rider

Insurers have a wide band of valuations at market. One member reported just over a year ago that they were offered £6k for their written off parked up TT6. I was told when negotiating insurance with Adrian Flux a year ago that they would not agree any value for any Supra over £20k without independent verification in a new policy and for my TT6 they would only go to £14k unless this elusive independent valuation could be arranged. if you put your details into WBAC, 30 seconds later you'll likely receive a valuation of £650. Market has no reference point on these cars and I'd be very surprised if anyone on standard market value insurance could talk up an insurer from an initial £6k offer to anywhere near to £30k in any final payout. With agreed value insurance you really should be asking yourself what you would want for the car in a total loss situation. That is an important question as if you paid £5k you may not wish to push for a £22k valuation as the higher value insured = higher insurance premium. If you'd paid £22k for the car you'd almost certainly want to insure it for at least £22k. You must know or have a feeling with what you'd be happy to sell the car at if you were selling and then stick another 15% on top for a traders premium. Then you'll be in the right area. After that its just a case of finding an insurer who will be happy to take your money at that agreed level of cover. With the £22k suggested in another thread that's only a rough guide for a top of the market, top condition car. Not everyone owns a top condition car. So just regard that as a loose reference point. Threads on valuations are usually prompted to ensure people who don't follow values in any way aren't left sitting on auto renewal insurance at historical (historically low) valuations. they are a starting point rather than a destination. Any owner knows their own car and hopefully can assess it against a top of market benchmark to reach their own conclusion on the basis of I'm happy with that value and an insurer will run with it

I have a road trip planned for May but thats in my MGB Roadster. The wife loves that car so we do head off in that for a few days of A and B road touring every year. I have been looking longingly over the last couple of years at treating the Supra to a Cannonball Europe run but that's deep pockets £6k for a few days. I might gift it to myself when I retire after grabbing a lump sum out of the pension pot.

For the first time i put the Supra on SORN last October planning to retax in the Spring on a 6 month ticket. Seems from the 'how many left' site that about half of Supras are on SORN these days and having put mine on SORN it's something I wish I'd done it earlier, as in years ago, as it just doesn't get used in winter. It'll be off for its MOT in May with maybe 200 miles since the last one. Since doing a lot of expensive work on the car with a great amount of new Toyota parts fitted I find I'm reluctant to actually drive it. Its turned into a proper garage queen that gets dusted down and polished nearly as many times as it see the light of day. Time was I'd rack up 12k miles a year in the car but that was a long time ago. From the lack of Supras on the roads and how quiet it is here on forum you could imagine that there are very few Supra Mk4 drivers left? Adverts citing a lack of use seem to be a very common theme amongst sellers these days. SORN though, I'd recommend it for anyone considering it. I still get to start the car once a month and it gets put back into the garage after a quick reverse up the driveway as clean as it came out.

I brought a few OEM condensers in from the USA about 18 months and sold the surplus to the one I have retained for myself for £140. They were £600 from Toyota. Anyone bringing one unit over today will probably be looking at close to £200 or in Irish Euro250; still way cheaper than Toyota. Don't forget to buy a drier at the same time, they are around £35. And some ND8 oil as you'll usually have close to 75ml of compressor oil sitting in the drier and condenser that'll need adding back when fitting new components.

First stop should be to grab a multi-meter and check the resistance of the six coils, first that there is a resistance and its pretty uniform across all coils. It's normally about 13k ohms from memory but that is failing as I age so do check that out. If you then spot you have a dud one then just replace that one with a new OEM fitment coil. I have a few of those in my Supra parts storage area so feel free to PM me if you need one.

Had the car up on the ramp today to do a brake fluid change and look over ready for its upcoming MOT. I also took some pictures of the parts being changed out and the current cats with battered shields that are being replaced with a set off a recent import that got itself decatted. FRONT END BEFORE PICS

Depends if you have modifications or not? Brokers tend to be the go to for modded cars if its stock insurance I've used LV Classics and one broker Hegerty.

Last time I looked you could still get one side rear ABS sensors, Cannot recall which side it was but I don't think that there is any difference N/S to O/S other than the orientation of the top control arm retaining clip? From what I've seen of them they are both the same length so if you can get one side you should be able to make it fit.

The usual stone chip paint on sills is by Upol, their gravitex product. You need an air compressor to apply it to give the usual stone chip finish. There are lots of eBay listings with the gun applicator. The Upol product can then be over painted.

Some serious effort and money going into this car which is always good to see. There will be a lot of people running around in rusty Supra's that are completely unaware of that fact seeing the cars do hide their rust very well. Hopefully you'll love the end result and it'll be a keeper for you. With all those new suspension parts going on you might want to finish off with a geometry tune up which is what I've arranged for my car in May following my own all new suspension set up. Feel free to PM me after mid-May if you want some feedback on how the geometry and handling set up day went.

