Some of you may remember that last year I sold my BMW 525 on this forum. So far I've not heard horror stories back from the new owner, so am gambling on the fact that it still proving to be a solid bit of kit.

Well technically that was The Great Cheap Car Experiment No.4 (GCCE4).

GCCE1 was bought 7 years ago - and was a 1988 Volvo 240 GLT Estate. 133bhp of mayhem! Well not really - but what it did have was a dodgy headgasket - which I failed to spot when buying - and which later went pop on me. £600 for 3mths motoring. Oops was not the word.

Not to be detered GCCE2 was promptly bought for £1500 from PWCars.co.uk - a top notch independent!! This time a 1987 Volvo 740 GL Estate. Anyway that car got me to Switzerland loaded with kit - then back to the UK with a trailer - and then back full again. In 18mths in clocked up 24,000miles - and a good few dozen donuts!! The problem was that the feisty 2.0 litre engine wouldn't pass swiss emission tests - so it went to Swiss car heaven - I think it did - it was flogged to a Swiss dealer for 250chf on Ricardo!

A few years passed before GCCE3 - another Volvo - this time £900 - and was to be the 4-seater in London. A 1989 Volvo 760 GLE - only 90k miles - and fitted with the Volvo head version of the ropey V6 they built with Renault. 170ps - and fuel economy that peaked at 25mpg. But what a sound. It was a big barge that cosseted you as it wafted its way around the UK. OK it threw its belts at midnight on the M11 one night - but other than that it was 100% reliable. And after 18mths was sold to a friend for £750 - and he is still using it with only minor servicing!!

GCCE4 is well documented - the BMW 525 that we took on 2 years ago - and promptly stuck 9000km on it 5 weeks to Morocco and back.

Well GCCE5 is about to start. This time the brief was simple - it had to be cheap (obviously), spacious, reliable, recent MFK - and come fitted with a towbar. If you want, have a look and see what you can find for under 3000chf in that category! But I did find one - by chance. It fulfills all those requirements - and more. It has a rally pedigree engine pushing out 136ps (or it did), only 160,000km and the body work is showing no signs of rust. The only thing missing is carpet in the boot (easily solved) - but to make up for it, it comes with a 2 sets of wheels.

Ladies and Gentleman - today I agreed to buy a 1986 VW Passat 2200GL - oh yes - the GCCE continues!! I'll keep you posted!

Love it.. after loads of 'expensive' cars I'm determined to never pay more than 5k chfs on a car ever again.. almost all german/'japanese'/ford/gm boxes on 4 wheels built in the last 15 to 20 years are solid, reliable and, if anything, over engineered.... now where can I find that 540 for under 5k ?

You'll struggle - but there are some nuggets

You could go for a V12!!

You have to buy on feel. Who is selling the car? What is the history? What can go wrong with it? Do the big things all work well? Does it idle smoothly? Rev cleanly? etc etc

bangernomics is fun, did it in the uk when I was doing starship miles to work everyday, best deal was on a rover 216 auto, paid 1k for it, put 50k miles on it, sold it a year last for £800, all it cost me was a set of brake pads and a new battery.

worst was a nissan primera, lasted 3 months and the timing chain snapped

Do you find that having an old car makes servicing & repairing expensive? I have a car that is 13 years old & it is getting to the stage where the repairs are going to cost more than the car is worth, the engine is sound & gives no trouble it is everything else that is starting to go wrong. At what point do you give it up as a bad deal?

depends on what really needs doing, if something actually breaks then its going to cost, but servicing etc you can do yourself, or use a local indy garage to do it. stay well away from main dealers.

what can you live with going wrong?? things like electric windows, seats etc won't affect the car, and wont stop it passing an mfk, so can you live without them?

