What to look for in buying a Beat?

[AdamD]

hey y'all

also can any one recomend any insurance companies...bearing in mind im a 21yr old male living in London...my best quote is £1300 fire/theft

thnxs

Ad

[NUNAKHAN]

I am insured with Tesco's (www.tescos.com) i am paying £550 fully comp but when you talk to them tell them you where quoted less by norwich union direct and they will better the price.

hope that helps

[adrianp]

Give Privelege a try for the insurance, I pay £400 fully comp with them but that does include a few mods that I have done to the car.

Adrian.

[Paul w]

Ade,
what difference in premium did the mods make, and what did you declare?

Could be useful to know.....

PW

[adrianp]

Hi Paul,

When I put the exhaust on it was classed as a "Performance Upgrade (Up to 10%)" and added about £35 ish to the premium.

So hopefully I'll be able to add a few other small bits (Airfilter??) and not have to pay any extra...

What was quite handy, was the fact that I put the exhaust on less than a week before the renewal date so I got a few days free with it...

As for declared mods,

They know about everything (Paint, interior, wheels, exhaust) except the new spoiler as that only went on last night...

I'm giving them a ring tomorrow about that... Hopefully it won't change that much...

Adrian.

[manxjock]

Hi there

Our neighbours are selling their beat.... It's a '94, it's yellow, 650cc 3 cylinder (maybe - not sure) and has 52K miles on the clock, and it;s going for £3,950

Some questions :-

1) Are Beats classed as imports and do they normally have the speedo converted?
2) If they are imports, are they difficult to insure?
3) Is the price reasonable.
4) What should we be looking for re faults etc
5) How difficult are parts to obtain?
6) Are they fun cars? Looks like they are judging by these forums....

Any inputs really appreciated.
cheers!

Dan

[peterknowles69]

Hi Dan,

Nice to see you are interested,

In answer to your questions.

1) Thay are imports, never sold by dealers in the UK, the speedo doesnt have to be converted, some people do, our isnt you get used to k's
2) you can easily insure them, ive heard of tesco insureing them, ours is through privilage WWW.privilage.co.uk i think.
3) price seems good, depending on the usual criterea for buying any car.
4) there are a few important one's. cam belt needs changing at 70000 k's and check the distributor. more details contained on here.
5) parts can be obtained in this country via people on here OZ Samurai in japan is a good supplier.
6) Fun? absolutley.

Hope this helps.

If you need any more info let me know.

Pete & Sue

[Andy V]

Hello Dan,

We collected our Beat only yesterday so I don't have masses of knowledge to impart, but I'm happy to share our experiences so far.

1) Speedo on our new baby (she's lovely ) reads in mph but the odometer (potentially embarrasing wrong choice of word ) reads in kph.

2) Having read others' experiences in these pages, I tried Tesco Insurance (part of Direct Line / Royal Bank of Scotland I think) amongst others, including some companies who specialise in 'grey import' insurance. Tesco were far and away the cheapest, with terms not too far different to my previous insurer "More Than", who refused to consider offering insurance fot the Beat.

3) Price? I can't really answer that, though considering age and recorded mileage its a slightly better deal than we've just had (not that we're complaining).

4 and 5) Can't answer that at the moment - too new to the Beat.

6) Fun car? Absolutely. We haven't really stopped grinning since early yesterday evening when we collected her

Andy (and Pat).

[manxjock]

OK. So we've taken her for a test drive - whooee. What a GRIN machine

Only one thing we noticed was that an orange fault light came on - I have a similar warning light on my car and it's an 'engine warning light.' All it says is if you see this take it to your dealer straight away.

Asked the chap we're buying the car off and he said it was an electronics fault and he's had it looked at but it won't go away, but the car's had it since he owned it (9 years)

Anyone else have any experience of this?

[adrianp]

Hi,

Have a read of this thread, It might help shed some light on the problem...

http://www.u-ukhbc.co.uk/vbb/showthr...=&threadid=450

To be honest, if the lights been on for that amount of time then I'm sure most owners on here would have had something done about it by now...

Hopefully, if you can do a diagnosis check on the engine then you can work out what the fault is...

Hope this helps

Adrian

[Steve_M]

Originally posted by adrianp
To be honest, if the lights been on for that amount of time then I'm sure most owners on here would have had something done about it by now...

Ah yes some take the bulb out!!!

Naughty! Naughty!!

Obviously not people on this board

[Paul w]

I'd like to ask you the experts about the pro's and cons of owning a Beat and what you think about importing one?

Hmmmm lets see!

Pros - Huge fun to drive, a real head turner, you are driving something different, superb handling, spirited performance, smug roof off feeling in summer?

Cons - Interior space is limmited, but not un-usable. Some parts can be a bit expensive (but no worse than most jap cars, you just can't get them from a motor factors in general) er..........

Prices can start as low as 1500 quid, but you tend to get what you pay for. £3000-£4000 seems to be the price of a nice one.

I cant see it being much cheaper to import one to be honest, but read Oz samuri's guide to importing at http://www.angelfire.com/ms3/ozsamurai/UKimport.htm

Hope this helps!

PW

[Tamsin Nunley]

Hi Mirwin!

Yep, get a beat! You'll be instantly smitten!

Good luck in your search! Keep us informed..

[tima]

sorry, forgot to say.... insurance... i got fully comp from Priviledge
Insurance for 350...

[jurek]

Hi Mr Tinytim
I dont think Pauls baby is for sale.
But i agree I have started dreaming for going to work in it every day
what probplms cause the valves to burn out (unleaded?)
J

[tinytim]

The Beat is designed for unleaded so there are no problems with that. I recently converted to using Shell Optimax, it's a bit more expensive at the pump but I find an improved mpg that outweighs the cost so in actual fact it is cheaper.
When you go shopping you do need to confirm that the timing belt has been done, it is a know weak point and all the advice says don't push it beyond the 50 000km. I dare say there are a few around that have done more (there are also a couple that haven't made it) but the risk really isn't worth it.

I use mine daily and have not looked back since I bought the car, I look after her and she looks after me. Great fun to drive, a fantastic car to "fiddle" with (mainly due to the advice and support from these boards) and economical to run.
I don't understand why everyone hasn't got one

[jurek]

its fun to play with. need to remove the speed restrictor and change speedo to miles. otherwise its perfect, wife wants to take over my little toy.!!!

[JGGIB]

I just remembered where 30/40/60/mph are I might remove my speed restrictor as it cut out at 145km over the weekend thought the engine had gone on me....but was all ok

[mathis]

hi people,

I just have a quick question about the Beat.... this quesiton has not come across my mind until I have actually test drived one recently.....

Quesiton is, aren't all Honda Beats power steering? I test drived one recently and it was not power steering. But mind you I think it was a very basic (early) model, because it didn't even have a stereo in it... can someone tell me if the Beat is standard with PAS or which year did it start having it, etc?

Thanks in advance.

[adrianp]

Hi Mathis,

Nope, power steering wasn't even an option on the beat although once you start moving it's not really needed and even when parking it's not too bad.

Stereo's are available but aren't all that cheap so it's either a barganing tool when buying or find one with a stereo already fitted as adding a normal one is a lot of work due to the size of the mounting hole being so small.

Ady.