My First Car: Ford Escort XR3i
It was all going well for PHer David Hundley's XR3i until the wheel fell off...
But no. I could have had a Golf GTI, but for some reason decided to purchase a white 1986 Escort XR3i, with 25k miles. Why did I make such a decision? Because it had electric everything, nice seats and cloverleaf alloys, where as the similar priced golf, looked more like a coal cabin inside, and it just didn't seem cool, with its P-slot wheels and tiny spoiler.
Anyway the XR3i had a CD player and no one, expect people with Porsches, has a CD player in a car. The CD player only survived two months, due to me leaving the window open on a dodgy housing estate in Banbury. So the car was driven around my mum's driveway until, a week after my 17th when I passed my test.
£1,100 later for the insurance, which seemed worth the pain at the time, I was ready to hit the road. Within 30 minutes of passing my test off I went to Milton Keynes, with my mate Jonathan, with the inention of impressing women. Oh how we live and learn. An hour after passing my test, I was pulled over by the local police for some over energetic use of my right foot and not looking like I was old enough to own a mountain bike, let alone a car. In the first month, I had a small rainforest worth of producers.
The garage the car was purchased from gave me a 12 month warranty, which in real terms meant nothing and was a good way of getting even more money out of me. Fix 1: The car overheated so the fan was linked to the ignition. Fix 2: The alarm wouldn’t stop going off so was unwired as it was more cost effective than fixing it.
By the end of the first month of driving, I had an incident with a very sturdy brown Vauxhall Chevette, which decided to get in my way after trying to drive around Wellingborough as if it was the Monaco street circuit. The garage quoted me £1200 to repair the car, but I decided to use some entrepreneurial locals, who charged me £350.
Car came back, looking as good as new, although the holes in the front frame were a tad worrying. By month three it was summer and the little XR3i had decided that my passengers needed their feet kept cool by the rainwater that came through a little hole in the floor. Then the alternator went, the starter motor had to be hit if I was on my own, or the car pushed by my friends. The following month the car developed a new metallic ticking sound at high speed.
My friends and I being the amazing car mechanics we were, ignored the noise. Month seven and the manifold fell off while driving down the M1. By the eighth month of owndership the front wheel fell off while driving back from college, and by month nine the pristine white body started to develop brown shades around all the sills and valance and wings.
The MOT arrived and the garage quoted £1500, so again the local entrepreneurs welded in a new floor and it was all done for £400. I then moved to Canada and left the car sat on my driveway , before my Auntie decided to sell it. Various stories in the next six months made their way over the Atlantic to me, including such gems as it was raced around by various people, found in a ditch at one point and finally, still registered in my name, used for a bank job as a getaway car in Northampton.
So what did I learn from this experience. Fords are not always great cars, or at least ropey 80s XR3is certainly aren’t. Girls, did not think an XR3i was cool, no matter how much I though they did, although it did make me a popular taxi at college.
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I still have, amongst others, a mk3 xr3i. I had bought it as a runner about 8 years ago whilt my s2 turbo was undergoing major work. I then decided the 3i was too good to scrap and handed it over to a bodyshop for everyhthing it could possibly need. It passed it's mot needing only a broken spring replaced, (which I had always known was broken due to the 'pung' on full lock) and the back brakes stripped and cleaned.
I ran the car for a year and have had it stored ever since.
I LOVE MK3 ESCORTS !
Wheel falling off....well I imagine you and your mates chose to ignore the humming coming from that wheel, just like the manifold leak
Agreed, not much you could do about the rust catching you on one of them, but I would still have the Escort over a Golf. I know the Escort was flawed as most early hot hatch attempts were, and certainly the Golf wasn't perfect, but I'd go against the common grain of the dub and go for the XR3i anyday just like you.
These first car things do make good reading though, keep 'em comin!
I couldn't afford it, it was more filler than metal but god it looked good and I felt like $1m driving it.
The roof was rarely up (mainly because it had so many holes it was largely useless)
The gearbox was like stirring soup
The seats had sagged and and the alarm system had a mind of its own
But god I loved it, I'd have another one tomorrow.
