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Cookeh goes shedding.... in a 107..

25K views 72 replies 36 participants last post by  virgiltracey 
#1 ·
Evening,

Got offered my sisters 56 plate Pug 107 for free on the basis that it was utterly filthy inside, the paint was in bad condition and it was 20k overdue a service. She was going to PX it until the offer was £200. The plan now is I use it to cut down my commuting fuel cost (for those that don't know my main car is an 850 T5 that gets a whopping 27mpg on my commute).

Anyway, without further ado, I present to you the hateful shoebox. This car will not be named, it does not deserve personification.

nsf by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
ns by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
nsr by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

It is, without a doubt, the worst car I have ever driven or been driven in. I've owned it for two days. I hate it.

The 3cyl 1.0 engine is utterly gutless, requiring constant downshifting to maintain progress on even the slightest of gradients - even at 70mph on the motorway, slight incline and you lose 5mph immediately. In neutral the whole car vibrates, and the noise out of such a small engine is frankly ridiculous - it is far louder than anything I've owned and rattlier than a diesel.

The clutch has a ridiculous bite point, less than 2cm from the top of the clutch pedals travel - which is why, combined with a lack of a footrest, the typical clutch life in these cars is about 15k. Pathetic.

Anything about 50mph deafens you with road noise as the 3mm thick interior carpet is quite literally the only sound insulation on the floorpan. You can actually see this in a later picture, where the carpet is starting to wear through as it presses against a frame rail.

On the subject of ergonomics, there isn't any. Seat backs can be adjusted up and down in a small range, and the seat slides back and forth but thats it. The steering wheel, like the backs, can be adjusted slightly up and down but does not feature telescopics. Getting comfortable in this car for anything more than an hours drive is impossible if you're a normal sized human. The seats themselves have no bolsters and no support and are actually the most uncomfortable seat I've been in.

You'd think this would be bad enough, but no, my particular example only features 2 speakers located in the dash, which are not powerful enough to drown out the road noise but are terrible enough to make you wish they weren't there anyway. All this, despite being the middle-spec option! I'd hate to wonder what the base spec has. We have no A/C, no glovebox lid and manual mirrors, but at least we have an aux in and 4 cupholders; every cloud and all that.

As I'm sure you can see, it is truly worthless. In terms of the exterior, there is that aforementioned paint condition.

On top of numerous instances of fading (its not single stage, weirdly), etching, and watermarks, this car has been scraped multiple times. Once it even knocked a wall down - seriously. The steel wheels are also badly corroded, but I'll take the blame for this. I painted them as a present for my sis 4 years ago, but after stripping back the old paint I never used an etch primer, using normal primer instead... Whoopsie :lol:.

Corroded steelies example by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
osf scrape by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
osr scrape by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Paint defect by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Bad bumper fitment by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

It has had a boot leak for years now, literally years. This recently got 'fixed' in a recall last Mon - which apparently means I can't wash it for a while. Bugger. I used " ' " as I highly doubt this will actually fix the leak, given there are at least 5 common leak sources fro the boot alone on these badly designed shoeboxes.

The exterior, however, was not the worst part. No no no, that belongs to the interior. This car was used as a daily driver by someone not interested in cars and who happened to own a 40kg Old English Sheepdog. The backseats, where Jasper (the dog) lived, were covered in dog hair, the carpets and seats saturated with mud and sand, not to mention all the nose art on the windows. In fact, the interior was so bad it will get an entire post of its own, and after 2 days its still not completely done!

In terms of plans for this thing, I don't really want to spend a penny on it. Going to give it the service its long overdue (£52 for oil, filter, air filter, and spark plugs!!), and clean it within an inch of its life but really that is all I want to do. :detailer:

I *might* upgrade the lousy dash speakers, just to maintain some degree on sanity on my commute, but we'll see. I *might* fix the broken mirror adjustment, if I can be arsed or if anyone actually knows of a fix. Beyond that, I'm just going to track fuel expenditure, how much I'm saving and and just fix things as they break.
 
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#3 ·
[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23] what a thread.
I love your hatred of this car.