My father's 1995 Passat now has over 250000km (I think) - but it is showing its age.
I don't know anything about cars other than to how drive and fuel them up.
I'm not sure I would spot any non-obvious problems and so, I'd be scared to buy something that is 25 years old.
While the depreciation on new cars is way to high, it's not too bad for 1-2 year old cars IMO.
Hopefully, I also get 10+ years out of my next car.
(Though, reading car-centric forums sometimes makes me believe today's cars are engineered to last the 3-year leasing period and then sort-of self-destruct).

just about every make and model of car has an owners forum now, decide what car you want and check out the forums for the common faults, if you can find one without the common faults then your quids in, if not price up beforehand how much they will cost to fix

In my view - cars from the late 80s-early 90s from the premium brands (BMW, Audi, Merc, VW, Volvo, Saab) are the ones worth buying to run on the cheap. Mechanically they are simple and well engineered, and they aren't filled with expensive to fit electronics. Manual windows, radio and sunroof. That's your lot.

What you do is narrow down your potential problem areas to:
Chassis - rust
Body - rust
Clutch - slip
Brakes - do they work, or need replacing soon
Engine - blue smoke/white smoke - idle problems - clean reving

Mind you, I wouldn't go into "bangernomics" if you don't know how to do some basic work yourself.

My 1995 Wrangler is still going strong. Paid just under 5k for it in the UK about 6years ago. Still only has 60k miles on it.

I love my Jeep.

your car looked ok to me, I'm sure you'd have no bother selling it to someone like ken

See, I was quite happy with my lovely, cheap as chips v6 saab.. now you've seriously started me thinking about that 750i... 5k and I get to drive around in utter luxury pretending to be a dodgy drug dealer and/or gun runner to impoverished hell holes

I have got an update from the garage - the car failed its MFK on a dodgy rear damper. He'll replace the pair and have it retested next Tuesday. I should be able to collect on Wednesday/Thursday.

This will be the second bargain basement car I have bought from a MECHANIC garage - and not a car dealer.

When your rummaging around the bottom end of the market you need to have your wits about you. You need to know what your looking for - and you need to know that the guy you are buying from knows what he is selling. In my view, the big lots over here don't. They are salesman. They'd sell you your own coat given a chance.

I have mentioned this before, but what you really want to find is a mechanic with a back-street garage - who picks up cars which have failed their MOTs - get them repaired and serviced - and then sold for a reasonable price - but a tidy profit.

In my view, these are the cars that newly arrived ex-pats should be chasing. If you are only here for 2 years - that is all you'll ever need in a car. Cheap and reliable - with 2 years of motoring. And once you are done sell it back to the mechanic for a few CHF - and let the circle of life continue.

Good examples of such garages are Pennella (in Chur) and the garage that isn't Funf-Dorfer in Zizers!! The Passat garage I won't name until I have given the car a good run - and I know things are tip top.

Futher more, I got insurance over the phone this morning, they have already sent the nachweis to the Strassenverkehrsamt - the mechanic will collect the plates when the car is retested. He hasn't asked for my address - so I presume the great Swiss information network will spring into action!!

It has been a week (more or less) since I had the car - and I thought I would add a few more bits of information.

1) The car runs hot. Consistently hot - which would suggest that the sensor and/or thermostat aren't 100%. They are consistent (IE don't fluctuate) or get too hot. But it is enough to have the car going back on Friday for them to be replaced. I'll buy the part - he'll fit for free. (Despite no warranty)

2) The car wasn't serviced - just MFKed. The result is rather dark oil. He will service on Friday - and appears to be very cheap - which is good.

3) The car did 190km over the weekend - and was fantastic. It isn't up to modern standard (or in fact 1989 BMW 525 standards) but it does cruise well at 130 (I mean 120)kmh. Acceleration is smooth - with a real kick from 3000rpm. It has had an "Italian Tune Up" and I happy with the way it goes. It used 1/4 of a tank of fuel (15l) over the weekend - but that is on the gauge and I will brim it again before I take it to the garage.

4) Over the weekend the car swallowed the garden rubbish it was required to move - 2 loads of 5 bags - each bag = 235 litres. The boot isn't as big as I first thought - only 160cm long with seats down. Still big enough!

5) The garage is Zurlinde Garage - Zurlinderstrasse 218a, 8003 Zurich. The owner is M. Neufeld - who speaks fluent english - and has a wealth of experience - and a stack of cheap cars. Highly recommended.

