bentley continental gt any good?

bentley continental gt any good?

Author
Discussion

Globs

13,841 posts

232 months

Thursday 20th June 2013
quotequote all
J4CKO said:
They should be pretty robust
They aren't though.
Although the bits of metal are bigger, so is the car so bits wear out just the same, and the electronic and electric gremlins are just the same as for a Renault (for example), except with comedy price tags.

BigBen

11,652 posts

231 months

Thursday 20th June 2013
quotequote all
Ozzie Osmond said:
What absolute cobblers. Have you ever owned a £100,000 car?

Maintaining a new £100,000 car is expensive. Maintaining an older £100,000 car sure as hell doesn't get cheaper.
Except it does get cheaper, even the main dealers do discount on parts and labour on older cars. Shopping around and DIY can save fortunes

Fox-

13,241 posts

247 months

Thursday 20th June 2013
quotequote all
BigBen said:
Except it does get cheaper, even the main dealers do discount on parts and labour on older cars. Shopping around and DIY can save fortunes
It's a balancing act though isnt' it? When its new, labour costs are high but visits to the dealer are almost always only for routine servicing. As it gets older, labour costs can come down but then things start to go wrong and require replacement, meaning you are buying more of the lower priced labour...

TVR1

5,463 posts

226 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
Piersman2 said:
Mind you, for £23995? cool

That's the one I p/exed for £19k

Lovely smile

traffman

2,263 posts

210 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
Why not budget for a 35 /40 k Bentley then purchase one for 25 to 30 k and bank the rest as a sinking fund in case thing's go a bit wrong.

Piersman2

6,599 posts

200 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
TVR1 said:
Piersman2 said:
Mind you, for £23995? cool

That's the one I p/exed for £19k

Lovely smile
Hang on, did i read that right, it WAS yoru car that you PX'ed for something else. And you took about 19K for it?

That's not a huge mark up for them then, generous, but not ripping like a main dealer.

What was wrong with it? smile

CYMR0

3,940 posts

201 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
Tyres on a 645i - £350 fitted for Nankangs (though Sailuns could be had for less)
Bentley - £580 fitted for Nankangs

Brakes on a 645i - £277 for discs and £45 for pads
Bentley - £671 for discs and £300 for pads

Plugs - 8 for £36 all in (taking an average price - it seems that different cars may need more or less expensive bits)
Bentley - 12 for £62 all in (again at an average price).

So all in all it seems that a Conti is 4x the price of a BMW 6 Series to buy and at least double overall in parts costs. Labour would depend on who's doing it but also on how easy the car is to work on.

PorkaFly

502 posts

164 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
Ok, so who with actual experience of owning a C-GT is going to comment? Rather than have the debate about an expensive car will always be expensive to run...let's take that as a given and answer the OPs question, as I'm genuinely interested in whether these cars are pretty bullet proof or a nightmare when they get older?

I've done a quick trawl of web and can find nothing really negative outside of consumables...so does it have electrical gremlins as it gets older or was that just misinformed forum speculation?

So to answer the OPs question...is it any good as an older cheaper purchase? Let's have facts...

One fact from me, I know that their mpg figures are very optimistic and are low teens to high single figures at best of times...making it super expensive on fuel alone to run.

PF

PowerfullyBuilt

131 posts

179 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
From the state of your spelling and grammar, you'll fit right in with the rest of the 1st Division footballers buying £28k used 'Bentleys'.

wink

anonymous-user

55 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
300bhp/ton said:
LeeMad said:
dont forget, just because theyve dropped into your price range, theyre still a £100k car that will cost a lot to maintain.
Why do people believe this?? There are some expensive bits but also a lot of common parts from VAG plus its not made from pixie dust and unicorn bits. It's nuts and bolts like any other car.

Specialists will charge huge amounts for simple parts and charge high labour rates for simple work. If you are buying at the bottom of the market there is no point over paying for parts and labour.
You've been told before that your thoughts on cheap Continental ownership are wrong. People with actual experience of these cars have taken their time to try and educate you on the subject, and then you go back to posting the exact same rubbish just a few months later. You'd expect people to taken on board your experience and thoughts on a subject that they were clearly wrong about and not expect them to forget it readily, why can you not show the same common courtesy to others? To be honest, its fking rude.

Moving on...

My thoughts as a former Bentley technician.

Older (04-05) cars aren't nearly as nice a place to be as a later car (06+). I found the leather in every 04-05 car to be shiny and nasty no matter how many miles were or were not on the clock, and bearing in mind that there is leather everywhere it'd be enough to put me off owning one and to cap it off they aren't as well screwed together as the later cars (cliche, but somehow true).

