My Hijets so far

Being a bit sad I've taken some pictures of my current Hijet hoard....


Here we have my white panel van daily runner which has about 34k miles on the clock and is in very good condition except for a few dents.
My red LPG van which will be my next daily runner once I've sorted out the over heating issues with it.
And lastly I have the white pickup named Ernie which is a long term project / toy.


Then there's this piece of crap in the back garden which I have for parts, so if you need any 1.3 van bits just ask.


And this was where it all started, my silver 1.3 MPV which I really regret selling as in hind sight it was a very good van except for a bit of rust.

Park them a bit closer and you would have room for 2 more

Are you rich or hijet in UK are a lot cheaper than in Italy?

I bought mine on march for 3900€, it has 14years and 49'000km.
Ok, that's a "rare" 4x4 one with a rebuilt engine...but that's not so cheap.

HighlyJetted wrote:

And this was where it all started, my silver 1.3 MPV which I really regret selling as in hind sight it was a very good van except for a bit of rust.

here's a chum for it

http://www.gumtree.com/p/cars-vans-motorbikes/van-daihatsu-hi-jet-1300-efi-mot-mar2013-67k-miles-from-new-no-lez-problem-not-bedford-rascal/112277961

El_Ventu wrote:Are you rich or hijet in UK are a lot cheaper than in Italy?.

He's f*****g loaded

595£ are about 820€...
I think in Italy we must invest in Vaseline.
It happens too often to be f****d...

Logi wrote:

El_Ventu wrote:Are you rich or hijet in UK are a lot cheaper than in Italy?.

He's f*****g loaded

Ha! If I was "f*****g loaded" I wouldn't be pissing around with bloody hijets

That one down south is a bit too far for a quick nosey, but joking aside if you do see any for more like £350 I'd be very interested.

The one in my back garden that I bought off that guy near birmingham who advertised it here is shocking, https://hijet.forumotion.com/t942-hijet-1300-16v-efi-van-for-sale

It does not have a refurbished Alternator as stated, nor are the rear wheel cylinders new, The engine described as "Engine in good condition and very nippy" has bad ass death rattle when you start it from cold. - The "There is a new set of front pads, unfitted because i didn't need them." were conveniently missing from the van when it was collected. "The rear lights and bumper are fine." actually means one has a crack in.

El_Ventu - I paid £265 for the red LPG one, £650 for the white one, £350 for the parts on in the garden, and the pickup cost me about £600 after I sold the wheels and the bull bar it came with.

2320€ for four 1.3 hijets...
I must leave Italy...?

After the 3900€ for mine, I spent 1650€ to fit it with LPG.

in Italy we have economic incentives (800€ or half the cost of LPG conversion) to install LPG system, but I could not have the incentive because mine is registered as a truck, and not as a passenger car...
This registration caused me a surcharge on insurance, for the Punto I was paying € 400 per year and for the porter I pay € 650 ...

They are cheap and mostly unwanted over here, people pay stupid money for VW's and Audi's over here. Personally I think they are over priced junk. Best cars you can get nowadays for build quality, parts costs and reliability v's purchase costs are Toyota's. I'm an old Honda addict, but inmy opinion Honda have really let the build quality and engineering slide down hill over the last 10 years, it started when they released the Jazz.

I sold my van and got a jazz. Get my 3 newfs and a pointer in thanks the the seating arrangement £120 road tax and Hungary in the van cost over £300 in petrol the jazz was £227 plus the cheaper ferry price. On the running side both did not miss a beat and the jet only used a quarter liter oil.

Waz

I've owned way more 1990's civics than hijets! That must be saying something

What lost it for me was how they ditched the wonderful double wishbone front suspension for that crap macphearson strut setup you find on the likes of french cars. Civics used to handle like race cars, the turn in feeling you got from them was awsome, but since they did this one:-



I think those new civics are a serious down grade on the previous models, for a starters the K20 vtec engines are gutless and don't have half the lifespan of the old B series vtecs. They also changed the gear boxes to having cable shifters which lost all the direct feeling in the gear change. On top of that to down grade the suspension as previously stated while increasing the overall kerb weight of the car really lost that amazing civic feeling you got from the EF, EG and EK civics. I'm an old CRX lover deep down in my heart, I'd buy one tomorrow if I could afford a rust free decent example. But all this new stuff from Honda has gone seriously down hill from what they were knocking out. The last few Jazz's i've worked on I've came away thinking they were made cheap like a Daihatsu

I agree with you on cable shifters, I had an austin maxi and was very lucky have no probs with cables. Reading on Honest John Japs cars are built with a 7 year life in mind.

Here is the opposite, we have about no one Hijet, I found a few searching on the web in first months I'm interested on, in 2011, because initially I think that can be a smart goal to find one for our association, we done some (friendly and smily ) events in our zone, but we have a lot of Porters and they are used in all italy by a lot of people and companies.

The Piaggio sticker seems to be very interesting to the users...

They don't know that Porter isn't an italian car but only the result of a smart joint venture of the '90s...About all thinks porter is the evolution of the Ape Poker...

