what does it cost to run a car?

[wasabi]

MOTs are also often used by unscrupulous garages as a way to drum up extra work for the workshop business. Especially if they can sense you're not mechanically minded. And it is way more these days than a basic test of roadworthyness - all sorts of emissions guff and checking of car sensors. ££££££££££

Best bet is to go early but keeping the anniversary date. Then you can go elsewhere to get fixed and not be effectively trapped into getting it repaired there. Finding a good garage you trust is key - ask around for personal recommendations.

My worst ever incident in a car was when the steering rack newly fitted for an MOT snapped on a bend. Luckily on an urban corner so got the brakes down and only just mounted the kerb. It could easily have killed me or someone else. Garage I didn't normally use but it was near work so risked it.

[Kumagoro]

If you are looking to do it as cheap as possible then,

Don't go above a 1.4 engine for petrol as the tax doubles. A 1.2 hatch back is still good enough and you can easily pull on to roundabouts quick enough.

Up to a 1.6 diesel is like 30 a year tax so look for diesels like that. My dad's fiesta does 67mpg and it's about 8 to 10 years old. My 17 year old 1.4 petrol Saxo does about 35mpg but that is doing short journeys.

Use the dvla check to see how much tax will be of you are looking at things online.

Beware of diesels they can be expensive when they break. I often see spares and repairs on what mentioning the injectors were changed but it didn't fix it. I see a lot of megane' with this problem which apparently is caused by the fuel but disintegrating and chucking bits of metal into the fuel, blocking the fuel filter and then messing up the injectors.

Turbos seem to go a lot on diesels as well.

It maybe worth getting an odb reader which you use with a tablet to read engine codes when you check one out. It will tell you if there are any errors or if they have been wiped recently. I think it was odb or something similar.

You can save money on tyres by switching the front with back as they wear more where the power is applied.

[Saracen]

MOTs are also often used by unscrupulous garages as a way to drum up extra work for the workshop business. Especially if they can sense you're not mechanically minded. And it is way more these days than a basic test of roadworthyness - all sorts of emissions guff and checking of car sensors. ££££££££££

Best bet is to go early but keeping the anniversary date. Then you can go elsewhere to get fixed and not be effectively trapped into getting it repaired there. Finding a good garage you trust is key - ask around for personal recommendations. ....

Amen to that.

Years ago I made the mistake of MOT'ing a V6 Granada Ghia at a major Ford dealer. It failed, on a list of faults that added up to a repair bill that was more than the value of the car. They actually referred me to their used car sales department.

So, I drove out of that place, about 3 miles down the road to an independent test centre, where the exact same car PASSED.

I showed that tester the previous failure, after he'd passed it, and he, erm, expressed a marked lack of surprise. He pointed out that a couple of the failures weren't actually a valid part of the test on that design of vehicle, and that NONE of the failures were, in his opinion, valid.

He advised me to find a regional Department of Transport testing centre, show them both certificates (his, and the first) and request them for an official verdict. Because, in his words, one or the other was either incompetent, or (sanitising his expression a tad) "lying their bleeping ass off".

Now, I use the same bloke. Have for about 15 years. I get him to do a 'pre-MOT check'. It costs about £15. He checks fluid levels, wiper function, bulbs, headlinght alignment, brake function, etc. Then gets it MOT'd. Twice, in that time, he's found things that needed doing, one of them a sensor switch that cost £7 for the switch, and he charged £5 ( when does any normal garage do ANYTHING or £5?). The other time was similar.

On another occasion I had some paintwork done on the wife's car. The wiper blades came back hitting the body, so I told this machanic what had been done, 'cos I wanted an 'expert' opinion before taking the car back to the bodyshop. He said "oh, they've just put the wipers back on misaligned". Before I knew it, he's whipped each wiper arm nut off, repositioned the arms, retightened the nuts, tested it and said "all done". Charge? £0.00. It took him, oh, 10 mins .... five of which was us chatting.

