Hi all. Hoping for some friendly advice. its been a long time since i have posted on this forum as i sold my much loved 20vt a year or so ago.my reason for selling it was to buy a house with my partner and needed less out goings and thought it was time to let the coop go. i spent alot of money on it, clutch,cambelt, turbo etc even drove it to italy which i always wanted to do. but i got a good price for it and replaced it with a grande punto sporting. However, i miss it. and im really tempted to buy it back!! ive been driving to work for 6months watching it parked up near where i live with a for sale sign in the window. i went to view the car today and it has no tax/mot and has been stood for 6months!! it started first time too but i have a few concerns. firstly it has no mot as it failed on emmisions and the guy who owns it cant afford to fix it. it was throwing smoke out the back like it was on fire!! i dipped the oil and the level was about 4cm above max!!! would i be mad to buy it? its only done 4k since i sold it. could it be smoking because of too much oil? has this done damege? its up for 1k. thoughts would be appreciated.

It's just too tough to make comment on whether the problem lays with oil or other things! I think only you can make the decision. It al comes down to how much money you have spare to spend if it does all go wrong! Also, if were to go wrong and you end up spending another £1500..... wouldn't it be better to buy a decent one in the first place!!

yeah true but i have memories with the car and alot of blood sweat and tears doing work on it. i no the histry of it too which is good. ive arranged to go and see it again and drain the oil. might post in the tech section to see if knows the affects of putting too much oil in her.

is there some way to get it checked out? if it was me i'd probably buy it, expecting to have a bit of a spend to get it back to a good standard - after all, what damage could he have done after such few miles?

edited to add - i know of a fantastic porto coming for sale soon for approx £2600. it's maybe beyond your initial budget but all the main jobs are recently done and apart from an easily repaired SMALL area of rust this is a stunning car. no spend required for some time

I would try to get it to one of our "coupe friendly" garages first to get it checked out and see exactly needs doing first.
If that's not possible,get someone who knows coupes to come and inspect it for you.
Just explain to guy that you need to see how money needs spending on it before buying.If he says "no",look elsewhere.
Paul

I'd say never go back - but you should seriously think twice about buying this.

With the dipstick reading it sounds like he may have run it low on oil, then stuck too much in there to try and disguise it. He could be selling it on having done the damage.

I am with Roly, I wouldn't buy it, there are enough good ones about, that you don't need to buy one that needs work.

cheers for the input chaps.spoke to the man with the coop and he is gona give me the keys for a couple of hours so i can get it on my drive and do a few bits and bobs. think il drain the oil, check oil pressure, cylinder pressure and also inlet and intercooler and see what the results are and go from there. i just feel tempted because the car was in top condition when i sold it, and drove 2000miles return to italy without 1 hick up and averaged 38mpg or something i seem to recall. i shouldnt have sold it really. when i had it paul at motormech said it was mechanically A1 so it must have been a good 1. hopefully not too much damege done...

good luck! let us know what your findings are

well, ive had a look at the car, intake system is clean, starts well, compression test ok. plugs are really black and the white smoke is pretty bad and it failed on emmisions mot. not sure what to do. might be pricey to fix.

personally after that, i'd walk away regardless of how emotionally attached you were to the car. there are some nice ones about now, even le's at less that £4k - why bother resurrecting something for much money that could have very serious underlying issues?

i think your right. such a shame though. it wont have done the car much good runnin rich for some time either. it may only be something silly though causing the problem.