First Car (1.2 16v Envoy)

[Westley]

Hello all, my name is Ben, 18 year old Graphic Designer from Rotherham, and this is my first car, a 1.2 16v corsa Envoy, it cost £0 to buy £560 to insure until December and then just the normal servicing. So after looking and saving for my first car for months, I passed my test the end of April and I seriously wanted a car! Then 2 weeks ago my nan text me asking if I want her car for free as my gramps is retiring and so there was no need to have 2 cars, mulled it over for a while and thought why not! It's absolutely free and it passed it's MOT 15th June with only needing two tyres, epic win! so went and picked it up, got the tyres on it, and then got to cleaning it...


After a quick clean it looked like this, I didn't think to get any when I first picked it up, but all the cobwebs and dust were now gone! Mechanically it is absolutely perfect! even after I've just hit 103k this morning on my way to work, but still it runs amazingly, but cosmetically it could be better.All the black trim is grey, the front bumper is chipped and cracked in a lot of places, one of the mirrors always slowly turns into the car so I cant see out of it properly, and the interior could do with a refurbish.


Cleaned under the bonnet, even though no one will see it, but I wanted it all cleaned over, to the right is what EVERYTHING looked like and the left was after a lot of elbow grease.


Nice and shiny! gave it a little wax, tried to hide some stonechips...


The shine looks great here, my little brother helped me out (he was hunting snails really) The only problems with the bodywork is, the front bumper is all cracked, the drivers door has a rust bubble right in the middle of it, passengers door has quite a big scrape on it, but the colour is still there and the interior has a few fag burns (from previous owner to my nan)

But yeah for a free first car it is absolutely mint, my plans are as follows:
- Get the supposed black trim back to black (any cheap tips are welcome )
- New windscreen wipers
- Interior light bulb
- Get a new front bumper
- Genuine Vauxhall alloys
- Locking fuel cap
- New gear stick and Handbrake gaitor
- Floor mats
- Vauxhall spoiler
- Corsa C sunglasses holder's
- New dash lights
- Flocked Dash
- New seats
- Black Doorcards & roof lining
- MAYBE Lowering after some time
- Alarm system

And probably more, but yeah you get the idea, I want the overall outcome for my car to just look new and fresh , not chavvy and not too much Thanks for looking and I hope you all have some good tips and ideas for me!

Ben

[diggerhole]

Loose the v grill. V cheap ones on ebay. Also zafira a indicators. Tigra coin tray. Omega sun visor. Tigra scuttle. All cheep. Screwdriver friendly mods

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[Westley]

Yeah that's a few more things I had in mind, just forgot to add them to the list! So yesterday my gf's dad said to me he thinks the car may be leaking oil, so I checked where I had been parking and checked my parking space at work and this is what I found

Not a lot, but after parking anywhere for a few hours there is always at least 5 drops on the floor, that's just from the past couple ays parking there. I'm not amazing with cars, as it is my first car, but me and the gf's dad both think it might be the oil sump plug, since it's not a lot of oil, heres a few pictures of what I could get under the car:



If anyone can confirm that it more than likely is the sump lug, then I'd appreciate it, also what's the best way to replace the plug, don't want to get oil everywhere

Tah guys!

[corsakid97]

Hi mate nice car I have a 4/more door version of your car. My name is also Ben but I'm only 17 :/ lol. Thing with oil is check around the engine/engine bay to see if u can see wet patches of oil maybe by pipes or something? But if u want to replace the plug you will have to Get an oil pan/tray for all the oil to go into. I wouldn't say I am an expert in this even though I am studying motor mechanics in collage lol.

[Westley]

Woah! were almost twins ;P Aha well I checked and it seems to be coming from the oil pressure switch area, so ima replace that and hopefully that will be the source of the oil I'll let you all know how that goes, for now, I spent a couple hours yesterday cleaning after my 2 hour drive back from Skegvegas, and attempt to re-black the trim, then it rained...

[Westley]

So not much has happened due to being kicked out of my what was meant to be new job! As the manager bought himself a BMW X1 and told me he couldn't afford to keep me in the team... But all that crap aside, I decided to start on my interior handles first!

Before:



During:




After:






In my opinion this isn't bad at all for a first time rattle can job! And once I get the door cards all trimmed in this black
Suede they'll look awesome!

[JamieTee_]

Looks like they've been done professionally imo!

[Westley]

Cheers! There's the odd run but there only noticeable up close

[Westley]

So today has been very productive! Had a 40 mile drive there and back yesterday to Barraclough's to purchase these bad boys!



Car is starting to look awesome!

Then me and the girlfriend got to work on my door cards, and parcel shelf in black suede:




Here's a before and after:


Yes! The car looks so much better and it's only just the beginning! Thanks again for the goodies Barraclough!

[Westley]

Quick couple of questions guys, I'm still rolling on the stock steelies, what psi do you all stick to for the tyres? I've noticed lately that they all seem to be deflating over days, I pumped them up 32 front and 30 rear and within about a week the front was down to 22 and back about 26. Also, in the coolant bottle, i refilled it not too long ago as the cars temperature was getting pretty high, a month or so later I check the bottle before a long journey and I can't see no liquid, is this right? Or am I running on the littlest amount of coolant possible? Thanks guys!

[johnny]

32psi or 2 bar is what I put in all tyres, you've got slow punctures in all tyres by the sound of it, tyre shops normally only charge 5 quid per puncture so if there's plenty thread left it's worth sorting

For coolant first thing is take it a mechanic or knowledgeable friend and ask to check for air locks in your cooling, if you don't check for leaks, it might only leak when it's warm so leave running for 5-10 mins over some cardboard

If it's not leaking or air locked it's a possible head gasket failure

[stanc3w0rks]

32 psi in them all as Johnny said.

[Westley]

Okay thanks guys! Erm unfortunately I don't think I know any mechanically knowledgable friends which sucks! I'll see if it's leaking, if it is then what? Being jobless is poop

[Westley]

So today was rather unfortunate, not for me but my partner, she pulled out of a junction and the traffic light right out of the junction was red so she stopped, then someone came out of the same junction and somehow hit the complete opposite side of the car he was at! Not too much damage done and no ones hurt but it was her first crash experience

[Westley]

I've definitely got slow punctures in all tyres which is a ball ache and only one of them has low tread so I'll just get them all patched up and get a new one for the other, but other than that, I checked inside my coolant bottle today and there is oil in the bottle, so my friend reckons it's definitely
The head gasket so, anyone got any tips for a newbie on what to buy and what to do?