Money pit - what's your formula?

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wemorgan

MB Enthusiast
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Apr 5, 2008
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8,106
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A205 C220d
Putting aside sentimental attachments to cars, what's your formula for declaring your daily car a money pit and walking away?

Mine off the top of my head (subject to change) :

Annual repairs exceeding £1500
or
Time spent fixing issues exceeds time spent driving the car
 
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For me, it's when there seems to be a glut of faults and you never seem to get a long period without worrying about it breaking.

I've had two cars like that (both Audi A6's, the first one was so bad that I followed it with another just to see how bad they are) and it's put me off them for life.
 
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For me, when the car has cost over £3K on warranty repairs in the first three months of owning it and then requires another very expensive job at MY expense! After that, it's history (how ever much I like it's design...) :D

But, I also agree with both comments above. :)
 
Historically my formula has been X+1 where 'X' is equal to the maximum number of expensive repairs I paid for that I should have done before I disposed of it. :wallbash:

This last happened to me in 1998 with an elderly Nissan when X = £350 worth of brakes and tyres to get through the MOT. It had a major engine failure 300 miles later.

I've not, until now, run an old car since then until so I'll see if I've got any better at identifying X in the intervening years.
 
For me, it's when there seems to be a glut of faults and you never seem to get a long period without worrying about it breaking.

Cars suck you in though. Month 1 it'll be a warm up with a £300 bill. Month 2 just a £200 to keep things ticking along. Month 3 becomes tiresome with another £200. You're now £700 in. Month 4 comes along a hits you with a £500. You're promised this will be the last bill. You see 12 months of trouble free motoring ahead so you pay the £500. £1200 in then 6 months later another £500 bill is offered. Where do you go?

Cars are funny like that :)
 
Cars suck you in though.

They used to, but my general rule now is that if three things go wrong in quick succession (non-serviceable items such as tyres, brakes, oils etc) then the car goes.

There's nothing worse than someone constantly whining about how unreliable/crap their car is; get rid and buy something else!
 
1 big bill is unfortunate

2 big bills are suspicious

3 are definitely a money pit.

Also when mechanic starts to take the piss its time to look hard...
 
I've had cars where I was constantly watching the guages, had paranoia about any little noise and thought I was lucky when it actually started.

When I say cars, I mean Land Rovers.

Sold my Discovery after changing absolutely everything on it and had to be recovered by the AA 3 times. The new owner called out of the blue about a year later with a question- he said nothing had gone wrong at all, he'd driven to Spain in it twice, best car he'd ever bought etc etc. You can't win.
 
I don't ever look at things like this. Cars are just lumps of metal, plastic and rubber. Normally when someone has ploughed all that money into one being discussed to render it a 'money pit', that's usually where they make a great buy for someone else :eek:

I have two types of cars:

1) Really nice 'weekend'/sunny day/going out cars where whatever needs doing (within reason) gets done, and to the highest standard

2) Runarounds/workhorses. I'll maintain them as needed and fix anything major that needs doing, but I wouldn't go looking to spend any unnecessary cash on them. Maintained to an 'MOT' standard, and basic servicing.

Sometimes when you're getting fed up with a particular car, you need to remember that the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence. Better the devil you know and all that.

There's only so much that can go wrong!
 
I have an old Porsche as well as the MB...the Merc is the money pit.

However, that's because the Porsche doesn't get out much anymore...but if something does go wrong it can be very expensive...but I love it having had it for 19 years (nearly).

My wife's old RAV4 is cheap...but even it has cost just short of £2000 in maintenance and repairs in nearly 5 years.

But really really cheap (ie nothing) is an old Proton my fil gave us for the girls because he stopped driving...it wont stop for anything.

We did throw away my wife's old Seat Cordoba after 13 years of faithful service (until the day it broke down).
 
This has been the 2nd most expensive car I have had in terms of running (and modifying costs) my last Skyline ended up setting me back a less than cool 6 figures and this one is well on its way to half that in just 18 months!
 
Leaving aside fuel, discs, fluids, pads, tires, insurance, mot and vehicle excise duty...

I reckon I ought to get 10 miles per £ of purchase cost before things get out of hand. I would expect a £20k car to travel 200,000 miles to get my money's worth. Or 5% depreciation per year over 20 years from new purchase cost price.

C230K w202 £19k at 16k miles now £0k at 174k miles after 13.5 years (12 years mine) New: £30k (known) so far £0.12/mile
E300 s124 £5k at 169k miles now £1k at 231k miles after 17.4 years (7.7 years mine) New £40k (guess) so far £0.08/mile

£30k/20yrs = £1,500pa
£40k/20yrs = £2,000pa

If the bills head south of these figures for 2 years running I'd bite the bullet.
It hasn't happened yet.

I fully subscribe to the devil you know theory and am probably far too sentimental about my cars...but you know what I don't care! I have just spent 3 days in a Corsa 1.2 manual because for the first time ever, both cars were in the garage (one scheduled maintenance and one breakdown). The Corsa reminded me why I drive my Mercedes's in the first place.
 
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This has been the 2nd most expensive car I have had in terms of running (and modifying costs) my last Skyline ended up setting me back a less than cool 6 figures and this one is well on its way to half that in just 18 months!

Six figures??!!??!!! :eek:
 
Putting aside sentimental attachments to cars, what's your formula for declaring your daily car a money pit and walking away?

Mine off the top of my head (subject to change) :

Annual repairs exceeding £1500
or
Time spent fixing issues exceeds time spent driving the car

£1500/yr. is nowhere close to being a money pit compared with the depreciation and/or risk of the cost of a replacement.......double it.

Mic
 
My worst ever was the Maserati merak ss , 4 weeks into ownership clutch went out due to a crank case seal and while being repaired the found the bell housing cracked , £6500 bill . Brake master cylinder went next followed by the clutch slave cylinder , circa £3000 .
Finally gave up when it got hit in a car park , needed a front wing and front pannel at £7500.
Still miss the car but not the bills .
 
I bet even Land Rover wished they could have off loaded the old Rangie when it was in warranty! :D
 
Car that don’t cost much can also get you thinking about how much longer one should own them.
I run a 54 plate Mondeo estate as a donkey, so as to keep the Merc a bit nicer. I’ve had the Mondeo for just coming up to 2 years done 26k n miles in it and all I’ve replaced is a micro switch from the tailgate, which I bought from a breakers for a fiver. I know when the Mondeo starts to go wrong I’m going to have to practically rebuild it.
 

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