ABS being tricky?

[nine-fiver]

The odd weird ABS(?) noise is appearing these days, taking off from standstill, backing out, or coasting to a stop. The light flashes on the dash. Quite aggressive and noisy to all in the cabin.
Ideas?

[Audax]

Most likely cause would be a faulty/broken ABS reluctor ring on the front. They're not expensive and it will be visibly cracked if you look at the car from underneath but you will probably need the car on a ramp.

[nine-fiver]

Will investigate Saturday. Thanks.

[steventon95]

Do you have a gravel drive .... ?

[nine-fiver]

I do. But the car is parked on the concrete section.

The poor thing is in its last two weeks of life now.
Head gasket is leaking badly.
Black soot in the expansion bottle
Compression is dropping off.
Power and boost is irregular.
Brakes don't bite and it wont stop in reverse.
Subframe is shot

But it still starts, (somehow), albeit on 2 cylinders
And is fantastic on a long run.

[steventon95]

Lawks, poor old girl 

[nine-fiver]

Yep. And there's the 'nub.
I love it to bits. Seriously to bits. I actually thoroughly enjoy pulling it down and getting things fixed up so it runs. Usually better than before too.
But She, whose daily car it actually is, says we will not be spending any more on it,save for ultra basic maintenance. I agree with that.
But the actual problem is now the Debt versus Disaster situation. Borrow money and drive a depreciating asset? With interest on top? Ouch. Or spend thousands getting everything right on a 14 year old car that has already had thousands spent on it already.
My head hurts just thinking about it. But the underlying elephant in the room is Safety. The poor old girl is not roadworthy any more. Do I want my wife and kids driving about in a car that is not Safe?
Which is why I bought it 8 years ago. Super strong body, airbags, Abs, all that stuff.
But not any more...

[mikeloadsasaabs]

Know how you feel! As I've mentioned before, mine still has a disconcertingly large number of original parts at 225,000 miles e.g. turbo, exhaust, alternator, air flow sensor, auto box......the list goes on. And the head gasket is leaking externally, along with burning 400ml of water per month (not necessarily the head, but it's going somewhere not immediately obvious!). Just paid €720 for new subframe bushes. There's a danger that I could incrementally spend loadsamoney on a "worthless" car. 

A disaster would be just that - we only have one car since we retired.

But she's running well, has all the gear, and is fast and comfortable. There will come a point to say enough's enough, but luckily we're not there yet.

Oh, and there's the small point that we can't really afford to replace her 

[Audax]

But she's running well, has all the gear, and is fast and comfortable. There will come a point to say enough's enough, but luckily we're not there yet.

Oh, and there's the small point that we can't really afford to replace her 

Kind of the same here, I'm clearing off some debts at the moment but know that the car won't go on forever so keep looking at what's out there. I could afford some kind of replacement no problem if it went bang tomorrow but these good looking bargains keep coming up, of course I know that there won't be much out there when I need to buy one and I could end up buying something that needs a bunch of money spent to get it working perfectly if I spend now.

However the one I have keeps rolling on quite nicely, but I've seen a few low mileage 2010 9-5 estates around recently for a good price but not good enough as if I was to buy one of these all the debts I cleared in the past year would be back again. 

[nine-fiver]

Been wondering for a while now how long it would take for us diehards to admit that the old girls are not up to it like they once were. The cars, that is, (sorry WAGs).
Interesting dilemma now. Keep her on the road, invest money into distance yet to be travelled, get under it on a regular basis...it's all now new territory, on a car that has no residual value, save the emotional one.
What to do?

[sgould]

Repairing and restoring is usually costs less than the depreciation and risk of repair on a newer car.

[Audax]

Repairing and restoring is usually costs less than the depreciation and risk of repair on a newer car.

It does keep the costs down that way however I always wanted a 9-5 Aero (or 2.3HOT) manual estate. Picking one of those at the right time is the hard bit, if I can get a 2010 model for the right price then that's the better thing for me as I'd save £250 a year on fuel over the auto I have now especially as I know my car is going to want an engine out rebuild at some point which is going to be at least £1k. When I add up all those points it might make sense to get the right later model now and spend the maintenance money I would have spent on what I have on something else.

[nine-fiver]

True, and that's a 'no-brainer'.
But the lingering issue that doesn't go away, is the next repair, and the next one after that. The list is rather long now as it is. If it were only the HG then the car would be in bits as we speak. Nothing would please me more than to fix that and get things right again.
But the List!! It is simply top long. It all adds up to more than the car is worth.

[Audax]

It all adds up to more than the car is worth.

Pretty much any car will do that though, I had a customer with a quite nice 9000 that needed a big service and some tyres, discs and pads and a couple of bits for an MOT. The total bill was going to be just under £1000, the customer said "the cars not worth it I can buy another one for less!", so he scrapped his 9000 and got £200 from the scrap man and then bought a replacement 9000 for £600 with 6 months MOT. When he brought this new 9000 in for the knocking from the suspension after less than a month of ownership passed we relieved him of a couple of hundred quid for some suspension bushes and warned him that the MOT and service would be expensive... Surely enough the MOT time came around and he needed a big service, 4 tyres, discs and pads all round and some brake lines and exhaust. This time the bill was more like £1500, he then said he regretted scrapping the old one as it was a nicer car and would have saved him lots of money as he'd spent over £2000 to stay in a different 9000 rather than just paying the £1000 to keep the nicer one he started with, that was disregarding all the costs of having to go and look at cars, buy a car, transport it and swapping around paperwork.

[nine-fiver]

Too true. Too true.
The Mantra "the cheapest car is the one you've got" applies.
Fix it and keep on driving.