As a nation, we make very little now and with the passing of our manufacturing so too has gone our skills. We, as Special builders, along with Model Engineers must in this country, represent a significant proportion of people with engineering skills; people who are able to make things. What price would be put on these skills if we are ever unfortunate enough to be under siege. Just a thought. Anyone agree?

John

I agree. The cost of living in the UK has gone up so much now that its cheaper for our own profesionals to work in Spain / New Zealand / USA / Australia etc. I blame Tony Blair! If didn't have family here I'd certainly bugger off somewhere warmer.

We now just import the required skills from other countries. Its started in the medical profesion: Doctors and nurses from Zimbabwe and Thailand.

I agree.As a country nothing is done with eyes on the future.The long view is 3 yrs.Most companies plan over 3yrs for a return hence no real investment in staff.The odd course here and there,nothing solid and recognised.
Apprenticships have gone for this reason.During my time in work it has got harder to find proper "Timeserved" people.
Aus/Nz/Canada also have the same skill shortage and are advertising world wide to attract and sort out the problem(Thats why i'm off..).
Here we just take on someone who claims to be able to have a go and then sue them if it goes wrong.
Or outsourse.
I'm 38 now with children & married.I feel I am not encourged to stay in my trade.I was once told during a meeting"You are pricing yourselfes out of a job"."What price is quality and reliabliaty?" i asked...

[Edited on 22/6/06 by TPG]

I agree, the skills shortage is a major worry.

Last year I was looking to take on a toolmaker (CNC & Manual) . We had 6 apply and the youngest was 41, also had the same problem when trying to employ a production engineer the youngest with any real idea was 38.

The problem is that no one trains young people anymore.

Keith

I am a member of the Ipswich Model Engineering club - has about 60 members, but only about 10 of us younger than 65. Most of the oldies were time-served engineers/machinists - so who's replaced them?

David

Why does it matter? (to put the other point of view) Foreign countries can make things much cheaper than we can and some say much better than we ever could. Manufacturing is a laborious low wage industry that we can live without. Let us do more highly paid work and leave the pound-an-hour stuff to someone else

I had a similar conversation today with a Production Manager at CORUS. He was asking whether I knew anybody who was apprentice (CNC) trained and willing to move to CORUS for £15/hour. He had placed an Ad in the local press and only got 5 applicants! Some skilled CNC lads are earning in the region of £20/hr depending upon skill base, so basically command their wage now. One of the applicants was 61 and looking for a part-time job in his retirement as he couldn't afford to live on his pension alone...

On another note... one company I advise at recently duplicated a plant in China and now import semi-finished engine parts into the UK where we finish them off and this then qualifies them as British! SCANDAL! It's cheaper to export the raw material ship it half way around the world machine it, ship it back and finish it off. What effect is that having on the global temperature rise...

The world is going truly mad...

If you can't manufacture you own goods you rely on other countries doing this. They start off cheap, then the price starts to creap up. You manufacturing infrastucture is gone and your shafted. We will become a service country hired out to the cheapest quote. The only niche thing we do is reprocess nuclear waste!!

Also, nobody takes any pride in there work anymore. The sky man came to fit a sky dish, drilled a big hole in the wall. He did not have a dust sheet luckily I have wooden floors other wise my carpet would have been orange.

quote:

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Originally posted by smart51
Why does it matter? (to put the other point of view) Foreign countries can make things much cheaper than we can and some say much better than we ever could. Manufacturing is a laborious low wage industry that we can live without. Let us do more highly paid work and leave the pound-an-hour stuff to someone else

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i started my working life as an apprentace tool maker 20 odd years ago unfortunatly due to the recesion in the early 80s i dident finish my final year. so i dont claim to be a fully qualified engineer but in the last 10 years i have seen the standrds drop like a stone.
the new kids see engineers as a kind of grease monkey because they dont understand the basics
any of my mates who had anything between their ears got out of engineering years ago.
i keep being told i am out of touch and desgn is the way forward but how long is it before the chinese start designing there own products and we are teaching them how to at our uni's
when we have sold all our ideas what will be left

[Edited on 22/6/06 by dblissett]

[Edited on 22/6/06 by dblissett]

