Wander00,
Thank you for your kind words ! (but I've learned more from our Thread than ever I put into it).
"Quelle dommage" all right ! But in all fairness it had been my daughter's first car - and she'd bought it from another girl: it'd been her first car. The poor (old) thing had some excuse, I suppose (Lord knows what the mileage was - probably "clocked" anyway).
Went for scrap.
Danny.