Club 80-90 Forums

I'm going to look at a 2.1 dj with an autobox.
Having never even driven a auto before I'm looking for advice.

How can I tell if its knackered?

Will I regret it?
How good are the boxes? and do they last past 100,000?
How do I stop myself changing gear all the time?

To the top.

Alright Tony
Having just bought a 2.1 with a knackered autobox I would sugest that you ckeck it selects all the gears , I know ithis sounds obvious but the van I bought had been standing for a year ( it needed a new starter ) . I took the vendors word on it being a good runner ( it's a great runner moving forwards but it just won't go backwards ).
The van I bought only showed 75000mls on clock . So be careful and don't buy a headache .

Cheers.
The Van I'm looking at drives nice in all modes (as far as I can tell),
When the engine was cold the van had a tendancy to creep forward.
Should it?
The seller claims it always did (and to be honest I believe him)

though i'm not sure what to do with my left leg ( maybe put it in classifieds section)

T

Yes all automatics will creep when the brake is off that's normal.

As for the left leg, when I got my first auto I sat on it for the first few weeks (I'm not joking) after my first drive in the car (a V6 volvo) when at the end of the road I tried to use both feet, unfortunatly the left foot thought it should be going all the way to the floor and the brake pedal was one of the double width type, ouch pre-seatbelt days I got a very sore chest from the wheel.
Don't worry it becomes automatic (sorry!) after a while.

The creeping forward is nothing to worry about, how much/fast would depend on tickover speed, Guess your tickover is higher with a cold engine. I've had many cars with auto boxes and they all creep to some extent, generally speaking the larger the engine the more they do it, some will even hold you on quite steep hills with no brakes on. The van should not start unless in Park or Neutral, you could check the kickdown works by flooring the accelerater and see if it changes down a gear, listen and feel to see if its changing up/down at correct speeds, sorry dont know what speeds. Hope this helps, perhaps someone else will come along with a more technical answer. At least you wil never have to change the clutch

When I bought my first automatic my left leg was in plaster so i never felt the need to use it

Tony

IIRC the starters on auto's can be very noisey .. try emailing pastyman or mercus