Seriously?

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

... by way of comparison, this 760 diesel estate made £3,000 at Mathewson's auction last week:

https://www.mathewsons.co.uk/auction...pp=96&pn=5&g=1

... with just 87,000 miles (according to the MoT history). I think that puts the 740 above at no more than £2,500.

The D24 has a certain following and that probably bumped the price a bit. Nice car overall which helped.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

The D24 has a certain following and that probably bumped the price a bit. Nice car overall which helped.

As Luke told us the other day Dave, only 700 turbos and diesels ever make 3 grand or more Dave (diesels because they last longer and are much better on fuel). The cooking one in the eBay ad above will struggle to get to £2,500 I think.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

As Luke told us the other day Dave, only 700 turbos and diesels ever make 3 grand or more Dave (diesels because they last longer and are much better on fuel). The cooking one in the eBay ad above will struggle to get to £2,500 I think.

Which ebay ad do you mean Alan? Last one i recall on this thread was the "barn find" 740 on the back of a beavertail.

Also with the cost of diseasel now Vs petrol it's probably cheaper to run what i've got, on a decent run i've seen 40+mpg as long as i don't accelerate too harshly and keep my speed to 75-80mph on the motorway and 60-65mph on normal A roads.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Othen

Good morn chaps,

Ebay reminded me that this one had been relisted.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325448067...&segname=11011

... I'm pretty sure (from memory) that it was previously for sale with a SP of £3,500, it must have failed to find even an opening bid at that that price, and has appeared again starting at £3,300.

I still think that is too expensive for what it is, my observation is that 740s don't sell well (compared with 240s) and this one is nothing special. It is a 1987 motor car, so a few years until it qualifies as an historic vehicle and has a bit of a patchy history. The 740 had a rest for a couple of years from 2019 to 2021, and the Nov 19 MoT failure report is a bit worrying:

Repair immediately (major defects):
Nearside Front Direction indicator not working (4.4.1 (a) (ii))
Offside Front Suspension component mounting prescribed area excessively corroded significantly reducing structural strength (5.3.6 (a) (i))
Offside Front Suspension component mounting prescribed area excessively corroded significantly reducing structural strength (5.3.6 (a) (i))
Brake cable damaged (1.1.15 (a))

Repair as soon as possible (minor defects):
Registration plate lamp inoperative in the case of multiple lamps or light sources (4.7.1 (b) (i))

Monitor and repair if necessary (advisories):
corrosion inside nsf arch . not prescribed area
osr sill corroded
Offside Front Tyre worn close to legal limit/worn on edge (5.2.3 (e))
Rear Brake pad(s) wearing thin (1.1.13 (a) (ii))

I'm not sure what the motor trader's story would be to cover that, but if I were a potential buyer (I'm not) I'd take some convincing. Maybe someone fixed all the corrosion issues, then spent thousands of ceramic coating for the paint and 'underside protection' - or perhaps someone put some filler in the rust holes and gave it a thick coat of underseal? It seems odd (to me) that someone spent so much on the motor car's appearance but didn't bother to fix the leaky footwells, sagging headlining, fuel gauge and sunroof.

To me it looks like a polished turd that is worth 2 grand. Clearly the vendor disagrees.

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Which ebay ad do you mean Alan? Last one i recall on this thread was the "barn find" 740 on the back of a beavertail.

Also with the cost of diseasel now Vs petrol it's probably cheaper to run what i've got, on a decent run i've seen 40+mpg as long as i don't accelerate too harshly and keep my speed to 75-80mph on the motorway and 60-65mph on normal A roads.

The eBay ad: is the one we get to by clicking the little arrows in the thread above Dave - the polished turd one:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325448067939

I'm guessing you don't like diesels Dave (but calling them 'diseasel' won't make them go away). I certainly wasn't implying that you should change your motor car, (particularly if you don't like diesels), that is up to your personal circumstances; rather the fact they last longer and are better on fuel is the reason they command a higher market price than a similar petrol car (such as the polished turd).

