What's the most expensive car repair bill you have ever had?
Discussion
Crosswise said:
Just under £400 for new rear calipers, discs and pads on my Audi 80 quattro in 2005. That's the last job I ever took any of my cars to a garage for, I now do everything myself.
Just shy of £1,000 for a full service and a few bits at a main dealer on a 100,000 mile Vauxhall Carlton in 1991I'd changed jobs and it needed to be reliable for 100 miles a day so I foolishly said do what it needs
It needed a fair bit (Discs and pads all round, water pump and cam belt as well as all fluids and filters plus from memory a couple of shock absorbers) and when it was all done they advised that it probably did need a new clutch but they figured the bill was bad enough already
I broke down 5 miles away from the garage with a plug hanging on the lead having pulled the thread out of the head
A long saga of bodged repairs - helicoils that failed and eventually a new head FOC and they fitted a new clutch FOC too
It was that point that I started doing everything myself and I've never regretted it.
CoolHands said:
Never spent more than 330 quid I don't think. I'd hate to be some of you.
I have loved every car I have owned even if a good 25% of them ended up twice the price I bought them. The wife although shall we say is a tad touchy on the subject has decided that the swift sport I have ended up with for the last 4 years is still good enough to keep.I am starting to look at cars.....cars that I know will end up costing me more money than is good, The likes of 3.2v6 golfs/tt's old boxers and a rather lovely alfa 159 v6 auto that I think would suit the wife seeing she hates driving and has yet to turn a wheel in the 9 years since she passed her test. Man thinking is she hates changing gears lets look at v6 autos and maybe she wil be interested in driving.
Polo bluemotion 1 2008
Bought as a cheap everyday snotter @118k
It had had a hard life when I bought it. Told the VW specialist to do everything that was needed
£1250
New cambelt
Waterpump
Service
Clutch
Brake discs /pads
Rear shoes
Exhaust sleeve
Gearbox mount
Ran like a dream for just under 3 years and 20k miles with just regular oil / filter / fluids, then turbo went ( super trick variable vane geometry turbo). Plus new EGR
Turbo + fitting + service £1850
EGR £350
Purchase price £2650
Maintenance £3400 +300 (reg service) over 3 years
I'll fit some new shocks for the MOT and may as well keep it until it dies. The good news is the turbo will outlast the car!
Bought as a cheap everyday snotter @118k
It had had a hard life when I bought it. Told the VW specialist to do everything that was needed
£1250
New cambelt
Waterpump
Service
Clutch
Brake discs /pads
Rear shoes
Exhaust sleeve
Gearbox mount
Ran like a dream for just under 3 years and 20k miles with just regular oil / filter / fluids, then turbo went ( super trick variable vane geometry turbo). Plus new EGR
Turbo + fitting + service £1850
EGR £350
Purchase price £2650
Maintenance £3400 +300 (reg service) over 3 years
I'll fit some new shocks for the MOT and may as well keep it until it dies. The good news is the turbo will outlast the car!
The worst I've ever heard of was a friend of mine, car dealer.
Sold a Bentley, from memory it was around £45k.
Some months later the buyer comes back with a fault.
The windscreen wipers were not parking correctly, sometimes they would stop in the upright position.
He got the car back and gave it to his auto electrician guy who drew a blank.
He then took it to Bentley, their quote to fix the wipers was £30,000!!
They said that it was a fault was within the cars wiring looom and that would need replacing.
By this stage the car was only worth £35k max.
They did end up finding a specialist to fix it but I thing it still cost around £1500.
Sold a Bentley, from memory it was around £45k.
Some months later the buyer comes back with a fault.
The windscreen wipers were not parking correctly, sometimes they would stop in the upright position.
He got the car back and gave it to his auto electrician guy who drew a blank.
He then took it to Bentley, their quote to fix the wipers was £30,000!!
They said that it was a fault was within the cars wiring looom and that would need replacing.
By this stage the car was only worth £35k max.
They did end up finding a specialist to fix it but I thing it still cost around £1500.
£1100 to replace a punctured aircon pipe on an Alfa GT. Required stripping down the front of the car and loosening off the engine.
