.

Bangernomics makes use of a lot of second hand or reconditioned parts and a lot of parts from breakers which is not only much cheaper than new parts, but plays to the environmental agenda and this is not a bad thing as it allows older vehicles to be purchased and run for several years without issue.

Do you have to buy a car to repair? Actually no because some vehicles are actually profitable to break for spares, today you have to obtain a Certificate of Destruction and this is actually easier than many people think. Many vehicles are classed as repairable, others are unrecorded, and some are sold only for breaking and if you have a reasonable knowledge of vehicles then you can buy one solely for breaking and if you choose this route then you need to sort the wheat from the chaff as well as understand the current trend.
One example of such a trend was Ford Transit’s in the 1990’s and into the early 2000’s where the 2.5 transit vans were stolen and had their engines torn out, a high demand got even higher as these vans could be sat on the motorway doing 50-60,000 miles per annum or as little as 10,000 miles per annum as local delivery vehicles. One mate set up a reconditioning business when another reconditioning business went bust, he made a silly offer for all their tools and equipment and rented a small unit, he trawled the local scrapyards and bought up the worn engines for £20 each from them and was reconditioning 15 per week and selling them within another week. Transits sold at salvage auctions minus their engines fetched silly money and were virtually given away and buyers had their pick of them for less than a pair of tyres and at that price they could put a second hand engine into them and usually weld in a new crossmember as these were usually brutally cut out. At this time a second hand Transit engine cost around £5-600 and there were no guarantees or warranty and no mileage guarantees and quality second hand engines with proof of condition and mileage were around £1000 if you could find them as they were scarce. He provided reconditioned engines for all the derivatives of 2.5 Transit diesel engines and couldn’t get enough of them because of demand, what he could offer was a reconditioned engine at around £500 + VAT and people snapped them up as they were the same price as high mileage second hand engines in poor condition. Many companies were also buying them for their company vehicles and this huge surge in demand meant he could massively expand, but like all surges, there will be a lull so he chose not to expand and moved into other engines for his future success.

Many private individuals break vehicles solely for profit and to do this you have to choose wisely and buy solely on condition, but choose a vehicle whose parts are in demand and you can sell most of them very quickly and just get an authorised and licensed scrap dealer to fetch the shell for crushing and they issue you with your Certificate of Destruction.
One large salvage company now offer this service where you buy a write off and book a slot in one of their workshops and they transport it there for you, there is a rental cost and a transportation cost, but you have from 8.00am to 5.30pm to totally strip the vehicle for spares and a good friend recently did this and roped me in.
He chose a BMW 850 and we took his large van and our tools, he began at the back while I began at the front, the bonnet, boot, doors, plastic spoilers, nosecone, and all the glass was quickly removed and put into the van, we removed the engine and they lifted it and the gearbox out as one unit and put this in his van, we then followed the manufacturers assembly procedure, in reverse.
Off came the rear suspension and front suspension as one unit, all the coolers, electronics, braking systems, and everything else under the bonnet was removed along with as much as the underbody plastics as we could, then we stripped out the interior, leather electric seats, dashboard, steering column, seat belts, and all the rubber gaiters and even the carpets.
Costs, his total cost totally inclusive of everything were £833 and he stripped the major assemblies down at home and played his ace card, before the vehicle was put into the workshop he filmed it with audio actually driving and then filmed the engine running to show a prospective purchaser it actually running. He advertised the spares and immediately he sold the engine and gearbox for £1650 as seen, so immediate profit, and everything else was sold within a couple of weeks and what little was left was sold to a scrap dealer as scrap.

As with everything you need to fully research this and approach it with caution before choosing to proceed.