I also own a volvo and could only imagine driving a little beauty like your yellow beast[emoji38][emoji38]

You may well grow fonder of it?????[emoji3]

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
 
#10 ·
You may well grow fonder of it?????[emoji3]
If, at any point, I show signs of that please have me put down immediately.

Righto, onto the interior of this heap. You may recall I said it was filthy? Yes, well, that and some.

We'll start with the general crap and detritus in the stowage bins:
Stowage bin dirt 2 by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Stowage bin dirt by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Dirty glovebox by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

Now I know what you're all thinking, it's not that bad, I'm just being a drama queen. Well, scroll on.

Next up we'll go for the centre console:
Dirty dash vents by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Dirty stereo by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Dirty centre console by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Nasty handbrake trim by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
I believe Tosh mentioned a sugary experience with Coke? Yes, this heap is familiar with that too.

Dirty speedo by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Dirty knob by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Mmm, skin and human slime.
Dirty indicator crap by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Slime? Make-up? Something else?

Okay, getting a bit worse, floormats and seats next:
nsf mat by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Rear seat hinge dirt 3 by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Is that sand? I hate sand.
Rear bench dirt by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
More sand, and dog hair. Great. I hate sand AND I hate dog hair.
Rear bench dirt 2 by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
More? Lovely.
Rear bench dirt 3 by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Again? What is this, a BOGOF offer?
At this point I elected to remove the rear bench (rear uprights slightly trickier, couldn't be bother in the rain).
Rear seat hinge dirt 2 by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Sex? In this car? About this car? Either way, just no.
Rear seatbelts dirty 2 by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
20p, wahey! This car has cost me -£0.20 so far, saving money already :lol:
Rear seatbelts dirty by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
More sand. Top stuff. Can go to the beach without ever leaving my drive... if this heap ever deserved to be parked in the drive that is. But it belongs on the street, with all the other trash.
Dirty seat sides by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Quick trip to the front, with more sand and dust. Excellent.
Boogers by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
What on earth is this? Both sides of the seat? Looks like boogers or ear wax? I did actually confront my sis about this. She's adamant it wasn't her, told her to check her fiancee's seat and see if its his. I mean, it's someones right?! :mad:

Fair enough, plenty of you have probably seen worse and detailed worse, but this is the nastiest I've dealt with. What I wanted to do was park it on an enemies drive and torch it, what I actually did was break out some APC, some mf cloths, a magic eraser and the trusty Vax 2000 that I adopted off my parents when they got a Dyson 8 years ago - the Vax is almost as old as me, still works flawlessly.

What followed next was about two hours of vacuuming, and about an hour on cleaning the door cards (or is that just doors in this case?) and centre console. I haven't gotten round to actually cleaning the carpets or seats with upholstery cleaner yet. This Saturday I think, weather permitting.

Onto the afters then, shall we? First up, the floors - easy enough with a vacuum, upholstery brush and some APC for the pedals:
Cleaned osf by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Cleaned nsf by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Cleaned nsr by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Cleaned osr by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
See in the area beneath the accelerator pedal? Where the carpet is a lighter shade? That is the aforementioned floorpan/frame rail wearing through the 3mm carpet.

Next up, that rear bench area. Again, lots of vacuuming, all 8 sections of a folded mf and a whole lot of APC. I found a small nylon brush to be excellent for the areas around the seatbelts:

Clean rear floorpan by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Clean rear seatbelts 3 by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Rear seatbelts clean by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

Going to attack this with some Hammerite to hide and protect the rust a bit, as well as adding a bit of wax to the metal in a pointless bid to protect that.

Penultimately the console area and doorcards (doors?), again copious vacuuming, plenty mfs and APC:
Clean doorcards by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Cleaned dash vents by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Cleaned stereo by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Clean seatbelt by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Clean centre console 2 by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Clean handbrake trim by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

Lastly, that booger infested seat? Yeah, couldn't leave that until Saturday. Halfords Upholstery Cleaner, stiff bristled brush and the VAX dealt with it:
No more boogers by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Clean seat sides by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

Definitely not perfect, but not a biohazard anymore and doesn't quite reek as much anyway. Needs a protectant, probably Autoglyms VRT on Sat. We also knocked the first little 'project' off in the form of the gaitor. Was collapsed and flopping way down on the frame:
Collapsed gaitor by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

Turns out it was missing a little rubber sleeve (sitting in the centre console oddly), which helps grip it and stop it sliding. Put that back on the stick, removed and re-installed the gaiter and voila:
Gaiter fixing by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Gaiter fixed by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

Okay, it looks ridiculous - massive wide gearknob abruptly ending and then a tiny skinny gaitor starting, but nothing I can do about that. Just another crap bit of design.

