Hello Commodore SS!
Our poor old VT Commodore is looking decidedly more tired by the day. It was in amazing shape when we bought it, but in retrospect the previous owner had a carport, and we did not, and the 20-year-old paint didn’t do so great in the weather and so has failed in multiple spots over the last few years. Other things have broken too, and speaking to our mechanic Terry last year, it has an oil leak that will be extremely cost-prohibitive to fix.
We were hoping to keep it running until after we’d bought a house, which we were saving furiously for up until we had to move. We signed a two-year lease on the new place, and it’s pretty clear the Berlina is not going to last that long without some serious cash being spent on it. And frankly, while I like it, and it’s very nearly “classic car” age, I just don’t love it that much to spend what needs to be spent on it.
So we went looking for something nicer, with the same constraints - v8, RWD, snotty but not unreliable, and found a 2010 Commodore that looked like it mostly fit the bill. Took it to Terry for a PPI, and everything looked pretty good except the brakes - while borderline roadworthy and likely to pass - would need doing very soon. Speaking to the seller, they came down to a price under our pain threshold, so we put a deposit on it and waited for the roadworthy certificate.
As it turned out, the brakes got dinged for the RWC anyway, so the seller had to change them, and we picked the car up tonight after coming back from the wedding. It’s got two new front tyres, new front brakes, so hopefully it’ll not see any major issues for a while.
We’ll have to replace the stereo to get Bluetooth back, and that’ll be an expensive operation because of the way the dash is arranged, but I’ll just rip off the bandaid and do that. It also needs a tow-hitch, but I think we can wait a few weeks on that to let funds recuperate.
Finally, I need to clean up the Berlina and list it for sale, which I’m not looking forward to but we really need the money back to offset the cost of the new one.
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Horsham, VIC, AustraliaNavigation: Older Entry Newer Entry