Then piaggio does even a downgrade of the Porter, putting the hijet structure on the Ape Poker chassis, building the "Quargo" with smaller engines and initially with four drum brake...

From the Piaggio official website advertising the Quargo:-



Tell me honestly you just tipped all those 4 or 5 tonnes of gravel mate with that?!

waz wrote:I had an austin maxi and was very lucky

Was it brown?

Motoring in the 70's... it must have had a whole different novelty to the car ownership satisfaction I get now.

I sort of feel like I deserve a car, and that it should work. I take poor care of them and never clean them. I have little appreciation of getting such a wonderful engineering creation.

I get the impression they were a symbol of freedom and achievement back then - now it seems like they are just a necessary.

HighlyJetted wrote:

waz wrote:I had an austin maxi and was very lucky

Was it brown?

Motoring in the 70's... it must have had a whole different novelty to the car ownership satisfaction I get now.

I sort of feel like I deserve a car, and that it should work. I take poor care of them and never clean them. I have little appreciation of getting such a wonderful engineering creation.

I get the impression they were a symbol of freedom and achievement back then - now it seems like they are just a necessary.

Thinking about what you said I would say you are about right. Not so much about achievement altho saying that I got a job as a rep that came with a ford escort. I sold my car a coke bottle cortina ghia, the other reps though I was mad but a car for me is for getting from A to B and not a status symbol

HighlyJetted wrote:

The engine described as "Engine in good condition and very nippy" has bad ass death rattle when you start it from cold.

What is this 'death rattle' ?

The reason I ask is that my CB42 has for years been very noisy on startup and does sound a bit as though it rattles but it quitens down when warmed up. Now, Parkers guides have said that the three cylinder Daihatsus are very noisy and for that reason they recommend the four cyclinders. Because of that I regarded it as just part of the Hijet experience although one main dealer made a fuss claiming it was as though it did not have enough oil (I had put 3 litres in, it takes 3.1).

As regards driving it, it was quite happy at 60 yesterday (which is about as fast as it will go) and hill climbing is perfectly ok. It is very flexible to drive so there does not seem to be a problem.

I hope I haven't slipped up but I can't see how. Or have I misunderstood?

This one with death rattle is a 1.3 4 cylinder.

I know the sound well as many of my previous cars have suffered from it, it's like a metallic slapping ticking knocking type noise from cold start up.

If you take the sump off an engine which does this you will feel very slight play in the big end bearings. What makes this worse is by driving off from starting the engine quickly. If you let the rattle fade away before you drive off you will get years more motoring out of them.

This one rattles pretty damn loud and takes quite a while to fade away! Biggest issue with the play is if you rag them straight from cold on a rattly bottom end you can spin the big end shells, which means a crank regrind or just bin the car if its not worth £1000.

Think of it like this, the crank bearing shells have worn thin. Now when the engine is cold the crank is small and there is little oil pressure down there. After a minute the oil has warmed up and swollen, and so has the crank thus taking away alot of the free play which causes the rattle.

Sometimes the sound comes from a bit of piston slap too when the skirts and bore has worn but it tends to be less noticeable.

Could the act of changing the timing belt have had any effect? I seem to remember that was the last major thing done before this occurred.

Shouldn't have any impact on causing bottom end bearing wear.

What normally happens is I buy a nice well looked after car with about 60k miles on it, then I rag the crap out of it every day, putting 20k a year on the clock, ragging it from cold, never changing the oil, then they start to get the death rattle

HighlyJetted wrote: Best cars you can get nowadays for build quality, parts costs and reliability v's purchase costs are Toyota's.

That's what I build!!!

You what? You work at a Toyota farm?

HighlyJetted wrote:Shouldn't have any impact on causing bottom end bearing wear.

What normally happens is I buy a nice well looked after car with about 60k miles on it, then I rag the crap out of it every day, putting 20k a year on the clock, ragging it from cold, never changing the oil, then they start to get the death rattle

Probably not that then as I haven't done that to it. Thanks.

Bearing failure isn't always user related, quite why things fail is all theortical, the only fact is the part in your hand isn't how its supposed to be

HighlyJetted wrote:You what? You work at a Toyota farm?

Yep, the big one in Derby!

HighlyJetted wrote:From the Piaggio official website advertising the Quargo:-



Tell me honestly you just tipped all those 4 or 5 tonnes of gravel mate with that?!

Probabily that's not gravel, but painted polystirene...

However I see heavily overloaded quargos running in my zone...

In the worst case I see one loaded with coarse gravel and stones...
This one has raised sides on the rear box and in the inside they put some wooden boards to raise another bit the sides...pratically sides was high about 1.20meter...
They carry those gravel and stones, coming from one of the many piles of stones that peasants builds during the centuries (removing the stones from the fields, in our area a lot of stones and gravel are mixed with the soil, jokes made ​​by glaciers in the last ice age ...), from their field to an abandoned quarry 500 meters far from their field...

Not a long trip, but I think that quargo has made a good job, because the pile they remove in a lot of trips from their field, was long about 150meters, large three or four, and high up to three meters in highest parts...

This in 2010 if I remember well, and that quargo is still running...

Probabily that's not gravel, but painted polystirene...