@IanC I'd say if the basics are sound (engine + frame) and the car suits your needs (brings you reliable from a to b) then I'd try to maintain the car as long as possible.

There are always fancier things around, so the satisfaction of a new model will only last a couple of months, but your account won't forget the monetary loss. Also: I don't believe in the repair-costs-more-than-current-value-of-the-car-so-I-need-a-new-one scheme

@Martin On the big picture the car is reliable. Haven't had any serious problems with it except for the one I kind of caused. Mostly it's small stuff I have to work on, for example, yesterday my fuel indicator stopped. So now I have to test the wiring and if it's fine than go to the fuel level sensor

It's that and the bodywork that overall is good, but have some bad spots (guess I should expect that on a 18 year old car)

@Martin That's exactly where this was coming from. I passed the car value mark already, and honestly, if I keep this car for real I'll probably invest more in the future. About new models, I don't really like new cars, too much fancy things gets even harder for me to work on them, not to say the prices are way too inflated in my country

If I changed my car, I'd probably go for the same model (maybe a different year), or another old simple car

@IanC I had a Opel Corsa B model once, the fuel indicator was bad.. Turns out that the dial itself was the culprit: They used a heating wire to bend a strip of bi-metal that turns the dial. The heating wire de-attached from the socket..

@IanC If there is only small stuff to do: I'd keep it. On big things: Maybe not.

@Martin I'm pretty sure it's either the level sensor or the wiring, because I tested an old cluster I have here and the indicator didn't go up too. I was identifying the back wiring latest couple of days (didn't cut anything, just disconnected plugs and used a multi-meter/test-lamp to identify it), so it could be the wire was breaking and me handling it finished the job

Or the buoy is bad, because I already had issues like the level only rising up to 3/4

I'll make some continuity tests on the wiring to get to the cause today

@IanC In the end I left the cluster as-is and just refueled when the trip-counter reached a certain mark..

@Martin I've seem a guy that made a completely digital cluster for his Turbo Corsa, looked really cool! I was thinking of at least changing the background to acetate ones and install some LED lighting. The Corsa original cluster is not really pretty to be honest :p

In Europe here one can calculate €2000 yearly just to keep a car (maintenance + buy-price/estimated car life) and I see so many people paying excessive amounts of money (inclusive stress with loan sharks) just for a value-deprecating status symbol that can be totaled in any moment..

@Martin I hear you, that idea was if I got to a point I wasn't spending anything on regular maintainance for a while, the LED lighting plus acetate background isn't very expensive

But yeah, it's purely aesthetical, not really something I need

Man, here I was breaking my head trying to figure out what a wire was for, everything indicated it was a "direct-positive" going through fuse 1. But lamp tests and continuity tests weren't agreeing with that

So I decided to take the duct tape off, and there was this ugly nasty twist of wire, so the wire actually was a direct-positive going through F1, but it was broken before the connector. I redid the connection and it's feeding now. Guess it didn't make a difference in the car because it's probably for something unused or stuff that isn't available at my model

Still didn't figure out why my fuel marker isn't reading, but continuity tests says the wire between the cluster and the back wiring connector is good. Probably the buoy, I didn't really touch it because there's a plastic cover I'm not sure how to remove (tried with some flathead screwdriver but no luck without forcing it too much)

How it looked before:

It was ugly inside the duct tape, I found this mess:

Now it looks like this, except it also has a bit duct tape on the edges of the union:

The idea is to do that on every wire that was cut. There's a wire that I don't even understand why was cut, the roof lamp switch negative. Like, what the hell would it be used for? It's like the person doing the installation didn't know what he/she was doing, cut the wire and then realize it had no use and just joined it together again..

@IanC - I don't know if they are available in South America, but here in the States I bought this type of but connector:

They are heat shrinkable. You connect them like your butt connectors do, then hit them with a heat gun. The interior of them becomes goo as the exterior shrinks down. The goo seals to the wire sheathing, sealing the connection making it water tight.

They come in three different sizes. The pink ones are for smaller wires. There are blue ones for medium wires, and then (I believe) there are yellow ones which are for large wires. They work great, but you also need to get used to using them ... I've wasted a lot of them just getting the hang of crimping them correctly.

I've bought these off of Amazon.com ... I don't know if Amazon ships to a neighborhood down south, but hey, might be worth a looksee.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 I did a small search for something similar here but didn't find it. I think Amazon ships those to Brazil though, they look good and probably have a much better insulation!

I'll try to order some

I have some heat-shrink tube, but the diameter is too small to fit the butt connector inside

By the way, I'm not sure I'm crimping them perfectly, I just try to get them tight so the wire doesn't slip but I heard that's not all there is to good crimping

Though even if I'm doing it slightly wrong, it can't be worse than those wire twisting mess I found before haha

@IanC - As long as it holds both wire ends securely, you're probably at least 90% there ... that's another good thing about the type I showed you ... since they seal to the wire, they also help support it.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Good, makes it more fail proof!

Talking about wiring, probably this week my car radio is being delivered. I was thinking about pulling a positive straight from the battery to avoid messing again with the wiring again and adding a 30A fuse (or lower depending on the radio requirement) on the way

Only downside I can think off is that it won't turn off with the key, so I've to be extra careful not leaving it on