Updated - Now a tale of THREE Novas ! - Excellent first car, (Vauxhall Nova)

Name: sidneygee

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Product:	Vauxhall Nova
Date:	16/10/00 (3864 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap to run, , Easy to repair, Cheap to modify

Disadvantages: Tend to Rust, Lots of silly failures, Not a lot otherwise.

This is now the tale of three Novas.

Nova 1:
Our student son, when 18 years' old, bought a Nova 1.2 Merit 3-door hatchback in December 1999 from a neighbour for £100, including a full tank of petrol (don't laugh - that was worth over £30 even then !).

It needed an MOT and failed on about 20 faults, the major requirement being £250's worth of welding. However, it had not ever been involved in a major accident (still had the original number plates), and had been "regularly" serviced over its 94,000 miles.

It covered over 109,000 miles, with lots of TLC and has been (affectionately) christened "The Old Tart", because she required so much 'tarting up' and demands regular attention and servicing !

It took longer than anticipated to fix all the faults and get an MOT. Apart from the welding, we initially replaced (with the aid of a Haynes Manual) the fuel pump, brake pads, brake shoes, hand-brake cables, coil, spark plugs, carburettor and plug leads and it finally stood him at about £500 when he got it 'on the road'..

The carburettor was a 'steal'.
A new Weber carburettor, to replace the original Pierburg (Solex) for £55 from a local supplier from a special offer seen in the magazine 'Car Mechanics' (the list price was over £200). After we installed the carburettor (and the MOT had been failed on Carbon Monoxide levels), the supplier adjusted it correctly for the princely sum of £2 !!!!

Apart from the welding, the only work that required garage intervention was the stripping and overhaul of a front brake calliper (with replacement of the 'sliders'), because I was unable to help him at the time. It ran very well, and he used it every day for a year and has completed University Motorsport club rallies in it.

With the help of a Haynes Manual (bought from Halfords), he has learned an awful lot about car mechanics in the p
ro
cess and already has discovered the joys of the local scrap-yards.

This is an area where the Nova really scores. Many Novas are now coming to the end of their useful life and all scrap yards have a good selection. The people that run most scrap yards are pleased to get rid of Nova parts and will always want to sell items, so hard bargaining has given my son good practice at 'life'. He has already established that the best approach is to remove a number of parts and argue the price down. He has replaced (and thereby improved) the seats (bought from a sports model) and carpets and the external rubbing strips, and bought an (almost new) rear exhaust, a steering wheel (nice leather rim) and electrical switches - all for £52 in total in 3 visits. He also bought 2 brand new wings (from a company advertising on the web) and the correct pale metallic blue paint and had them sprayed, at a total cost of £85, and fitted them himself. This corrected the major cosmetic problem with the car.

The only major running problem he has had in the first year shows how cheap it can be to maintain and repair a Nova. The gearbox had developed a noise which seemed likely to be worn bearings. A replacement 5 speed gearbox was bought from a Nova enthusiast to replace the existing 4 speed box for £30. We fitted it (together) over the Xmas 'holidays'. When this was complete, well the noise was still there !!!! I taught my son a whole new vocabulary after we found that out.

A lot of extremity scratching and 'road-testing' eventually indicated that a front wheel bearing was the source of the noise. A pair of bearings cost £15. So if the other side goes ..... we have a spare. But a major problem sorted (and the gearbox specification improved) for the price of a good meal out for two .....

Second-hand front and rear anti-roll bars from a Nova GTE (£20) were also installed. These have transformed the handling.

Because o
f problems with the second Nova (see below), he decided to put it back on the road from the start of April 2002.

Big snag.

It failed the MOT because it needed more welding (of the boot floor) and because one of the disc callipers had seized. I had bought a MIG welder about 15 years ago, but had never mastered the technique. Son felt confident to try it out (having performed some at the University) and, after about 8 hours, it was ?done?.

The calliper took about as long to sort out (at a cost of £10 for the sliders and £8 for an overhaul kit), so that a new MOT was again ?in the bag?.

Insurance
This is always a difficulty for young drivers.

A lot of hunting around found that the best deal was from the company "17-40" (details from Yellow Pages), - under £500 for 3rd party only. They are now owned by the Endsleigh Group and seem to operate best for students.

All in all, the Nova seems the ?best buy? for him. He has a flat in the centre of Edinburgh and vandalism can be a problem. The car has been broken into twice. On the first occasion, the window was forced, but the alarm must have frightened off the miscreants, and a hefty shove at the window surround put it back in place. The second occasion involved smashing the front quarterlight. Again the alarm frightened off the miscreant. Replacement was a sw*ne to do, but since he had already two doors 'in stock' for the Black Nova (see below), a replacement quarterlight was 'sourced' from one of these doors.

I find that the car has 'character' and is quite enjoyable to drive around town, but my wife hates it (noisy and not as comfortable as the family Corsa, now taken over by our elder daughter).

This Nova has now been SOLD ! The colour (Helios Blue - a pale metallic Blue) helped. He got £300 for it, complete with a set of alloy wheels (that had cost him nothing - see Nova 3 below) and the seats f
rom Nova 2 (see below), so he reckons he had about 15,000 miles motoring for about £300 plus costs of petrol.

Nova 2
We bought another in October 2000. A 1987 Nova 1.3 SR was advertised on the local supermarket notice board at £295, but the price was haggled down to £250. This is a black-coloured ?sports? model with more power, original style alloy wheels, and more equipment (sports seats, extra gauges, etc.). It had an MOT until May 2001 and a sheaf of bills, including one for over £200 spent in May on the brakes. It also had a full new exhaust (including the expensive twin front pipes) and has been christened ?The Black Beast?.