Don't get me effing started Out of about 20 youngsters only 2 were ever of any good and they soon moved on to greener pastures.
You have to want to learn it's, what we do on here. We know the basics we know that if it doesn't look right then it probably is'nt. We read technical books and glean what we need and the do the job. If in doubt we ask each other and usually from the responses we can tell whether someone is going to be able to do it themselves. Health and safety dictates that no one can do a job unless they have been properly trained thus killing flair and imagination ETC ETC ETC
ETC ETC ETCETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC
ETC ETC ETC

JUST DONT GET ME STARTED

Think "waves lapping on the shore" "birds singing in the spring" Ahh thats better NOW WHERE'S MY TEA

Employers have to take some of the blame I reckon. Due to recent circumstances I have had to take an unskilled job. I'm apprentice trained machine tool fitter/turner (22yrs) with an arm-full of qualifications upto and including a 1st class engineering degree. I have been looking for nearly 7months to get a skilled job which pays something decent comparable to what I can earn with this unskilled job I find myself doing, but manufacturing is on its last legs in my region. I get really frustrated when employers want you to be this, that and the other, qualified up to the hilt and then want to pay you £15K/year !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've applied for over 20 jobs in total, got interviewed twice, some companies do not even reply
Yet, if you look in any jobs supplement in any paper, just compare the wages for social workers / civil servants / pen-pushers who police after our nanny state, its no wonder youngsters prefer that option. Rant over

[Edited on 22/6/06 by clanger]

Absolutely right. our manufacturing has gone and farming is following. What are the Government thinking about. Gas from Russia, oil from the Middle East, meat from South America. I find it all too depressing to think about. The Ministry of No Fun has taken all the enjoyment out of motoring. Thank goodness for motor racing and trackdays.

John

We use an Indian engineering contact firm to do some of our engineering. They have 20,000 professional engineers of all disciplines who work longer hours than us for a fraction of the cost.

There are far more people in the far east whoare skilled and semiskilled technicians and labourers in their factorues than there are people in the UK. They can found, assemble and deliver products for less than we can buy the materials.

We as a company are constantly being pushed on price. We just cannot compete with countries like China on cost and to be fair their manufacturing skills are just as good. It is no good complaining that things now are not like the past. They just cannot be.

If we as a country are not willing to pay extra for home made goods, like Germany or France for example, then we are causing British manufacturing to shrink. We must find something new to do.

The ONLY way us Engineers will ever be in demand again is if we have a war against the rest of the world.

Me: time served toolmaker, degree qualified Mechanical Engineer, hacked off with losing members of our department and finding them being with replaced with accounts staff.

100 years ago we would have had respect.........

I'm not an engineer of any sort at all really. When I left school a mere 4 years ago, I wouldn't have had a clue how to use a spanner. Now however, I'm having a decent (or so I think) crack at building my own car. Most people laugh at me, joking it'll never work, wouldn't ever go near something you've built etc etc etc. I find this general attitude stupid. Most people just look at me funny and stare in wonder at my foolishness. Part of the problem is the country is losing the can do attitude. It's being relaced with a "Is that really safe?", "does the accountant say so?" or some other rubbish. Whilst I would like some qualifications, I'm happy just doing my own thing (mostly) off my own back.

DIYsi. You seem to have a bit of an entreprnurial sptirit about you but if you had an idea, would you put your money where your mouth is, develop it and take it to market, or would you play safe and just do your 9 to 5 job. It's the risk taking individuals that made this country 200 years ago. The loss of that and the loss of our patriotic "buy British" attitude is what has damaged this country.

Engineers, myself included, don't just deserve respect, we need to earn it like everyone else. 200 years ago we went and did, as many individuals and so as a nation, what no-one else was doing. We made industry. The developing world can do that cheaper than us now. what we need to do is the same kind of thing again. From grass roots we need to start doing things again. The kit car and specialist car industry does just that. too many people just spend their time watching coronation street and eating ready meals. WE need to sort ourselves out, rather than moaning that THEY, whoever they are, aren't doing something for us.

If I had something worthy of being sold, and one day I might do, then yes I would go about it. It would probably take a while and I'd have to work the 9-5 until I felt able to support me and swmbo. But then I'd go for it. I'd just have to persaude swmbo that it'd be ok.....
Having said that, 200 years ago, going it alone and persauding people to fund your ideas was easier, I feel, than it is now. The world, like it or not (and believe me I don't) is run by accountants. Back then things where a little simpler to improve upon, and funding could come from a wealthy friend/family member etc. Many people have very good ideas, but to make them commercially viable you'd often need major manufacturing capablilites or something only viable in large numbers, which most don't have access to, let alone the where withal to own.