Roll on Saturday so I can get in the car without overalls... :lol:
 
#6 ·
That’s in better condition than my daughters 107
She’s managed to run it into the ground in 2 years; I stopped cleaning it after she spilled an entire full sugar coke from McDonald’s in there and couldn’t be bothered to try and mop it up. It’s probably held together with ants.

But hers is (was) quite nippy with just me in it, but that was just in town, no A roads or Motorway. Plugs and injector cleaner may bring it back to life a bit.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
#8 ·
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

I feel your pain, when I worked at Citroen I had to take a C1 on a course, usually a nice hydro suspension C5 or C6 but not this time, only went to bridge water and back but it was so exhausting driving it on the motorway I ended up having to pull into a layby and have a kip on the way home.

My ears were bleeding and my mind, back and legs were just shattered in pain.
 
#9 ·
My wife had one of these for about 8 years and now has the newer C1. I thought hers was bad but it wasn't to this level. I refused to do the inside as the carpets never came clean. I try to keep on top of the new one with rubber matting as well as carpet mats but it still looks like a skip that's had a dead stripper in it with glitter everywhere.
If you have to change the clutch the 'fix' involves a larger friction plate.
 
#15 ·
Looking a lot smarter for your few hours work :thumb:

I only rode in the Aygo version of these, once - all i remember was the engine and road noise, and the fact everything felt like it was made from old baked bean cans and recycled lego bricks. But they do offer cheap and reliable (yes, I did say reliable for a French car) motors for those doing short commutes or as a second small town car/runaround.
 
#21 ·
Reliable because it's a Toyota; perfect first car that's difficult to kill!

My neighbor has a C1; I can't believe how thin the metal panels are, even the glass is thin. No wonder it feels like a tin can, because it basically is.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
#17 ·
My daughters boyfriend is on his 3rd, he's @ uni and doesn't care about cars as log as he can fit his musical instruments in. Yes, he can fit a double bass in.

So about 4 months ago he asked me to help him find a new car and as much as I tried given his budget he insisted on it being an Aygo or gAygo as his friends have added the letter 'g from Halfords.

After looking at some real ****boxes I finally found him this one and he loved it, it drives much as you describe and had just had the clutch and brakes replaced. It even has alloys, A/C, privacy glass and built in TomTom

I've seen it since as he's back @ uni but I'm sure it will look similar to your before pics.

 

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#20 · (Edited)
Apparently, you can fit extra door frame rubbers to make it quieter; found this on a YouTube channel somewhere about an Aygo or 107; may make it quieter on the motorway



The link for the seals no longer works; I don't know where to get them.

I would also get the thickest cheapest carpet mats you can, which will help with the noise. Or Rubber the. carpet on top. Stick an old duvet in the boot as well.

Looking at the back seat pics, can you stick some cheap Dynamat there?

That is a proper turnaround, at least it's not a biohazard now.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
#22 ·
The Toyotas are actually much better made and come with more in the way of refinements (actual insulation and underlay for a start), which is why they were more expensive to start with. If you thought those were horrible then Im sure you can only begin to imagine what I'm enduring!

@tosh, thanks very much for the link - will have to see if I can find something very cheap that does a similar job. Regarding dynamat or even bitumen tape etc, I'm sure they would work but I honestly don't intend on spending anything on this car - I will just suck it up and think of the fuel savings! Duvet isn't a bad shout though, have a few of those laying around and I'm sure the fiancee won't mind... What you don't know and all that ;)

I got a bit more time to work on it today before the heavens opened. I was still trying to make it safe to enter without a hazmat suit at this point, but I'd say its now fairly respectable. Further maintenance cleans of the interior will only improve it, and if I'm honest I literally couldn't give a toss about this car, definitely not enough to get it properly 'concours'.