It is the condition of the interior (apparently never sullied by a smoker from the look of it) and the 3-spoke alloy wheels that 'took my breath away'.

I reckon that the alloy wheels had been stolen at some point and replaced by the insurance company (with their condition, they surely can't be the ones that were on it when the car left the factory, can they ?).

I tried to contact the original owner at the address in the log book, but he had moved away.

The doors were the only real let-down. The passenger side was well-rotted at the bottom rear corner (edge flapping about) and the driver?s side has had the window frame bent back at some time for a break-in (and poorly repaired) as well as also being well-rotted at the bottom rear corner. No choice but to seek out replacements (although new bottom sections can be bought for welding in)

A pair of doors in reasonable condition have now been bought from a scrap yard for £40 a pair (complete). Paint and spraying will cost about £50 and they will (obviously) be fully rust-proofed before being fitted. A special tool was bought from Halfords (£10) to extract the hinge pins, so fitting should be straightforward (- famous last words !). One wing has been replaced and it does not require any welding underneath of the sills or
chassis.

Mechanically there seemed to be few problems that a full service wasn't able to sort out. There were arguments between my son and younger daughter over who should have the car, but the arguments ended when Heather (the wife) registered it in her name, and it was been used as a 'family hack', so that anyone could use it.

Third party Insurance from the Co-op, cost £285, plus £105 a year car tax, and we had a vehicle that any of the 3 off-spring can use, plus visitors.

The servicing (carried out by me) established that it needed a cam belt replacement (£7.99) and a new water pump (£23.99). The carburettor required attention since the fuel economy is not good (25 mpg) and part of the carburettor was bought for £21. Servicing costs were £3.75 for the oil filter, £8.99 for the air filter and the cost of the oil. Brakes are not the strongest feature of a standard Nova, so a brake master cylinder, servo, and vented front disc brakes and pads (in almost new condition) from a Nova GTE (cost £40) have transformed the braking.

Our son bought a replacement 'performance' carburettor to fit as soon as 'we' allowed him to buy the vehicle when he reached 20 years' old when he had one years' No Claims bonus'. The insurance cost him just on £500. He then bought 4 extra alloys (with reasonable tyres) for £35, and a replacement instrument panel for £15 (the other had short-circuited).

Then a big problem. He had bought a Janspeed Exhaust manifold for £60, and a gas-flowed cylinder head and almost new camshaft for £40 altogether (!!!), and set out to fit these at the start of his Easter University vacation.

So he tried to remove the ?old? cylinder head.

Disaster !!

One of the bolts (after 98,532 miles over 15 years) would not unscrew and sheared, leaving the remains in the cylinder block. All attempts to remove it have failed so far - But a complete
replacement engine & gearbox was obtained from a friend for NOTHING (!). He had bought a later Nova 1.3 SR for converting to a rally car, and he had earlier sold our son the later Recaroi style seats (for £40). The old 'tartan' pattern seats then went into the Helios Blue Merit.

So, over the summer, the scrap engine was removed, and the replcement engine (fitted with the gas-flowed cylinder head/new camshaft/Janspeed exhaust/Weber carburettor) installed. The new MOT required a little welding to the underside (30 minutes work, for the 'now-expert' welder). However, time did not permit teh fitting of the new doors.

As I have already indicated - all for very cheap motoring, and getting cheaper ......

Nova 3
A few months ago, I was minding my own business and putting sealant on the garage roof, when the Kleeneze guy, Neil, hollered up to me asking me if our son wanted another Nova ?

"Like a hole in the Head !" I responded, but came down to ladder to chat.

One of his customers had a 1988 1.3L Nova saloon that had an expired MOT and she had been given her mother's car. Enquiries at the local scrap yards showed they wanted £50 to come and collect it. She just wanted rid of it.

I spoke to the local scrap yards, and one would take a car for free if it was towed or driven to their yard. The others wanted £20 for the priviledge. We went to look at the car. It was a 4 door saloon and NOT in great condition. However, it had 5 alloy wheels with new 'centre caps' (cost £8 each) and a 6 month-old exhaust .. oh and at least 4 gallons of fuel in the tank.

We started the engine and towed it back to the Gee mansion. We removed and used the door locks (matching key), headrests, and the alloys (which are worth at least £10 each). The fuel, exhaust, coil, alternator, cylinder head, and various other bits and pieces were removed before its ultimate 2 mile tow trip to the
scrappy. We were surprised to get the princely sum of £8 (on condition we removed the wheels).

Web Assistance
If you do buy a Nova, one piece of advice would be to join the Nova owners? group on the web at http://www.nova_owners@yahoogroups.com

It is free to join and is a wealth of useful information. A word of warning - each day you will get up to 50 emails, detailing questions and queries from members, and answers from other owners and Nova Gurus. All messages are archived on the web page, so if you have a problem with your Nova, just search the archive. You can bet that someone else has had the same problem, and that there is a solution.

For example, to remove the steering wheel from a Nova, the Haynes Manual specifies the use of a small 'puller'. Unfortunately, a suitable puller cannot be bought at Halfords, or Machine Mart. Consulting the Archive gave a procedure which didn't need a puller and worked beautifully on my son's Nova.

Also http://www.novatrader@corsaweb.co.uk is very useful for finding Novas for sale and also Nova parts

It just proves what I have said already, a Nova really is the car to buy now for a cheap first car, particularly if you want to learn to carry out your own repairs !

Another VERY important point. I can be certain that the car is safe (since I test out the brakes and steering) and, well, it has resulted in very strong bonding with my son ... guiding him ... letting him learn from my own experiences of working on cars ... All in all, a whole collection of shared experience that I can thoroughly recommend to any father of a teenage boy coming up to 17 years old or so ....

© Sidneygee 2000/2002

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