All GT series cars have a underbonnet plenum design that allows leafs to collect on the bulkhead. 04-05 cars had a special issue of having a badly designed plenum drain which meant leafs would easily block and cause the plenum to fill up with water. Did I mention that at the bottom of this plenum prone to flooding with water plenum contains a key electrical loom? Oh, and the outrageously expensive engine control modules live there as well, then directly below in the cabin below the passenger side carpet lives the Front body control module, and yes, it is about as expensive as it sounds, and yes, it is accessible to that water pooling above it in the plenum if you're particularly unlucky. If you're very unlucky the corrosion has been known to travel all over the loom on more than one occasion. And that's how a £20,000 Bentley racks up a £20,000 repair bill.

For anybody looking at any 04-05 GT I cannot stress how important it is to lift the bonnet, lift up the plenum and have a good look (with a torch) to see A) If the plenum has been kept free of leaves, B) If water is pooling and C) If the slice loom is corroded. No A or B does not necessarily mean no C, so have a look. I cannot stress this enough, if you're going to do anything before handing over your money, do this.

The fix requires half the interior to be stripped out in order to get the HVAC unit out, replacing the loom and carrying out the drain mod. Actually doing the fix takes all of 2 minutes, but it sits underneath the HVAC unit and thus, needs the interior stripping. If my memory serves me rightly, you'll be lucky to get change from £5,000, and that's the best case scenario.

Oh, and unless there is a receipt clearing outlining that the slice loom has been replaced, it hasn't and is prone to this issue happening. I've been asked to look over a few cheap GTs on the behalf of people in the past. Every Salesmen I've spoken to at prestige used car dealers seems to think that it was a part of some sort of Bentley recall which it certainly was not, so do take anyone's word for it.

As i mentioned, the drain was improved on 06 cars, but also the slice loom was relocated, so it is not so much of a worry.

They'll consume suspension bushes quicker than the original owners would have consumed champagne and caviar. Without a doubt top suspension arms and Anti roll bar links were the most common MOT failure item. If you said you got more than 25,000 miles out of a set, I’d call you a liar. If you got 15,000 out a set, I’d say you had a good run. My memory is terrible, but I think the arms alone (bushes not available separately) came to £600 for all 4 (two each side) (and from my experience no 300BHP, you cannot use the arms from a Phaeton) and bottom arms will run about a grand each (and there are four the them, but lucky they rarely then to go all at once). The antiroll bar links however are surprisingly cheap and easy to fit. Then you’ve got to align the car, and that is a nightmare on its own. Continental GTs are incredibly camber conscious cars and even when set within manufacture sets on a Top of the liner laser 4 wheel aligner, they’ll pull to the left. A LOT of fiddling about needs to be done to get them to drive nice, not one for Phil down the arches with the Dunlop gauges biggrin

The W12 is a very strong reliable engine mechanically; unfortunately the bits bolted to it aren’t so reliable. Many jobs that would be ‘ordinary’ on other cars GT automatically have £5,000+ slapped onto the price on a Conti car simply because of the packaging of the W12. Starter motor, some (or all, depending on who you speak to) Oxygen sensors, turbochargers, etc require the engine to be removed.

Look out for general electrical issues. Nothing in particular, but if you find a gadget doing something funky assume it is going to be a job for a specialist seeing how most control modules need programming with the correct diagnostic tools. Plug in and play does not apply.
The process might have changed since I last heard, but I believe the TPM sensors AND control module still need to be replaced about every 5 years on early cars. Easily a 4 figure job, nearly that in parts alone.

Every 4th year service is a spark plug change which requires the intake plenum to be removed to gain access to the plugs which means a lot of potential breakages if you don’t know what you’re doing. Every 6th year is the hydraulic service. Be carefully who you take it to, cross thread the wrong pipe and the engine needs to come out to replace it biggrin.

Would I recommend one? An early 04-05 car? Not a bloody chance. They’re liabilities. I’d entertain a 06+ onwards car, with a proper Bentley approved warranty, but I would have to convince myself that they were a significantly nicer car than say a 6 series or XKR. A Conti does feel like a better place to be than the BMW or Jaguar, but not quite as night and day as you’d have perhaps hoped.

Any questions feel free to post them and I'll do my best to help smile.

Edited by 279 on Friday 21st June 04:15


Edited by 279 on Friday 21st June 04:16

acer12

965 posts

175 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
300bhp/ton said:
Why do people believe this?? There are some expensive bits but also a lot of common parts from VAG plus its not made from pixie dust and unicorn bits. It's nuts and bolts like any other car.

Specialists will charge huge amounts for simple parts and charge high labour rates for simple work. If you are buying at the bottom of the market there is no point over paying for parts and labour.
Do we have to listen to the same rubbish out of you again
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

pimpin gimp

3,283 posts

201 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
acer12 said:
300bhp/ton said:
Why do people believe this?? There are some expensive bits but also a lot of common parts from VAG plus its not made from pixie dust and unicorn bits. It's nuts and bolts like any other car.