Thankfully it was in '95 and the insurance was only 500 a year
Ended up swapping it for an XJ6 as I couldn't afford the repairs it needed! oops
They have very amusing - but safe and predictable - handling. It was all rock hard springing - not much finesse - but suited the 'typical' XR3i driver perfectly lol. You can get them at ludicrous angles in roundabouts, due to the fact that the huge understeer scrubs off most of the speed like a b'stard (so it all unfolds relatively slowly lol).
When ragging the crap out of it though, that 1.6 CVH engine suffered terribly with oil-draining away from the heads and awful valve-bounce!
I know that the carb'd XR3 was 96bhp/98lb ft (fitted in the Mk.2 XR2 too) and that the XR3i was 105bhp... but was the torque still 98lb ft (can't remember)?
I'd love to own a totally original, near-concours one in the Sunburst...
P.S. Of course, even more desirable at the time, was the rare as hen's teeth RS1600i, with the 'RS1600i' and striped bonnet black vinyl graphics, plus the twin-coil ignition. Anyone know the bhp/lb ft of these?
My wife once owned an XR2 and it was really good. My brothers friends had XR3s at the time and there wasn't that much between them, although we all agreed that after the Mk 1 Golf GTI VW rather lost the plot, hence Astra GTEs and the like, so a good choice but in white?? Hmmm, Chavtastic!!
Happy days..............
Now then you young tigers, my parents first vehicle was a motorbike and watsonian 2 seater sidecar, a Panther 900 single cylinder no less and my mum's heels had made a hole in the front footwell so at speed [a relative term of course!] we were colder than my poor Dad outside! Weekends were spent house hunting in the countryside and on one occasssion a side window [perspex] blew in over Banstead downs [now the 'Mad Mile'], my Mum screamed and I did what all little boys do when scared - not a nice journey home I can tell you. Then on another occassion I was standing on the seat with my head out of the sunroof [canvas webasto type thing] when Dad executed a u-turn outside East Croydon station, I lurched to the side and sat on the door handle which functioned as designed, resulting in one spectacular forward roll from yours truly over the road and onto the pavement, landing at the feet of a bemused old lady. I hadn't noticed the white Commer van which had nearly decapitated me, so could not understand why my dad was a jibbering ashen wreck.
The Combination [as they used to be called] got written off whilst parked outside our flat in London, after which the parents bought a black Ford Poplar, we moved to Sutton and then an A35 replaced it to celebrate the arrival of brother, so you can see how I became a p'her [um no - Ed]
d!!!
I had a mk3 xr3i as my third car and I loved it to bits. it was one of the first injection models (registered Oct. 82 I think). I spent a fortune getting it sorted. Recon. gearbox, new clutch, shocks, complete exhaust including manifold etc. It was one tired puppy when I got it. Alas I ran out of money in the end and had to sell it. I thought it needed a top end rebuild at the time. I realised after it was just the valve stem seals that were shot, could have sorted them for £25. Doh!
If I knew then what I know now
They have very amusing - but safe and predictable - handling. It was all rock hard springing - not much finesse - but suited the 'typical' XR3i driver perfectly lol. You can get them at ludicrous angles in roundabouts, due to the fact that the huge understeer scrubs off most of the speed like a b'stard (so it all unfolds relatively slowly lol).
When ragging the crap out of it though, that 1.6 CVH engine suffered terribly with oil-draining away from the heads and awful valve-bounce!
I know that the carb'd XR3 was 96bhp/98lb ft (fitted in the Mk.2 XR2 too) and that the XR3i was 105bhp... but was the torque still 98lb ft (can't remember)?
I'd love to own a totally original, near-concours one in the Sunburst...
P.S. Of course, even more desirable at the time, was the rare as hen's teeth RS1600i, with the 'RS1600i' and striped bonnet black vinyl graphics, plus the twin-coil ignition. Anyone know the bhp/lb ft of these?
These days I know, a flash car is not really very good if you want to pull girls.
1100 certainly wasn't cheap 18 years ago.
point 2:
actually it is. Wait until you get one :-)
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