Further update time:

6 weeks into ownership and I'm still undecided on this one. There are moments when it proves a stonkingly good bargain, and others - specifically when the car is working very hard - when the temperature rises and I swear it could get expensive.

The first tank of fuel was swallowed at a rate of 10.5l/100km - but considering 100km was spent working (often very hard) with a trailer on the back I was pretty happy with that. It has done a couple of trips up the mountain already to our weekend place - where it is proving the perfect workhorse for loading up with "green" for the Gewerbezentrum! I have now even taken the back seat squabs out to get a longer flat floor for the boot.

On Sunday it cruised effortlessly at "on the cusp" of legal speeds without any problems - in fact with 136ps (claimed when new) and only 1140kg of car to move around it is pretty lively - a new 1600kg family car would need a lot more power!

However, it isn't all perfect. The thermostat was replaced at the time of an oil and filter change (240chf) - but the engine will still get hot when pushed hard (up the mountain road or with a heavy trailer on the back) and the narrow 175 tyres don't exactly inspire confidence on the back roads. But most importantly it lacks 80s cool. A similar age BMW/Merc/Volvo still has some prestige image - the Passat on the other hand merely gives the driver an air of bohemian shabbiness - I'd like to add chic to the end but I don't think that is entirely true.

I've not yet bonded with the car - it hasn't had to do the "impossible" unlike the old 525 and my first Volvo 740. But it will get plenty more chances to earn its working spurs over the summer.

When the girlfriend which is now the wife still lived in the Netherlands - at the end where flying there made no sense - I drove the 900km roundtrip far too often to have an expensive car. I bought a 98 Honda Prelude with 100k km for 4500 Euro, put 70k km on top without anything except of new wheels and sold it for 3800. And it was even fun to drive on the Autobahn.

Best GCCE ever.

1st car we bought in CH was a 1989 BMW 318si. We totally loved that car, it took us to the UK and back a couple of times. We had to lose it when our eldest was born, it was only a 2-door and there was virtually no legroom in the back, even for my 5'2" wife. Traded it in for a 1994 Opel Astra Combi, horrible but practical car.

Im still trying to sell my S4 avant (20k chf ish ) for this one http://www.autoscout24.ch/AS24Web/De...&page=2&row=16

no response from the garage or anything.

or this one http://www.autoscout24.ch/AS24Web/De...3&page=3&row=3

but no one wants to take in my trade and pay extra.....

I'm pretty happy with a '96 535i with that I bought a few months ago (at 112,000km) from an individual for chf 6600. The interior and sound system are fantastic, it has no rust, and no major issues that I'm aware of (knock wood). Came with two good mounted sets of sport tires, the winter set practically new.

It just needed brake pads and a new wheel bearing, and a clamp to fix a leak in the steering fluid line. For good measure I gave it an oil change and new plugs and the engine runs great.

Been up to a GPS verified 215kph a few times in Germany - the car is stable at speed and I imagine it would keep pulling to 240 if I dared. The e39 535 has the same V8 block as the 540, just a smaller bore. Mileage on long trips averages 10.3/100, and I'm thinking of changing the differential to 2.35 for better mileage and less engine wear since almost all my driving is on the highway.

I've always bought used cars from individuals, in the 6-15 year-old and $7000-19,000 range. I hate paying a lot for something that depreciates fast, and with quality makes you can get a heck of a car for that money, top-of-the-line models like the 5-series and Lexus LS that are still in very respectable condition. I'm not a good enough mechanic to take my chances with something really cheap, and the Mrs. would not enjoy tooling around in a beater, so this is our sweet spot.

The best cheap car I ever had was an Opel Speedster. Bought it cash for 25K with only 4'000km on it, ran it for three years and 30'000km of simply stunning mountain pass and other sporting driving and then got rid of it... for 25K! Only routine service and one set of sticky tires. Checking my records, this no-compromise sports car ended up costing me less per km than my previous champ, an old Corolla that I bought for 3K and ran into the ground.

So, my advice for the cheap car experiment is to buy an Opel Speedster or Lotus Elise.