Specialists will charge huge amounts for simple parts and charge high labour rates for simple work. If you are buying at the bottom of the market there is no point over paying for parts and labour.
Do we have to listen to the same rubbish out of you again
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
I'm glad you found that, I had a weird feeling of déjà Vu.

300bhp/ton

41,030 posts

191 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
Dusty964 said:
Where would you suggest taking one then? A non specialist?
For certain work sure. If you are buying towards the bottom of the market on a car that is still losing money, where is the sense losing thousands of pounds just to say a 'specialist' changed the oil.

I have nothing against using the right expertise when required and some things will need it. But as the car are proving to be reliable and robust, it's fair cop to assume routine work and normal maintenance is the order of the day. Of which 90% of it is likely no different to working on a BMW, Jag, Ford or whatever.

It's also worth noting there are many older Bentleys, Turbo R's about. These have been kicking around the £10k mark for ages. And they where equally as pricey as the GT when new. But people seem perfectly able to maintain them without needing the income to buy a £100,000 car.

Fox-

13,241 posts

247 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
300bhp/ton said:
For certain work sure. If you are buying towards the bottom of the market on a car that is still losing money, where is the sense losing thousands of pounds just to say a 'specialist' changed the oil.

I have nothing against using the right expertise when required and some things will need it. But as the car are proving to be reliable and robust, it's fair cop to assume routine work and normal maintenance is the order of the day. Of which 90% of it is likely no different to working on a BMW, Jag, Ford or whatever.

It's also worth noting there are many older Bentleys, Turbo R's about. These have been kicking around the £10k mark for ages. And they where equally as pricey as the GT when new. But people seem perfectly able to maintain them without needing the income to buy a £100,000 car.
Lets use the same logic to say how cheap a used F10 M5 will be to run because lots of people manage E28 M5's.

300bhp/ton

41,030 posts

191 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
Ozzie Osmond said:
300bhp/ton said:
LeeMad said:
dont forget, just because theyve dropped into your price range, theyre still a £100k car that will cost a lot to maintain.
Why do people believe this?? There are some expensive bits but also a lot of common parts from VAG plus its not made from pixie dust and unicorn bits. It's nuts and bolts like any other car.
What absolute cobblers. Have you ever owned a £100,000 car?

Maintaining a new £100,000 car is expensive. Maintaining an older £100,000 car sure as hell doesn't get cheaper.
Are you just going to be like the rest and fail to answer this when I ask?

Why does it not get cheaper? Where exactly do you think your money goes?


You do understand that buying certain parts from Bentley might carry a HUGE markup, maybe 4 times more. And they charge premium labour rates.

Ozzie Osmond said:
Ferraris are built by Fiat. Are they cheap to run???
So how do people manage to maintain 308 GT4's, 400i's and Mondials? I suspect most owners of these could not afford a new 458, yet they manage still.

300bhp/ton

41,030 posts

191 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
Krikkit said:
Yes, 300bhp, they are pretty expensive when things go wrong.
But that's the crux of buying used and/or specialist cars. Are you buying it with the expectation of it going wrong, or are you buying it with the expectation that it'll just need normal planned for maintenance?

On this note.... if you are claiming they go wrong. What bits exactly?


Ozzie Osmond said:
Some parts are interchangeable with high-end VAG stuff, others are bespoke and hence cost £££. Not to mention finding a garage willing and able to work on one properly given their electrical complexity.
In what way are they more electrically complex than most modern vehicles? Which bits specifically?

The Moose

22,867 posts

210 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
If you do go ahead OP, drop me a PM. My father uses a mobile specialist Bentley independent who is, apparently, rather good at what he does and doesn't cost the earth.

Granted my old man's annual mileage isn't huge and he's owned the car from new so knows the car from the beginning of it's life and all it's history (07 car).

300bhp/ton

41,030 posts

191 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
V8RX7 said:
Because it's true !

Price me up for a 530 BMW and a GT:

Set of tyres
Complete set of brakes
Change the spark plugs
Why a 530 BMW? That's a large 4 door saloon car. Surely something like a 996 Turbo would be more akin to the GT or maybe an M5/M6.

As for tyres, well Google says they should be 275/40R19's which is an OEM size for Merc, BMW and Porsche. I suspect you could also get away with a 265 which again is OEM for the above makers.

That said these appear to be the 'correct' tyre:
http://camskill.co.uk/m55b0s1662p101439/Pirelli_Ty...


£220 each. Although there are cheaper options from £170. And this is without even trying to find alternatives.

BTW - I've spent this kind of money on Land Rover tyres... not a £100,000 car.


