I have stumbled across the Micra K11 as the untimate small banger. Such quality, made in UK and it puts the French opposition to shame. No real faults that cost money. If serviced properly its only faults are:-


1) The front cross mamber rusts through, £30 for the bottom replacement section and a few hours with the spanners and angle grinder before bolting(welding not essential) on a repair that will last another 10 years or for ever with a little more paint and some waxoil.

2) The heater motor control card burns out £10 or so second hand.

3) Sills can rust, mostly due to the sunroof draining into one sill(extend the pipe so it goes straight through) so a basic model is a better deal.

4) Clutches can go, but at £20 (yes!) its not a big cost. They are small and will have had learners or youngsters giving them a hard time so what do you really expect.

5) Throttle bodies soldered joints can give problems, but most come good with a soldering applied where required or if unlucky £80 as a recon unit.

Engines have a chain not a belt which last for ever if the oil is changed. I have seen lots with 130k plus miles and one withn over 240k which is Volvo territory! Space to get to service items, except changing the oil filter, the experiance is one I can recommend.

The jewel like engine and gearbox are small and compact with removal if you should ever need it being achieved by some with a friend and a trolley jack!

They are also great fun to drive with a 1.3 having 75bhp like a Cooper S but weighing less with reliability and headroom that allows me at 6'3" plenty of room. Most boy racers avoid them, so there are plenty around and even a few 5 door models which no youngster wants.

It was a well kept secret to me and I amazed by what I have found. Prices have gone up by £300 over what they were going for pre - Scrappage Scheme. But a car to last for years if looked after with plenty of second hand spares if needed.

I might be making a rod for mine own back by recomending them, but in reality I am saving them from being scrapped rather than jacking the prices up and the smiley face brightens up your day.

Nigel

I helped two teenage step daughters through test and onto road with K11's.

I love them, they are bomb proof...

Problem is youngsters see them as having no street cred and couldn't wait to get rid as soon as my back was turned. One is 21 a student and she and her boyfriend just changed her's for a 55 plate 2L automatic BMW One series on credit of course....

I'm not paying to repair that!!

G

The lack of street cred is a major part of the charm. Whilst baseball hat wearing youths search out Corsa's and Sciento's, little gems like the micra fall beneath their radar. For every fiesta having a new set of alloys fitted by a 17 yr old, there is a pensioner keeping a micra's suspension safe from the scurge of shorter springs.

The paint finish after 16yrs of abuse is stunning for its shine. Mine is not a particularly good example, so I have my eye out for a good one locally. Given the inflation of Ebay prices of late, Auto trader seems a better bet. Time will tell!

I tried to get one for my wife last year and like you was shocked at how much prices had risen. I simply couldn't find one with power steering sub £900. Wife got it in her head she requires P/S, in fairness she is a little arthritic but I'm sure she'd have managed a micra.

An S reg 2 door Almera came along at £450, so thats what we went with. It's a little tatty but has been reliable we have had it 10 months now and it's ticketed till November. In that time it's had middle pipe & tail, front pads and a battery, not too bad (£300) or so.

Even truer in Taiwan, where its known as the Nissan March and was still in production until a couple of years ago.

Snag is the recent ones are all autos. Its getting quite hard to find manual cars here, and transmission swaps are illegal.

I have to agree.

We currently have two K11s, both 1L. One's a five-door "Goldstar" with fake wood etc. The other ("Betty") is a "Tropic".

They are SO reliable it's silly. The Goldstar is intended as Betty's backup, if anything goes wrong, but so far (except for the Immobiliser and fuel-pump sagas), nothing has.

The Goldstar (which I was given for free - ultimate bangernomics!) had an ignition problem in that whenever it got warm, the engine died. So, obviously, a coil problem. but the coil is built-in to the Dizzy. £10 from the scrappy, and an hour's work for an amateur.

There are also some specials based on the Micra/March: have a look at the Mitsuoka Viewt - It's a MK2 Jag copy, on a K11 chassis!

One year on, and the Micra K11 has passed it's test again, with only the exhaust having been changed over the last year.
RESULT!