He now does all my servicing. And several friends, too.

I had an alternator pack up about 4:30pm one Thursday afternoon, and managed to limp into his garage about 4:45pm. I mentioned it'd wrecked my werkend plans as we were supposed to be going away 9-ish Friday morning, for a long weekend.

8am next morning, we got a call. Car's ready. He hadn't got the car until 4:45pm the previous day. It turned out he ordered the new alternator and his supplier dropped it off about half hour later, on his way home. So his head mechanic stayed late, and did the job. THAT is customer service.


So, there's the two extremes. The big main dealer, and the genuine, small local business.

Of course, not all small businesses are trustworthy, and I'm certainly not saying all main dealers are that .... devious, or downright dishonest.

But a trustworthy small garage/workshop is hugely valuable, and I make a point of recommending him whenever I get the chance.

[scaryjim]

so we live in London but are probably moving out at some point ... This will mean adios public transport and hello car.

Definitely? I mean, where are you thinking of moving to? There's an awful lot of this country that isn't London, but still has great public transport (and where you can live a much more enjoyable lifestyle on a lot less money ). If you're currently managing without a car, then you should manage in pretty much any city (and a lot of large towns). The only time I've *needed* to own a car since passing my test (and I didn't do that until I was 30) was when I lived in Upper Wharfedale and there was only 1 bus a week that came within about 15 miles of home So it's probably worth deciding where you're moving to and then investigating public transport options before assuming that you'll need to own a car.

One option to keep costs down is, at least for the first couple of years, buy something old and cheap, but of a type that SHOULD be pretty reliable. ...

Sound advice - I went for the cheap-as-possible option when I bought my first car, and ended up spending thousands just on keeping it on the road for a year (Rover 414i - lovely cars, prone to problems with the cooling system!). If you're going to have issues getting money up front to buy a car then it's probably worth it (yes, it cost me a bit to keep her on the road but probably no more than buying a car half the age that may still have had problems) - I essentially spread the cost of the car out over a year or so without needing to take out any loans, because I kept my budget to what I had available in cash. But there were a fair few garage bills, and none of them were insignificant.

[DanceswithUnix]

MOTs are also often used by unscrupulous garages as a way to drum up extra work for the workshop business. Especially if they can sense you're not mechanically minded. And it is way more these days than a basic test of roadworthyness - all sorts of emissions guff and checking of car sensors. ££££££££££

A bad garage is just a bad garage MOT testing included or not, and they have always existed.
I usually get my trusted mechanic to do a service and MOT, but his garage doesn't do MOTs. So he takes the car the an MOT centre he trusts, the MOT centre can fail anything they want they won't get any extra business

The hard part there is finding a trusted mechanic.

AIUI the MOT tester is not allowed to plug into the diagnostics port of the car, so he will only find a failed sensor if there is a light on the dashboard you have been ignoring or the emissions check fails (which I would expect to light the engine symbol on the dashboard). So yes, it is fairly basic. I expect my mechanic to do a whole lot better than that.

[jenny123]

Actually, doesn't it really depend on the car..? A Ferrari costs a lot more because it's oil cooled (and hence needs a lot more oil) than a "normal" car :-)

Anyhow, even a "cheap" car costs plenty to run, I would say if you drive it regularly maybe put a price tag on it of around 0,50 Euro Cents... so driving 100km per week would cost you at least 50 euro's including all things except buying the car.

[Rave]

Well for a recent, costed example of how much a car costs to run, I got fed up with my old Mk1 1.8TD Mondeo, it was pretty reliable, only cost me a £10 diesel filter pump head and new battery which I had lying around from my old diesel Clio to keep it running, but it was so awfully slow I had to get rid. So I bought a 3.0 V6 Mk3 Mondeo sight unseen off Ebay, for £1600 with a year's MOT.