On the flipside - biggest save was when the engine ECU on my 330i was flooded (due to lack of drainage holes combined with windscreen fitter putting a seal back in the wrong place) I was quoted £2300 for replacement and reprogramming. I got a used unit for £120 and had it cloned from the remains of my wet one for another £60.
On the flipside - biggest save was when the engine ECU on my 330i was flooded (due to lack of drainage holes combined with windscreen fitter putting a seal back in the wrong place) I was quoted £2300 for replacement and reprogramming. I got a used unit for £120 and had it cloned from the remains of my wet one for another £60.
Edited by r11co on Wednesday 29th November 07:44
2172cc said:
£750 for an ECU that controls the suspension, £200 for a new master cylinder, £350 for a new water pump all on a 29,000 mile VW Scirocco. Sold it fairly quickly after before anything else went wrong with it.
ECU which controls the adaptive suspension on my Cupra was faulty 1 month in to ownership, luckily still under warranty - Apparently £1400 part?!£1100 for a clutch replacement on a Renault Grand Scenic after the concentric slave cylinder crapped itself at 57,000 miles, and spewed DOT 4 all over the clutch plates.
It was the final straw on a piece of junk that had cost more to run in a year, than all my previous cars had cost since I started driving. Got it fixed, drove it home, put it on Autotrader, and never drove it again. I've also never entertained the idea of another Renault since.
It was the final straw on a piece of junk that had cost more to run in a year, than all my previous cars had cost since I started driving. Got it fixed, drove it home, put it on Autotrader, and never drove it again. I've also never entertained the idea of another Renault since.
Far and away the biggest bills I've ever paid were this year on the Caterham. £990 for engine removal and refitting and top end rebuild due to head gasket failure (later reduced by a third as the engine ran for ~30 mins before the gasket blew again). Then a £1500 bill at Snetterton for exchange gearbox remove and refit, new driveshaft and new rear wing.
Xtriple129 said:
While I know that supercar owners will come along shortly and blow us all out of the water, I figure Bentley ownership (proper Bentley not VW stuff ) has got to be up there....
When I bought my new (to me) car I knew it needed a few service items that had been neglected doing, but I didn't expect the £10690.13 bill that I ended up with! Front suspension cost £4.5K alone (£124 plus VAT for a bit of wire 3 feet long with a plastic connector on either end! It needed two of them...) front brake pads cost £450 plus VAT and then fitting, 3 engine mounts were about a thousand quid.... it just went on and on.
To be fair, it did drive rather better after all the work
My older Bentley spat a valve guide out (unheard of but it had to happen to me
) and the repair for that was nearly 8 thousand quid. I did cry a bit...
I can never understand big bills for expensive cars (other than it being a complete rip off). Its still a car and it still does fundamentally the same thing a mondeo does. I've fixed and maintained very expressive and complex kit and the time an materials are all pretty much the same no matter how expensive the kit i was working on.When I bought my new (to me) car I knew it needed a few service items that had been neglected doing, but I didn't expect the £10690.13 bill that I ended up with! Front suspension cost £4.5K alone (£124 plus VAT for a bit of wire 3 feet long with a plastic connector on either end! It needed two of them...) front brake pads cost £450 plus VAT and then fitting, 3 engine mounts were about a thousand quid.... it just went on and on.
To be fair, it did drive rather better after all the work
My older Bentley spat a valve guide out (unheard of but it had to happen to me
) and the repair for that was nearly 8 thousand quid. I did cry a bit...Your wire experience is a perfect example. Its still just a bit of copper in plastic, when its on a Bentley it suddenly costs more then gold.
petjam said:
£3k for a new clutch and flywheel on an E60 M5.
This was done at 42k miles and it had a previous one replaced at 28k (18 months prior). Despite having full BMW warranty they told me to go jump. I threatened to sue and they rolled over and paid for the lot.
And they wonder why people are so cynical about warranties!This was done at 42k miles and it had a previous one replaced at 28k (18 months prior). Despite having full BMW warranty they told me to go jump. I threatened to sue and they rolled over and paid for the lot.
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