What's Your most expensive motoring mechanical disaster?

[Wacky Racer]

I expect some Ph'ers have had to dig very very deep to shell out for some extremely expensive repair work, con rods through crankcases, auto gearbox failures and replacements, TVR engine rebuilds, that kind of thing......

What are your horror stories and how did you cope financially?, as things like this usually happen out of the blue when you are least expecting them....

[randlemarcus]

Battery on backwards , fried V70 ECU. Oops. Not 100% sure on the financials yet? Want to buy a Spares/repairs estate?

[surveyor]

Water in the power steering fluid... Did not realise until the coolant light came on again. Asked my local mechanic and he went to a completely different tank. What's that one then I said.....

Cost was £600 - a lot to a student in the 90's.

[DanoS4]

Bore score on a Porsche 996...... OUCH!

forgot the price - circa £5 figures

Edited by DanoS4 on Monday 9th June 21:15

[Chest Rockwell]

Cambelt snapped on a C Plate Ford Escort 1.3L. I got it home a few days later but stupidly called my local Ford 'Lookers' dealership to ask if the valves would have been trashed. "yes, them valves will be fuarked mate" the resident expert mechanic told me, "new head will be required, we can do it for £1200 plus VAT".

Next day I located a D plate 1.3 Escort in a scrappy so negotiated a deal of £100 for the engine. Thought it pointless insisting on the Head only plus I don't think he was interested in breaking up the engine. This was around 1997 and I was a student at the time having jacked in my shat job to go to Uni, so £100 was quite a wedge of cash. Also, I had to hire an engine crane for a few days and that was around £60. The motor had 10 months MOT left on it so it was deffo 'cheaper to keep her' and drop a replacement lump in it.

Anyway, I start dismantling the original engine only to take the head off and notice that the valves were OK and the pistons were 'safe' or whatever they called it, they were crowned I believe? Unfortunately, with an engine as old as that, taking the head off and putting it back on would have required some skimming, de-coking and all that ste? I already had the replacement engine in the garage so there was no going back. Fitted the replacement and all was well, but it was a real pain in the c0ck. The Escort was my first FWD car so I didn't realise that I would need to drop the Engine on the deck and crane the car up and drag the engine out on my old skateboard etc...I was used to my old RWDs Sierras and Granadas where the engine came up and out LOL.

[greendiff]

melted cylinder 5 in my T5.

Broken for parts and scrapped.

[hotchy]

Most expensive? Bought a 206 gti replica 10 years ago (was 17) within 2 months, new clutch, gearbox, pads + disks. Finally all replaced for quit a bit and i crashed it while driving 2 mph and wrote it off and got paid about what repairing it cost lol

[eddrevhen]

Not necessarily expensive, rather unlucky...

First car was a corsa.. Reasonably New at the time but just out of warranty...Head gasket went.. Fixed.. Engine mounts snapped.. Fixed.. Driving a fairly famous/household named dj to a gig as a favour to a friend and the car decided to run lumpy.. Turns out it was starved of oil! I've since grown up and learnt about car maintenance.. And not to buy vx!

[LukeDM]

Lowered my Golf so much that it pulled the drive shaft out the gearbox sheering the bolts in the CV joint and sending the bearings rolling down the road, £70 for a motor factors CV joint. Am I doing this right?

[m444ttb]

Two months after I bought a 1996 BMW e35 328i Sport back in 2004 it was diagnosed as having excessive bore wear. Usual Nikasil problem for that age car. I think I spent £1,500 on a new short block kit from BMW and fitting at an independent. Luckily BMW were doing discounted block kits at that point so it cost me c£700 after a friend that worked at BMW added some further discount. 6 months later BMW stopped the discount and the kit went up to something like £2,500!

[surveyor]

Also - not my bill, but a new 7g gearbox in a Mercedes. Under warranty - the part cost £3.5k alone.

[MrBarry123]

Replacement Mechatronic Unit and two clutch packs. Bill was £3,200 + VAT and was, luckily, covered 85% by VW and 15% by RAC Warranty.

[johnny fotze]

Twenty days after buying an e46 320d for the oil pump failed resulting in a seized engine and snapped camshafts. I nearly cried (I didn't though, I'm not soft). £1.5k, that's nearly £500 for every week of ownership.

Edited by johnny fotze on Monday 9th June 21:25

[judas]

Had a few big bill over the years:

Engine went pop in the Tuscan just out of warranty (they all do that, Sir!) - needed a new head, block and most other parts. TVR said that will be £10k please; I said I'd see them in court. Settled at £1k provided they stuck a 12 month warranty on the rebuild and had in back to me in time for Le Mans 2005, which they did.

Boxster S popped a core plug - £2.5k for the rebuild using a second hand head (would have been closer to £5k with a new head)

Current Alfa GTV: big end bearing failure just after I'd got it back after spending £3k on a cambelt service and various upgrades Spent another grand getting a second hand engine put in.

Best one was the the Ferrari 348 which ate its diff and sheared off the driveshaft mountings It was also due an engine-out cambelt service so had it all sorted at the same time. I was smarting after that one...

[Stedman]

greendiff said:

melted cylinder 5 in my T5.

Broken for parts and scrapped.

Good effort.

[Impasse]

Paddock Hill. £14k.

[lbc]

Turbo failures on high mileage diesel cars. I have had 2 fail at similar cost, but I was doing high mileage at the time.

Most expensive was Audi A4 £1,600 included new turbo, exhaust and catalytic converter.

[bint]

My own fault really, but after fitting 50hp of nitrous to my gen6 celica I spat most of the engine out on the A14/A11 seeing off a BMW. 2 days before going to china for 2 weeks. My beloved (now, but then only just by 1 month) boyfriend and the celica club got a new engine and the car rebuilt and he paid for everything. Xx

The next one was the Alfa ( what did you expect I hear you cry?!) about 6 months after I'd bought her, top end rebuild needed as a previous mechanic hadn't put it back together properly and the cams had worn smooth as they'd rattled around.
One of those things, but such a pretty car and engine it was worth it - 6 years of faultless motoring, it was the suspension cost that meant we had to say goodbye.

[mclwanB]

Not so much overall but as a percentage of value;:

1. Piston transgression through block. Known Vag pd 1.9 tdi problem with bxe engine code, 2.5yrs old/62k miles. Car worth 7k, reconditioned engine 6k fitted (wasn't my car then)

2. Detonated engine presumably lead to gearbox failure at 105k miles. Cost (incl flywheel& clutch £3008, car worth 4k. (Was my car then

Legendary Skoda/VAG reliability. ..

[johnnymaestro]

Not me, but a friend drove his 1 week old 735i into a ford and flooded the engine. £7k later he had a nice new shiny engine.