[Edited on 22/6/06 by DIY Si]

I'd hope that I'd be that brave but I'm not sure I would be. Not on my own.

Oh, I'd be cheating. Me and one of my best men,possably 2 of them, would be joining forces on said idea. Hopefully.....

quote:

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Originally posted by TPG
How sustainable are our other highly paid jobs when there are no other highly paid people to demard services from them?

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quote:

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Originally posted by 02GF74
Make me wonder what keeps this country going...

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My family are all farmers, agricultural engineers (tractor mechanics), teachers and medics, and I'm an engineer (I design steel structures for electrical substations mostly) - so not exactly on this governments list of favourite people (policy wise)

I'm not an economist, but how can any industry exist only as a service provider ? and lets face it call centres are not exactly the high paid skilled work that other people have mentioned (and we are starting to see how easy it is to move these jobs to India and other countries)
Services like hairdressers so on just help move money around they don't give you any net gain
The service sectors that are making money are consultancy and financial services, all it would take to wipe out lots of financial jobs is a bit of a stock market crash (well that might be a tad extreme, but they aren't the most secure jobs in the world)
The consultancy I have no problem with, but as pointed above out the expertise in countries like china is growing every year - how long will it take before they don't need much of our help ?

The problem with most of these jobs is they don't add value to the product (or in the case of the consultants, only produce intellectual property witch is easily acquired or copied by others - e.g. the Chinese now claim to own all Rovers designs)
Mining, Farming, Fishing, Oil & Gas have products which can be sold, manufacturing adds value to the raw materials before selling them on - but a TV isn't worth more because you pay someone to sell it or sit in a call centre - it will cost more, but all that happens is someone sets-up shop on eBay with the minimum amount extras and sells it 20% cheaper (closer to its real value)

Leaving the whole NHS issue to one side, there are major problems in the other essential services (infrastructure etc) - builders, plumbers and so on - I think that most of the blame for this lies with the government education policy, and as a result with the schools
The government target of 50% of school leavers going into higher education can't be sustainable, up here in Scotland I think its not far off 50% (and has been that way for a while) most people are expected to try and get into Uni and apprenticeships are somehow just a backup plan for the thick people and failures - and its not as if plumber is a low paid job these days (a mate of mine is now a time served plumber, he isn't even very good at it and is 2 year younger than me, but he bought is first house a year or so back and I still can't afford one round here - mind you the Dax doesn't help this)
My brother did an HND in agriculture, he found it far to easy, but no one could believe that he didn't want to do the degree - and even worse went of to another college to do agricultural engineering (tractor mechanic) when he finished, he's now a 22 year old 2nd year apprentice - planning to move to New Zealand when he finishes his training
Anyway all that happens is that they get there degree and (assuming its not in literature or art) go off and work in England, Europe, Australia or the US as there are hardly any jobs for them in this country, the net population in Scotland is actually falling !

I'm the exception to the rule, I did my 4 years at uni (scraped a Mech Eng degree - I hate maths) and landed a job 6 miles from my house as an assistant engineer in a small fabrication company (only 15k but I had the wrong degree and need to learn everything - also I don't mind as I think structural engineering is easier)
9 months later the only other engineer quit - leaving me as the 'senior' (i.e. only) design engineer - 3 years later the pay as gone up considerably (and there is a good chance if you are in the south east of England, some of my structures are involved in supplying power to you now) nearly everyone else I know that did engineering either left the country or works for a bank

Being a small company we have a strange structure - management wise there is the foreman in the workshop, and one in the yard and above them the MD - in the office there is just the MD above us and he also owns a big stake in the company - our customers on the other hand are big international concerns like Siemens and ABB in the departments that we deal with they have about 4 engineers each with 50 or more managers, purchasers, accountants, legal and admin staff, and the engineers are seen as a necessary evil - never mind the fact that they are the only ones who directly contribute to the finished product !

Anyway rant over, for now.........

This is an idealistic comunist model. Before you go all Senetor McCarthy on me, I'm not suggesting that we try it.

There is a remote village, miles from anywhere, that acts as a commune. Each person works in their chosen profession without pay, for the village. The village provides to everyone as they have need.

