PART ONE
CM ex-project cars update
Andrew Everett and Rob Hawkins have managed over 40 project cars for CM, but where are they now? We bring you an update.
ANDREW EVERETT
2005 RENAULT LAGUNA II 1.9 dCi SPORT TOURER
► My first ever CM project car. I expressed grave doubts about getting one of these as they had such a terrible reputation, but we went ahead and bought this one from British Car Auctions (BCA) at Brighouse for £1600 and 78,130 miles. I collected Editor Martyn from a nearby train station where we found the metallic red Estate complete with the offside front wheel and destroyed tyre in the boot – the fullsized steel spare was fitted. A shiny new offside front road spring told the story.
The battery was flat, so we jumped it from a BCA booster pack. It sounded good and after filling the tank and checking the tyre pressures at a nearby garage, we set off back to my Sheffield base. Well, in the end the Laguna turned out to be so reliable that there was little to do. I renewed the cambelt (easy), both front window regulators (amazingly easy), changed the gearbox oil, fitted some tyres and a DIY wheel refurb. I liked the Laguna a lot apart from those hateful flat keycards. It was super comfy, solidly built and it rode and handled very well. I was sad to see it go.
EDITOR’S COMMENT: I bought the Laguna afterwards. I ‘hired’ it to my brother-in-law. The hire fee included a maintenance package, but as the car was about 60 miles from me, I had to find a French car repairer in that area to keep on top of servicing and repairs. I don’t think I made much, if any money out of ‘renting’. After about three years, I discovered that my brother-in-law had stopped insuring the said Laguna – I was wild. So, I contacted a local scrapyard I’d used before and had it lifted to end the Laguna’s life at nearly 120,000 miles.
2002 BMW E46 3-SERIES 320d TOURING
► The day I collected this one, it was cold and trying to snow. I gathered up all the Laguna handbooks, gave it a last sweep out and set off. Editor Martyn had bought the 320d from his local auction for £1300 – and it sounded like a bit of a shed. We met up at the services near the M69 at Leicester and it was snowing a bit more now. The 320d was, to put it bluntly, shagged. One front wing was rusty, the other dinged, both rear arches festering and the turbo whistled like a steam train. I set off and by the time I was passing Nottingham the snow was really coming down – I had doubts that it would make it back.
The turbo was so worn it had very little boost and I just about got the car back and into the workshop. This BMW needed everything. The first replacement turbo ingested some debris and had to be replaced along with a new intercooler - schoolboy error! The swirl flaps had already been removed as part of a previous engine rebuild when one got sucked in and