First things first I figured the sparks plugs needed changing, my sister had been advised of this at a service some 200000 miles ago but never did anything about it - despite me offering to do it for her. As it turns out, they weren't terrible. Gap was only 33% larger than spec... Removal requires unclipping the airbox (some 4 clips or so, then removing two squeeze clips), revealing your three DI coils with a single 10mm bolt. Spark plugs themselves are your fairly standard 16mm thread. Some pics of old vs new and the three old ones.

Spark plugs old vs new by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Spark plugs old by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

The car runs a little better now, less dag-dag-y on start up and a fraction quieter throughout the rev-range. Still very unrefined but better. Can only hope it gives even more mpg to cover its cost.

Next up it was onto that interior. The rear bench was obviously removed previously, so I tackled that last night inside (thankfully I have an understanding and car-sympathetic fiancee!). This was by far the worst seat in the car, so it got a vacuum, a healthy scrub with upholstery cleaner and finally a steamclean. Came out fairly well I think.

Couple of reminders of the before...
Rear bench dirt 4 by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Rear bench dirt 3 by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Rear bench staining by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

Then some 50/50s and finals:
Rear bench 50/50 vacuumed by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Rear bench steam cleaned by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Rear bench steam cleaned 3 by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

Much better methinks. The rest of the car wasn't so bad and was unfortunately confined to the outsides so I decided against using the steamer (too much effort being wired and not being able to leave the seats by a radiator to aid drying). That meant a slightly different approach. Copious vacuuming, followed by a huge scrub with plenty of upholstery shampoo before vacuuming out the liquid and giving it a final dry down with some microfibres.

Rear bench upper 5050 2 by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Rear bench upper 5050 by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Apologies for image quality phone camera had a hard time focusing due to the pattern, and I'm a lousy photographer!
Rear bench uppers after by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Passenger seat after by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Drivers seat after by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

And here is the dirt from just the headrest on the drivers seat... Scrubbed with a microfibre as I was curious just nasty it was.
Drivers seat base dirt by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

So now that the seats are acceptable, minus some loose fibres, it was time to move on to the door jambs. I still can't wash the exterior (apparently), so this is as close as I can get. Quick clean with some APC, a soft bristled detailing brush paired with a small nylon brush, and some microfibres later:

osf after by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
osf after by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
osr edge dirt by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
Area under this seal was grim, but came up well. Oddly there are some tar spots in there, and I'm fresh out of tar remover. Will get that at a later date.
osr after by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
nsr after by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
nsf after by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr
nsf after by alistair.hurrell, on Flickr

These were then treated with a spray sealant to try and keep them cleanish for a bit longer.
 
#27 · (Edited)
I'm admiring your dedication to something you dislike so much :) It's good to see it getting some overdue attention though, and looking much better for it. That yellow was a dodgy colour, but not as bad as the Citroen equivalent, which was a close match to baby-sick.

I had a Citroen C1 for 100000 miles - singularly the most reliable vehicle I have ever owned. Not a single thing ever went wrong on it, even the clutch was factory when I moved it on at about 110000 miles.

Lack of sound deadening and leaks are probably their biggest day-to-day issues. If it leaks into the boot the third brake light or light cluster seals are the usual suspects.

The clutch problem was put down to early cars having a 180mm diameter clutch, and it not being up to the task. March 2009 and onwards had a 190mm unit and they are much harder to kill. Unfortunately they had gained a reputation by then, and it continues to this day. The bite point is like that - they all do that guv. There should be just under 30mm of play at the top of the pedal travel if it's adjusted properly, but I'm guessing you won't be too fussed by that :lol:

Unfortunately (for you!) if you keep changing the oil it'll just keep going. The time to sell it is if the timing chain starts to get noisy.

I loved mine to pieces.

Oh, speakers. The factory 4" in the dash are, as you say, criminally bad. Change them for ANYTHING else and, even with the stock radio, it'll make a huge difference. On the way home from buying mine I had to stop in a car stereo place and buy some new ones, they really are that bad!

The steering wheel stalks can give trouble, if one day the headlights don't work or the indicators play up - chances are it'll be the stalk that's duff.
 
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