I haven’t posted for many years now but thought I would mark the 15th Anniversary of my Skoda yeti 2lt diesel Corrida Red it was registered on 15/12/2009 124300miles done. I like the car am getting on in years now just hoping it will survive another 2 years when I will probably be hanging up my driving gloves. Car has been excellent with only the usual maintenance issues. Plus a replacement clutch at 121500 mileage. Hope you all have a good Xmas. 

Edited 13 December, 20241 yr by itey-reborn
Error in mileage clutch replacement at 121500 not 221500

One of the best colours. There's one near me I see frequently, always pristine.

Christmas & New Year greetings

And I thought I was doing well holding onto my 11 year old car (12th birthday in May). Well done you!! 

We bought our only brand new car in Jan 2012. It's been the best car I've ever had. Lots of rally gravel (and worse) tracks over the years, now on 140k. Even kept company with a LR series 2, choosing the route by reading the road surface ahead and weaving about to suit. The down hill braking feature is superb after a nervous first run on a very rocky, wet excursion!  The Yeti is so versatile: sleeping in, shifting stuff to the recycling centre etc.

 

Before that my previous favourite cars have been a series of Montego diesel estates, Rover 400 company cars. Everything was better than our previous 1.8 Marina Coupe TC!

 

Good to keep the forum going, still full of useful information from way back.

Edited 13 December, 20241 yr by Yety

Bought mine new in October 2013, done 151K miles now. No issues, apart from normal service items. Still on the original clutch. Great car

 

11 hours ago, Yety said:

We bought our only brand new car in Jan 2012. It's been the best car I've ever had. Lots of rally gravel (and worse) tracks over the years, now on 140k. Even kept company with a LR series 2, choosing the route by reading the road surface ahead and weaving about to suit. The down hill braking feature is superb after a nervous first run on a very rocky, wet excursion!  The Yeti is so versatile: sleeping in, shifting stuff to the recycling centre etc.

 

Before that my previous favourite cars have been a series of Montego diesel estates, Rover 400 company cars. Everything was better than our previous 1.8 Marina Coupe TC!

 

Good to keep the forum going, still full of useful information from way back.

Can you imagine how a Marina would cope with travel tracks - bits would have been dropping off !

13 hours ago, Prezafab said:

Can you imagine how a Marina would cope with travel tracks - bits would have been dropping off !

I regularly drove mine over rally stages and even did a few road rallies, production car trials and autotests in it and don't remember anything falling off,

2 hours ago, Llanigraham said:

I regularly drove mine over rally stages and even did a few road rallies, production car trials and autotests in it and don't remember anything falling off,

My old school music teacher had a white 1.3 coupe which shook, rattled and rolled. No pun intended,much.

 

Was the 1.8 beefed up over the 1.3 ?

Edited 15 December, 20241 yr by Prezafab

8 hours ago, Prezafab said:

My old school music teacher had a white 1.3 coupe which shook, rattled and rolled. No pun intended,much.

 

Was the 1.8 beefed up over the 1.3 ?

Not really as far as I know. The TC was twin SUs, I also had an alternator and an oil cooler off an MGB to cope with towing a caravan we had at the time. The handling on the road was a dreadful compared to comparative cars at the time, but it was cheap, reliable and never let us down.

13 hours ago, Yety said:

Not really as far as I know. The TC was twin SUs, I also had an alternator and an oil cooler off an MGB to cope with towing a caravan we had at the time. The handling on the road was a dreadful compared to comparative cars at the time, but it was cheap, reliable and never let us down.

I had a beige 1.3 Marina Coupe for a couple of years. I remember there were plastic bushings on the front suspension that wore out every few thousand miles leading to an irritating rattle. Not difficult to change but got boring having to do it on holiday in Wales in pouring rain! Never let me down but it really was very, very basic motoring with no redeeming features that I can remember. Eventually had the money to swap it for a VW Polo, slow as a snail but at least it didn’t rattle. 

10 hours ago, Expatman said:

 Eventually had the money to swap it for a VW Polo, slow as a snail but at least it didn’t rattle. 

I used to drive my sister's 1977 Polo L with 895cc, 40hp and a manual choke. Solidly built and I once got it up to an indicated 94mph downhill with the speedo needle vibrating wildly ! It was so sluggish but at least it prevented me overtaking anything.

Edited 16 December, 20241 yr by Prezafab

38 minutes ago, Prezafab said:

I used to drive my sister's 1977 Polo L with 895cc, 40hp and a manual choke. Solidly built and I once got it up to an indicated 94mph downhill with the speedo needle vibrating wildly ! It was so sluggish but at least it prevented me overtaking anything.

Yes, and on any slight incline on the motorway trucks would queue up to overtake as  I changed down gear by gear to maintain any forward progress!

Nothing can beat an original Polo, I've had several and  a few were real schnorrers with stratospheric mileage, the engines still sounded like a sewing machine and delivered their full beans, they were very very nippy compared to say an 850 mini or 950 Fiesta but you had to rev the nuts off them to appreciate it.

My sister's was yellow with a nice brown nylon cloth interior ...

As we seem to have drifted off topic....my vote goes to the Renault 16. Superbly comfortable, amazingly versatile interior (this was a car first produced in 1965) economical and with the novelty of lifting the bonnet to see the gear box in front of the engine feeding directly to front wheels. I had five, all second hand and getting on in years. Their main downside was a propensity to rust.

1 hour ago, Paul52 said:

As we seem to have drifted off topic....my vote goes to the Renault 16. Their main downside was a propensity to rust.

My dad wanted a Renault Fuego but the 2 doors killed that idea, so he was keen on a 20TL/TS until he found out about rust issues. He had been bitten by a couple of fantastic but early-rusting Alfas. I think all the French makers were innovative in the 60s and 70s and prepared to try things rather than copy.

I saw several very well restored R16's at the local monthly car show 2 weeks ago, seeing you write they were first made in 1965 I was sure it was a mistake, Google proved me wrong, they were more modern than most stuff in the 70's so must have really been something else in 1965.

Nice to know there are still some R16 around. My first one was a 1965 model (bought of the car lot at the back of my flat in about 1977 to replace a Mk 1 Ford Escort estate with the 1100 cc low compression engine. Let's just say not a pleasure to drive and leave it at that. My wife had a back problem and her doctor recommended one as that's what he had). When we bought it it was what might be best described as battleship grey. We had it resparayed in Ford's Olympic Blue which looked fine on the can in Halfordds but was rather more eye-catching(?) when applied to a whole car!! Rust was the big problem with Renault at that time, my last R16 was replaced by the R20 - think giant hatchback - which I bought with several inches of snow over it. But it proved to be a good buy - reliable, economical (bearing in mind the 2 litre engine) and nearly as comfortable as the 16's had been. But rust was its downfall.  Never go to try the Fuego - which I guess was Renault trying to steal Ford's Capri market.

I also seem to recall a Renault Caravelle from around the same era - quite a decent looking sports car.