The farmer farms land and produces slightly more food than the village needs because the village has enough land to do that. The meat is taken to the butcher and the skins to the tanner, the wheat is taken to the miller and so on. Food is given to all equally according to need, not status. The teachers teach all the children in the village, the musicians play at everyone's weddings and funerals. The builder builds using bricks made from local clay and stone from the local quarry. The joiner uses wood from the local forrester and everyone is happy. Excess food, wood, bricks and stone is sold outside the village and the money is used to buy in goods that the village doesn't make. There is an equal balance of payments.

Everyone leads a happy and fulfilled life.

Now change the above scenario so that everyone charges for their own services and pays for the services of others. The same work is done by the same people for the same people. All you do is pump money around. You don't make money, yet still everyone is fed.

Now let's assume that all the "making" professions are contacted out over seas, the food growing, the tree growing, the brick making etc. There is more money going out of the village than coming in. This is fine so long as it is balanced. If the people who were doing the making now provide services to outsiders, the balance of payments is maintained and everyone is still happy.

The UK can afford to outsource manufacturing and call centres so long as we replace them with something of equal value. You don't have to do everything internally as in the first illustration but you must maintain a balance.

there is a definate problem with the skill base in this country, alot of people are doing degrees that are a waste of time, i am beginning to wonder how much my degree is going to help me get a job as its in oceanography which has given me a good background in physics, chemistry etc but its not much more complex and further forward than what i did at A level. i am not sure what i plan to do when i finish next year with a masters in oceanography.

i kinda wish i had done a better degree in just chemistry or engineering, as there is a definiate point to those!

[Edited on 23/6/06 by trogdor]

That reminds me - my degree was quite relevant and vocational (mech eng is a very general degree but quite practical)
but the only reason I'm able to do my job is that I spent more than 9 months working with another engineer who trained me as we went along (a sort of informal apprenticeship) obviously the same is true for most professions

but most of the jobs I've seen advertised are asking for experienced people and no one is prepared to take on graduates (as was mentioned above companies don't want to make long-term investments in people)
I'm happier designing things, but when I was leaving Uni I would have considered being a production engineer or similar, but no one wants someone with lots of paper qualifications and no experience

when the government up here had there last little push to get companies to take on apprentices they picked BAE as an example, they take on people leaving school (17-18) with a few highers or A levels - then start them working and as the progress through the company, if they are good enough, they get the chance at the college courses and degrees and eventually chartered engineers (some of them were in my course at uni)
or alternatively they could become managers
This is in my opinion the best possible way to train engineers who are going to deal with the practical end of the business
(apart from anything else there is nothing worse than a manager who doesn't no anything about what they are supposed to be managing)

I still say it's things as below that are the trouble these days.
health and safety (It does have its place)

treat everyone like they are idiots (after a while they'll believe it)

I can't do that cause I have'nt been shown how to(well neither was the first person to do it)

sorry thats not my job mate type (I'm a lazy fcuck get some one who cares)

These people will get along just fine and prolly be happier and less stressed out than the hard working caring guy who gets all the sh*t and just does it (for the same money to)

As a school board member I asked about metalwork at school these days (for exactly the reason this thread was started)

A school period lasts 40 mins and there are circa 20 in the class with one teacher.
That gives each pupil 2 mins per period on a machine (one to one tuition for H and S) two periods a week and roughly 36 weeks per year for two full years thats Under 5 hours tuition on a machine (only if they get it every lesson.

It's not much wonder that when they come into industry they stand around like furniture with a glazed expression. After all they've got a two year gcse in it.

Rant over

around 85% of the people on my degree go into banking/finance which is frankly astonding for supposedly the top engineering university in the country on a very popular course (mech eng) the main reasons are firstly the course is so theory based and gear to solving generalised problems that most people dont really have a clue what engineering actually involves (they seem to only be interested in grooming potential research students)

secondly many students want to /have to do summer work which should be a good source of expencience so you dont leave uni with just a piece of paper a few formulae and a hangover but mostly engineering companies seem disinterested at best whereas the banks are very hot on both actively trying to recruit potential employees for the future and giving the students good experiences and decent money.

