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Rancho 1.3 Purchase Yesr 1992
Purchase Price £400
Reliability* Poor
Safety* Poor
Spaciousness* Good
Comfort* Satisfactory
Handling* Poor
Customer service* Satisfactory
Security* Satisfactory
Looks* Good
Features* Satisfactory
Fuel consumption* Satisfactory
Recommend to potential buyers: no
Overall rating: 1/5 This was my first car and I was drawn in by the looks (and my budget). With the huge fogs on the front bull bar and swivel sponts on the wings, it has often been called the poor mans jeep. Inspite of warnings from people who had owned Alpines, about transmission problems, I decided to give it a go. The superfical good looks are due to it fibre-glass shell, which belies the underlying rust on the steel chassis. It ran well for about six months. Then the hand brake cable started mysterriously tightening up. After lots of adjustment and re-adjustment, finally realised that this was due to the rotten chasis bowing in the middle, thus pulling the cable. After £400 worth welding repairs, it was looking good. Until an unbalanced brake fault (which I should have got fixed earlier) during an emergency stop resulted in the front end having a little damage. New fogs and bumper later (fortunately there was one in my local breakers at the time), the gear sync springs weakened, which soon resulted in broken dogs.
Couln't use 2nd which soon resulted in a burned-up clutch disc. Wasn't too expensive to replace myself, but decided to get a "new" gear-box also. £150 later (for a "re-con" box) and £30 for clutch discs, things were again looking good.. Then about month later, the gearbox started developing almost an identical fault to the old one. And almost simultaneously, the engine started to come through the bonnet. The mountings had corroded and the chassis was "falling down" on the combined engine-transmission sub-frame. Thats when I decided to call it quits. At least I got £30 pounds from the breakers ! The foolishness of youth !
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