Running Costs

[GeoffWestWales]

If you wanted to save costs cant you do the servicing yourself?, Some of these Garages charge a fortune for Labour, as a test to see how quick my new scanner would pay for itself I got a few local quotes to just scan for codes the cheapest was £40 a few in the middle at £50 and most expensive at £80, if you could do the work yourself the costs would tumble.

Tell you Mrs my example, I went away from Mercedes for nearly 10 years, just got another and never realised what I was missing out on, the Merc feels planted safe and a luxury drive, take her for a spin in a Fiesta are jap motor and admire that quality (Not) plastic and cheap feel, she will soon see the light.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Well, I am having a debate with my other half about running costs of our cars. Yesterday she had to spend out £470 on her CLS350, not a small sum of money but she had quite a lot done for that. The car had an MOT, rear brake pads replaced for the MOT and a major service done including all filters.

My other half's bum squeaked at the cost and her thinking was suddenly, 'Maybe I should buy a cheaper car to run'. Now considering we use a decent independent garage who charge a reasonable amount per hour, they use pattern parts etc. My point to her was that, the work carried out wouldn't be necessarily cheaper. Ok so maybe a Ford Focus air filter would be £5 less or it may require a litre or two less but otherwise it's largely similar.

Tyres can be expensive but again the difference in tyre costs between a 17" wheel and an 18" are marginal.

Now I know that repairs, especially if you have to use new genuine parts can be expensive. I wouldn't try and imply that these kinds of cars are cheap to repair but overall her CLS has cost her less than £500 in repairs in nearly 3 years so the reliability versus cost is a consideration.

She's still not convinced but I think that makes sense. What you lot reckon?

Don’t be tempted to buy a new-ish Smart to save costs, our local main dealer (Smart) charges £300 for the Year 2 service!

PS The Smart ForFour is effectively the same car as a Renault Twingo.

 

[Lennox]

My other half's bum squeaked at the cost and her thinking was suddenly, 'Maybe I should buy a cheaper car to run'.

My other half's now a car snob. I tried to buy her a brand new fully loaded top of the range Kia Sorrento 7 seat thing.... Same price as her used approved X5. I tried to explain the 7 year warranty and cheaper running costs and all I got was a sarcastic "uh hu"

Her other argument was do you want your kids going round in a Kia? I'm sure they are great cars but.... I buckled.

So X5 it was. Luckily she went to school with the chap that own a top notch mot servicing garage, so we gets preferental rates.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

Your experience isn’t indicative of the normal differences of running costs between something like a Mercedes and a Ford - virtually every single aspect of that Ford will be cheaper to run from tyres to service parts to insurance to suspension parts to even windscreen wipers.

When man-maths is applied, yes, it can be made to feel like pennies on the pound but they all add up and if you are on a budget and you haven’t got a financial cushion to fall back on “just in case” something happens to the Merc - you’re fecked.

 

[Deleted member 6183]

I find cars are like women in that they are very unpredictable and they are certainly wired up differently . If you look after them they are content and can give you years of pleasure. However when things start to go wrong they are both very very expensive.

Ah the 1970s, golden years, my modern Wife would give you a proper hoof in the clackers if you tried that type of jibber jabber on her.

Whose wife, when asked what car they drive, says a blue one...

Not mine.

 

[Eddy77]

My experience of running my CLK350 alongside a Mk4 Mondeo is that on average the Mercedes cost around 50% more to run and maintain. That’s the total annual average spend including servicing, tyres, insurance and tax. Fuel And depreciation excluded. Against my Audi A6 annual costs are a little less for the Mercedes on average but that’s because the Audi is in the main dealer network and the Mercedes is looked after by an Indy.

 

[ToeKnee]

Strangely, my insignia costs me around 7x as much to run each year than my SL! And the SL is serviced at Mercedes and I service the insignia myself! That's maintenance, insurance and fuel, not depreciation.

 

[SarahAnn200]

She might just fancy a change and bringing the running costs into it may be a way of saying she is bored with it.

 

[Alex225]

She might just fancy a change and bringing the running costs into it may be a way of saying she is bored with it.

She's not into cars enough to be bored as I don't think she'd be fussed. Trust me the running costs are purely her bum squeaking as she had to pay nearly £500 out haha.

 

[pmcgsmurf]

Amazing how many folks just dont consider running costs when buying a car.

I did brake discs and pads on a friends 4x4 earlier this year.
They do no off roading, drive it along the motorway to work, park it up for the day then drive home and park up again.

Got the comment about the cost of the discs and pads as one of their kids Renault Clio just had brakes done at a fraction of cost!
I pointed out that big massive wheels have big massive brakes and just for good measure I let them know their tyres needed replacing very soon and certainly before next service/MOT.

 

[pillow]

The smartest thing to do is to keep a record of expenses for your vehicles. As you progress through different vehicles you then have a point of comparison.

You can sometimes compare from one owner to another but some cars are inherently cheaper to maintain than others, even in the same brand/model/year. Your wife's CLS350 might have few issues compared to someone elses CLS350 for example.

If you keep a record of your own cars you can then look back and say, "Well actually the CLS350 isn't any more expensive than that old whatever it is we used to have".

Having done this I can tell you that my BMW 316i was more expensive to maintain than my BMW 630i, and that my CL600 will probably cause bankruptcy if I continue how I have done with it