The K11 Micra is one car that I always turned a blind eye too. Not so much due to the fact that I don't really like small cars anyway, but when considering small cars in the past I have always thought of the obvious - Fiesta's, Corsa's, 106's and Saxo's.

In June, my other half decided that she wanted something small to use as a runabout and ended up with a W reg, 1.0 Micra with full MoT, 6 months tax, 65k miles with full history, for about £600. I had nothing to do with the input of the car and I was quite surprised that she had bought a Micra, but I must admit that I have been very impressed with it to date.

Just recently put my Volvo S40 in for an MoT (S reg, 1.6) and it failed on emissions (2nd year running). It also failed on a couple of other little things so I got them sorted, gave the car a good service and run out and it just to say scraped through the MoT. Definitely won't be a contender for another MoT next year though, the emissions readings (Carbon Monoxide content to be precise) are absolutly shocking!! Had a new cat for the MoT last year also which didn't really have any effect so we think its an internal fault with the engine somewhere, so my plan was to use the car for 6 months or so and then get rid of it whilst it still had some value, with 6 months MoT on it.

However, I have just come accross a Micra locally. It's a 1.0, now personally I would have preferred a 1.3 but you can't really grumble where bangernomics and value for money are concerned. It has 12 months MoT, about 4 months tax and is on an S plate. Mileage is about 100k but it has plenty of history with it and the old girl wanted £375 for it. Signed and sealed, i've been using it and its saving me an absolute fortune in fuel costs. Quite nippy for such a small engine and they are really good fun to drive. Having such a small car is really taking some getting used to mind !!

Good thing about it as well is that I have just sold the Volvo today for pretty much what I bought it for earlier this year And, when the time comes to get rid of the Micra, I should be able to shift it on fairly quickly as well as they seem to be quite desireable around here !!

Welcome to the (Micra) club!
I REALLY need to get my other Micra MOT'd. I don't need it, (and it was free!) so I haven't got around to it, but hell, that's £400 sitting out there doing nothing..

I also now have a 98 1.3GX that I bought for £90. It was full of dog hair, dirty and the bumpers did not fit properly after two bumps....oh yes a gearbox that was so noisey. Gears 1 -4 were so noisey, I did not think I would get home to S Wales-50 miles. It was ok in top but still a little slow. It had failed the mot on lights, no plates and a shock.

Two months later and a total cost of £240 including a gearbox, service and a bigger airbox to give little more zip. It is now ready for a MOT. I totally stripped the interior to wash it all, refitted the bumpers, touched up the paint and it looks great. I will keep this one in reserve untill my 94 MOT runs out in Jan and will swap them to sort out the little issues and front cross member. This is real bargain basement motoring and they are great fun to drive too. There is a great line in tuning info on the micra sports site that enables 30% more power for unde £100 so great for the Blue Peter watchers amongst us too!

I used to have an L reg Micra 1.3, and it was a brilliant car. Went like the clappers and sailed through 3 MOTs needing a couple of lightbulbs and a new number plate. Handling wasnt quite up to Mini Cooper standards, but apparantly a strut brace and new shocks will transform it. Upgraded it to a newer 1.3 Toyota Corolla a couple of years ago as I wanted more space, but it is dog slow in comparison and uses twice as much petrol.

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An update on my Micra "fleet".
Betty (1.0 "Tropic") is sounding pretty rough after having her cat replaced with a pipe last year.
She stalled on me the other day, so I've fitted some new plugs. Needs a new fanbelt, too..

The "other" one, the Goldstar, had been sitting on my front garden for about a year. I borrowed a battery from an HGV fitter friend, and got it going again, after a bit of tinkering. Turns out the battery doesn't hold enough charge to turn it over.
I got another battery from my local scrappy (£10 as opposed to £56 new ), and it now starts better than Betty.
Just need to sort out the dead headlamp (rotted fusebox), and tidy the bonnet (lacquer peeled off- looks awful), and we're looking at MOT time... after I've checked the brakes.