All the arrangements to complete the underside overhaul are now in place. The front refurb with all new suspension parts has been booked with a local garage to commence on the 1st of May to coincide with its annual MOT and service visit. I've also booked the car into Center Gravity on 14th May to have the geometry set on all the new front and rear components as part of their chassis tune up service. Once completed, there are no ongoing work or parts purchase plans for the Supra other than to refurb and tyre up a set of stock 17 inch wheels that I have sitting in storage at the moment. Feels very much like job almost done, probably because I've decided not to actually do any of the work about to be undertaken myself. I'll post up some pics if I get the opportunity to take any during or afterwards.

i got myself a set of 48157-24010 front strut boots to add to my front parts renewal happening in a couple of months from now via TCB and they were £26.11 + VAT a year ago. I expect they are probably more now. While you are at those you may as well renew the bump stops. Sure to all become discontinued one day in the not too distant future. Springs are discontinued.

My spare KM speedometer came about from when it was converted in 1998 to a MPH gauge so there may well be a few more KM gauges around than you'd think.

Took a while but in the end posted up on the dreaded FB and now sold.

I'd want to keep mine so someone can revert it to original from its mph converted state if they wish to but the part is still listed as available on Amayama for around £300 DDP.

The Supra Mk4 still has a lot of appreciation to run for a few more years to come. The eBay Auto at £22k is pushing the market but we have seen TT6's sell for over £30k pushing along at the top of the market. The one on eBay comes with an assured clean bill of health, it tends to be the ones with a detailed and extensive bad bits list that struggle to peak the market. Not many apparently want to pay £20k or £30k for a really old car with a list of bad bits. Me included, I'd expect everything sorted for top of the market price. There is sometimes expectation that runs away from reality with sellers, but that happens with any car offered for sale. We see lots of lazy sellers of Supras with things like the aircon not working followed on by a comment of probably just needs a re-gas. Well re-gas it for £30 to show it doesn't need a £1k overhaul. With old cars and a premium price attention to detail is just about everything. I'd definitely bin the wheels on that £22k car.

You might want to put this up into the wanted section and also see if the two recent breaking cars have the instruments available. They do come up occasionally on ebay.com from breakers who have stripped a JDM import for parts, sometimes for not bad money around $300 other times for silly money $1,000. If you are just after replacing a broken gauge then it'd be worth listing that as I'm sure lots of people hold the odd gauge rather than the entire cluster; like I happen to have a spare km speedometer somewhere.

The only reason to go for limited over sole trader is to do what it says, to limit any liabilities to the company rather than to you. Though as a private limited company if you do things like take out bank or finance loans then those will always be assigned to you personally as guarantor. So forming a limited company just protects you from non secured creditors that includes the likes of HMRC for any PAYE or VAT or Corporation tax unpaid dues. It also protects you if you are sued successfully through court for any reason. There are disadvantages to going limited rather than sole trader. You'll find that when you talk to accountants. They will charge up to 3 times the amount to prepare the accounts to file with companies house for a limited company than they would for personal sole trader accounts that will be used to determine any tax liabilities. Accountants tend to charge based upon the amount of work you do so if you are the kind of person that turns up with a shopping bag full of invoices and receipts expect to pay over £2k. If you are tidy and use a good accounting software package then I only pay £600 for my limited company accounts which is cheap. As for payroll, your accountant will be happy to do that. Don't go to umbrella companies. Or you could do you own. There are lots of payroll software providers who offer free or very low cost PAYE options for sole traders. We use Brightpay and their software is so easy and customer support thorough you could do it yourself and probably save £300 a year over having the accountant do it for you. If £300 is pocket change to you then just ask the accountant to do it. Foot note: As a foot note you'll have legal requirements for filing and insurance cover and these are more onerous and in the case of insurance the cover is more expensive for limited companies than sole traders. HMRC rather like hitting limited companies with pretty hefty fines which start off hefty and double up on each subsequent occurrence if you miss filing dates. Which is another very good reason to sub contract payroll and tax filing to your accountant particularly if you are the easily distracted or forgetful type who could overlook any report or form filing requirements.

With the side indicator/marker light lenses you'll probably find its cheaper to get them shipped over from the USA than locally from Toyota GB. Few listed on ebay.com just search using the part numbers: 81741-14170 & 81731-14180 Give TCB Parts a call (01579 383879) as well see what kind of price they can do them at. They might have some in stock which would get you the part faster. Just check they are the rears though and not the fronts. I have a pre-facelift so wouldn't know the difference.

Here is a pdf file copy for the record. Injectors.pdf

You can still get the bumper bar from Toyota, not that expensive really - I picked up one for around £130 with discount not that long ago.

Looking at the eBay ad, its strange that such a low mileage and low powered car has had the OE rubber sub frame bushes replaced with solid bushes. Why would anyone think that's a good idea? Best check if the engine and gearbox mounts are solid too.

With all old cars, mileage is just a number unless its backed by every MOT certificate showing sensible mileage increases and a stamped service history (admittedly this is something that is rare in Supra World) and with this particular car it look rather like its had a broken gauge forever. You say the mileage adds up somehow but how did it get to the MOT station each year, on a trailer? With this kind of black hole you can only buy on condition and I'd value assuming it is a 150k+ mile car with bad paint. That'd fall way within your £10k budget. Some background reading for you.