First year it cost me £280 in tax, £430 in insurance, and £40 for an oil and filter change I did myself. I think I did 3500 miles in it at an average of 25mpg with fuel costing £1.30 a litre. So £1577 in the first year, or a bit under 50p/mile.

In the second year which I'm still on it cost me 50 quid for the MOT, £285 for the tax, but just £167 for insurance?! It's needed a new coil pack, £70, and I'm just now doing the air filter, £6.72, plugs, £30, and it needs a new breather pipe which will be 30 quid. I reckon I'll have done more like 4500 miles in it by the end of this year, but at more like 27mpg thanks to mainly doing longer journeys. So more like 36p per mile.

The car came with decent tyres which will see me through another 3-4000 miles, then it'll be 400 quid to do them all for another 25,000 miles if I rotate them. Equally the coil pack and plugs shouldn't need doing again for as long as I own the car so they're a one off. In the next year I should really renew the brake fluid and coolant, which will be an 8 hour faff one Saturday but only a £40 expense for the fluids. And TBH I'll enjoy the day under the car!

And that's for a 1.6 ton 150mph wagon. For a lesser Ford, not so much. Motoring's cheap if you DIY!

[wasabi]

So yes, it is fairly basic. I expect my mechanic to do a whole lot better than that.

Disagree. Example? Healight washers, if fitted, must be working. So a thing most cars don't have must be working if you have them. Huh?

[DanceswithUnix]

Disagree. Example? Healight washers, if fitted, must be working. So a thing most cars don't have must be working if you have them. Huh?

Brake pads which pass the MOT because they stop the car perfectly may be discarded within the hour by the mechanic because within a few months they will be down to metal on metal causing me to need a new set of disks.

So there may be things in the MOT that annoy you, but overall it is a subset of what I would expect my mechanic to deal with.

Don't you want your headlamp washers to work? They are a safety feature after all.

[wasabi]

Don't you want your headlamp washers to work? They are a safety feature after all.

Really don't want/need them. Never had them before on any other car and not all cars in the range have them. Quick wipe with a rag if they're dirty is enough.

[Guy]

Really don't want/need them. Never had them before on any other car and not all cars in the range have them. Quick wipe with a rag if they're dirty is enough.

Is your car fitted with Xenon headlights? If so it's a requirement they come with washers as I believe if the headlight is dirty there is a potential for the beam to be altered and could inadvertently alter where they're shining.

[wasabi]

Is your car fitted with Xenon headlights? If so it's a requirement they come with washers as I believe if the headlight is dirty there is a potential for the beam to be altered and could inadvertently alter where they're shining.

No - but i think that is the problem. It is an Audi A3 1.8T, but it shares a lot of parts with the blingier S3 which is Xenon by default.

[DanceswithUnix]

Really don't want/need them. Never had them before on any other car and not all cars in the range have them. Quick wipe with a rag if they're dirty is enough.

The rules may have changed, but it used to be OK for the option to be uninstalled as long as you don't have Xenons. OFC doing a neat job of that may be more expensive than a proper fix.

[Butcher]

If you are looking to do it as cheap as possible then,

Don't go above a 1.4 engine for petrol as the tax doubles. A 1.2 hatch back is still good enough and you can easily pull on to roundabouts quick enough.

Up to a 1.6 diesel is like 30 a year tax so look for diesels like that. My dad's fiesta does 67mpg and it's about 8 to 10 years old. My 17 year old 1.4 petrol Saxo does about 35mpg but that is doing short journeys.

Engine size isn't a good measure on anything fairly recent (newer than 2001) since they go off emissions not capacity, tax doesn't double over 1.4 any more for instance. Newer engines will tend to have lower tax than older, for the same power.

[jetfire]

Engine size isn't a good measure on anything fairly recent (

what about this



3000bhp get me a quote

[jetfire]

they go off emissions not capacity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS5Qy_Lqgko

can they test fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G2lDk8W8O0