Something needs to be done to help stimulate interest in youngsters in persuing a career in engineering. What ? I don't know, but the dumbing down of technical subjects at school and the push towards IT / Business subjects instead must be evened out.
I have had first hand experience of the apathy towards a career in engineering, and its not a pretty sight.
Over the last ten years I've probably mentored approx 15+ apprentices, of that amount I would have given possibly, 6 a chance of the training in the first instance !
Many were employed because of nepotism, and were only doing it because they did'nt get the qualifications they needed at school to persue whatever career they first thought of (pop star, football player, big brother contestant, model....whatever) and therefore could'nt think of anything else to do !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Many of them have scraped through the training and are not really that bothered whether they learn anything or not. The most treasured item in their immaculate tool box is the bloody mobile phone they always seem to be thumbing at.
Also
I just finished an evening course in CNC programming at the local college and the lecturer had some horror stories, reinforcing some of the stories in this thread.
One student had moved to the college from another area, and had already completed 2 years of his 3 year course in Engineering studies. First day of practical on the lathe in the workshop, and the puzzled student is unable to set the tool in the tool holder prior to facing off and beginning the exercise. Turns out all of his previous training had been purely theory, even though his first two years had been signed off by the previous assesor ! He had never even switched on a lathe in two years let alone made any swarf.

Again, as a sign of the times, the CNC course I did had a total of 9 students average age approx 39. Five years ago there were 4 classes/week with avearge 15 to 20 students per session.
The lesiure & tourism faculty is bursting at the seams though.....................

[Edited on 23/6/06 by clanger]

[Edited on 23/6/06 by clanger]

[Edited on 23/6/06 by clanger]

It doesn't help that we all (me included) want the cheapest never mind where its from ?

Shoes ?
TV's. in fact all electrical goods.....?
Cars ?
Clothes ?

Not so long ago I worked at an engineering company, we made amongst other things back arms and buckets for JCB, we lost the contract too a Chezc company who quoted a complete painted assembled arm for less than we could get materials for.........

quote:

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Originally posted by Jon Ison
a Chezc company who quoted a complete painted assembled arm for less than we could get materials for...

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We did it to ourselves.

We let people from third world countries come to our universities, so that they could qualify, go home and develope 20th century companies paying 16th century wages. ( No I'm not a racist, it's just a fact of life. We helped them to learn in five years, what took us four hundred).

Company directors moved manufacturing to the far east to improve short term profitability. They didn't consider that when the workforce that they made redundant would not be able to afford their products and neither will the workers in the far east on the pitance that they earn.

We all wanted cheaper goods and thus helped to put ourselves out of work.

Unions made employers pay apprentices higher wages , now they can't afford to take as many on as they did years ago.

Health and Safety has gone berserk. Small companies cannot keep up. what happened to common sense. Idiots are supposed to have accidents. That's how nature raises the average IQ.

God help us if we do have another war. We don't have a good enough manufacturing infrastucture to build a war machine. Anyone read 'Build your own Tank for £250'.

I'm too old for this...

Rant over............and relax

While engineering maybe a passion close to many of our hearts, markets change, what did we all do be for the industrial evolution? farming mostly id bet, then i bet that the then famers were moaning that farming as a career was on the decline, now we are in the midst of the electronic revolution and the engineers are saying engineering is on the decline.
This isnt anything todo with economy its to do with human technological advancement.
I personally wonder what the next human mass technological advancement will be and what type of skill set will be needed in that day and age.
Genetics?, space flight?, nano technology?

there wouldnt be a problem if it was just the lost of the heavy engineering and an increase in more high tech stuff, however we dont produce that either and whereas when the outsourcing revolution started we only really outsourced the manufacturing stage and the design stage was still in Britain now increasingly we just buy in a finished part/machine.

at the current rate though countries like China are expanding faster than we did but the problems have increased faster too and they are mostly just ignoring them so in 10 years time they are going to be screwed with a crippled workforce due to the ammount of waste they are dumping and no ability to grow enough food and i cant see people in europe and the usa digging into their pockets for charity appeals to food etc.

okay my point of view:

im 16 and im making my own car (hopefully will be my first if i get it done in time), and i know im not the only youngster on here- all im saying is there are people my age who get themselves into mechanics etc, but yes i completely agree most of us dont....
im getting to the stage of deciding uni yes/no, and have strongly chosen no, as i feel people go as a 'dunno what to do next, i suppose ill just go to uni'. ive always felt that nowdays for the majority of jobs uni is not needed, and as everybody goes it doesnt make you stand out at all. i want to own my own business- be my own boss etc and will start next year. if and when i employ people i will choose life experience over uni experience anyday..

so what im saying is, people choose uni because they cant be bothered to make a real decision on their life. it must just be a sign of the times- and because people dont reallly want to study whatever their studying the nation doesnt get youths who are skilled.
an example- i work in a restaraunt, and 90% of people who work there have come straight from the local uni- why arent they going into real jobs???? ive been trying to persuade my mates for ages over this matter, two of them arent going to uni any more but a lot are because they dont want face the decision at this early(ish) stage in their lives.