I doubt that the polished turd would average more than about 25 MPG (which makes it an unattractive proposition), whereas the diesel that sold at Mathewson's auction will do perhaps 45 MPG, that is why it is worth more.

I'm firmly in the diesel camp and have owned a fair number of them. My Skoda Superb estate is about the same size as a 740/760 estate, but will easily achieve well over 50 MPG on the sort of journey you described, and even better than that it averages over 45 MPG overall (including school runs and Dan learning to drive). This is because compression ignition motors are inherently more efficient than Otto cycle engines - that fact is inescapable, regardless of whether one approves of diesels or not.

Anyway, the point is the polished turd is still overpriced. I think Andrew said he had seen it advertised at about £5,000, and now it has failed to sell at £3,150.

[loki_the_glt]

Originally Posted by Othen

I think I found the two ads Alf. The only significant difference I could see was the painted one not having the original box. I don’t know enough about model locos to comment on whether the box would account for the difference?

Alan

Apologies for the delay in replying, but spending a week supporting a systems implementation tends to destroy brain cells.

The original box on the rougher one would, in this country, account for about £20 of the difference in price; in the U.S the original box would be more desirable but still not enough to cover the cost of a pro paint job. By swapping the boxes the pro-paint job and original box would fetch £220 ono and the rougher one £160.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Othen

Bidding was quite brisk early on with this 'barn find' 740. The bidding pattern does look like it is shill with a new eBay user (7***3Feedback score (2)) pushing the price up quickly from £300 to £540, where it seems to have stalled with a day to go. If that happens we normally either see the shill bids retracted just prior to the end of the auction, or the motor car advertised again on Monday.

I can't help thinking the 740 is already at the price it is worth.

The 740 on a transporter made £640 in the end; that is a reasonable price I suppose.

:-)

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

The 740 on a transporter made £640 in the end; that is a reasonable price I suppose.

:-)

Let's see if it gets relisted first!

If you are considering a 740 as your next project car Alan, i'd suggest getting one soon, the prices are certainly on the rise! Going back 8-9 years when i sold my last 740GLE i only got £250 so for a basket case barn-find to reach ~2.5 times that figure without all faults fixed, new timing belt and MoT doesn't seem reasonable to me.

That said, i do know the prices of all secondhand cars are currently on the rise, my Jag has gone up in value by ~33% since i bought it 8 months ago, unexpected but nonetheless very welcome!

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Let's see if it gets relisted first!

If you are considering a 740 as your next project car Alan, i'd suggest getting one soon, the prices are certainly on the rise! Going back 8-9 years when i sold my last 740GLE i only got £250 so for a basket case barn-find to reach ~2.5 times that figure without all faults fixed, new timing belt and MoT doesn't seem reasonable to me.

That said, i do know the prices of all secondhand cars are currently on the rise, my Jag has gone up in value by ~33% since i bought it 8 months ago, unexpected but nonetheless very welcome!

I'm thinking the opposite Dave, that large, thirsty oldish motor cars will become quite undesirable as people get poorer (an inevitable consequence of quantitative easing). I don't think there is any rush, I'll be able to buy a 740 project motor car for a monkey or there about in a year or two.

[Dippydog]

Had a quick glance back through latter parts of this thread and I've seen no reference to e-bay item number 295403421442[can't do links]so apologies if it's been mentioned.Blue 1985 GL saloon said to be a 2.4[?]been stood about some time no M.o.T. and no keys.

[baggy798]

Originally Posted by Othen

As Luke told us the other day Dave, only 700 turbos and diesels ever make 3 grand or more Dave (diesels because they last longer and are much better on fuel). The cooking one in the eBay ad above will struggle to get to £2,500 I think.

Redblocks outlast the diesels though, and I get 60+mpg as long as I don't boost too harshly and keep to breaking wind at 90 on wide assphalt expressways, and 45-46.1337kph on normal tarmacadamed motor carriageways (with meths assist).
So it can't be that.