i think we need to change the whole of society/way young people think because this really is a problem, and as i see it people are throwing away their lives because they dont want to make a choice.

one thing i forgot- when i speak to teachers/ older people about my car their eyes light up- and i get stories about specials they built, how they built their first car with a friend, etc etc. when i told all my friends about it they laughed, and pretty much dismissed it as i was building some sort of go-kart. 'so your actually gonna drive it' they say, 'what on the road?'- people have stopped doing things that involves risk. my philosophy is you only get one life, theres not enough of it as it is, do whatever makes you feel happiest and live it to the full. if you make a bad decision f^@K it, youll be able to sort it out somewhere along the line....

its the same with restoring a classic car too, everyone my age thinks its a waste of time and just want to have a brand new car. its strange that most people judge a car by how new it is, ie the newer the better. also when i say i am changing the engine to an zetec etc they just think i'm mad. its hard to find someone interested sometimes!

though i must say that i do know people who have gone to uni and made something out of it. my friend got headhunted by a big company and instead of doing a masters is now a sales engineer with a brand new company car and a very good salary for someone my age! so it can be done, but i do agree that most people go to uni because they don't know what to do with themselves. hell thats prob why i went, i am not sure what i am gonna do, but the idea of having my own business etc is what i would like to do, that said i don't know what i want to do in the world of business!

RE new stuff, most people buy into that philsophy (?) these days. Ie if it's old it's knackered. Most of my mates refuse to buy older cars for no appreciable reason whatso ever. They fail to look at things in an objective way. As I said before, I got the same response from people as others, ie generally amusment/dismissal as a silly idea. People won't take risks anymore, pretty much regardless of the potential gains, ie build a car for £1500 (or so) rather than buy one for £5-8K.

quote:

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Originally posted by peterriley2
one thing i forgot- when i speak to teachers/ older people about my car their eyes light up- and i get stories about specials they built, how they built their first car with a friend, etc etc. when i told all my friends about it they laughed, and pretty much dismissed it as i was building some sort of go-kart. 'so your actually gonna drive it' they say, 'what on the road?'- people have stopped doing things that involves risk. my philosophy is you only get one life, theres not enough of it as it is, do whatever makes you feel happiest and live it to the full. if you make a bad decision f^@K it, youll be able to sort it out somewhere along the line....

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quote:

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Originally posted by peterriley2
one thing i forgot- when i speak to teachers/ older people about my car their eyes light up- and i get stories about specials they built, how they built their first car with a friend, etc etc. when i told all my friends about it they laughed, and pretty much dismissed it as i was building some sort of go-kart. 'so your actually gonna drive it' they say, 'what on the road?'- people have stopped doing things that involves risk. my philosophy is you only get one life, theres not enough of it as it is, do whatever makes you feel happiest and live it to the full. if you make a bad decision f^@K it, youll be able to sort it out somewhere along the line....

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my mates just buying a new car, hes looking at pug 306's- and no hes not a chav. ive been trying to persuade him to buy a triumph herald or something similar, but he seems to have his heart set on something with no character what so ever, just because people see you as being 'stylish', or something. ive been trying to tell him not to be a lemming, as a first car its gotta be something you can be proud of, and whats better than an old, very cool car? people are loosing the plot.....

but in his favour, if he has no mechanical skills he probably doesnt want to risk ending up with a car that needs maintaining regularily.

That said, my little ax has done 20k with nearly no work whatsoever, and just passed its mot with nothing needing doing, not even emissions?! Its literally had 4 tyres, new pads and discs, and 3 engine services. Only failures were a worn drive shaft and a broken thermostat housing.

However, concours 1993 is old enough for me!

thats definately true, but he does want to learn about mechanics, and i would think it would be a great way to do so. i suppose were back to the same question of taking risks and making the decisions....

(by the way, its the guy in my avatar)

[Edited on 24/6/06 by peterriley2]

a triumph hearld is a really good first car! is a shame ur friend won't get one. as long as u get a good one they are easy to look after and run and maintain, i would of got on eif one had come my way at the right time!

i am going to run an £100 saab 96 as a first car and daily driver! have already learnt so much from it, i am really glad i got it!

[Edited on 24/6/06 by trogdor]