But the important thing is - buying tyres for the GT would be no more costly than buying them for any other car running a similar tyre size, be it a Porker, BMW or whatever. All available for the same sort of money as the GT's can be had from.


Front Mintex pads - £31.45
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MINTEX-MDB1746-FRONT-BRA...

Rear OE spec pads - £40
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bentley-Continental-GT-F...


I would need to research the discs as I don't know if they are unique to the GT or if they are the same as fitted to other VAG vehicles and could be sourced cheaper. That said I've seen them for circa £200-220/pair


Spark plugs I too would want to research, if you don't need and "VAG" special tools for access, then anyone can change them.

The plugs are £88
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12x-Bentley-Continental-...

Which I think it perfectly fine as a £1500 XJ-S V12 wouldn't be a lot different in cost of buying the plugs. Hell a full set for a V8 Land Rover 90 are over £40.

so called

9,090 posts

210 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
279 said:
You've been told before that your thoughts on cheap Continental ownership are wrong. People with actual experience of these cars have taken their time to try and educate you on the subject, and then you go back to posting the exact same rubbish just a few months later. You'd expect people to taken on board your experience and thoughts on a subject that they were clearly wrong about and not expect them to forget it readily, why can you not show the same common courtesy to others? To be honest, its fking rude.

Moving on...

My thoughts as a former Bentley technician.

Older (04-05) cars aren't nearly as nice a place to be as a later car (06+). I found the leather in every 04-05 car to be shiny and nasty no matter how many miles were or were not on the clock, and bearing in mind that there is leather everywhere it'd be enough to put me off owning one and to cap it off they aren't as well screwed together as the later cars (cliche, but somehow true).

All GT series cars have a underbonnet plenum design that allows leafs to collect on the bulkhead. 04-05 cars had a special issue of having a badly designed plenum drain which meant leafs would easily block and cause the plenum to fill up with water. Did I mention that at the bottom of this plenum prone to flooding with water plenum contains a key electrical loom? Oh, and the outrageously expensive engine control modules live there as well, then directly below in the cabin below the passenger side carpet lives the Front body control module, and yes, it is about as expensive as it sounds, and yes, it is accessible to that water pooling above it in the plenum if you're particularly unlucky. If you're very unlucky the corrosion has been known to travel all over the loom on more than one occasion. And that's how a £20,000 Bentley racks up a £20,000 repair bill.

For anybody looking at any 04-05 GT I cannot stress how important it is to lift the bonnet, lift up the plenum and have a good look (with a torch) to see A) If the plenum has been kept free of leaves, B) If water is pooling and C) If the slice loom is corroded. No A or B does not necessarily mean no C, so have a look. I cannot stress this enough, if you're going to do anything before handing over your money, do this.

The fix requires half the interior to be stripped out in order to get the HVAC unit out, replacing the loom and carrying out the drain mod. Actually doing the fix takes all of 2 minutes, but it sits underneath the HVAC unit and thus, needs the interior stripping. If my memory serves me rightly, you'll be lucky to get change from £5,000, and that's the best case scenario.

Oh, and unless there is a receipt clearing outlining that the slice loom has been replaced, it hasn't and is prone to this issue happening. I've been asked to look over a few cheap GTs on the behalf of people in the past. Every Salesmen I've spoken to at prestige used car dealers seems to think that it was a part of some sort of Bentley recall which it certainly was not, so do take anyone's word for it.

As i mentioned, the drain was improved on 06 cars, but also the slice loom was relocated, so it is not so much of a worry.

They'll consume suspension bushes quicker than the original owners would have consumed champagne and caviar. Without a doubt top suspension arms and Anti roll bar links were the most common MOT failure item. If you said you got more than 25,000 miles out of a set, I’d call you a liar. If you got 15,000 out a set, I’d say you had a good run. My memory is terrible, but I think the arms alone (bushes not available separately) came to £600 for all 4 (two each side) (and from my experience no 300BHP, you cannot use the arms from a Phaeton) and bottom arms will run about a grand each (and there are four the them, but lucky they rarely then to go all at once). The antiroll bar links however are surprisingly cheap and easy to fit. Then you’ve got to align the car, and that is a nightmare on its own. Continental GTs are incredibly camber conscious cars and even when set within manufacture sets on a Top of the liner laser 4 wheel aligner, they’ll pull to the left. A LOT of fiddling about needs to be done to get them to drive nice, not one for Phil down the arches with the Dunlop gauges biggrin

The W12 is a very strong reliable engine mechanically; unfortunately the bits bolted to it aren’t so reliable. Many jobs that would be ‘ordinary’ on other cars GT automatically have £5,000+ slapped onto the price on a Conti car simply because of the packaging of the W12. Starter motor, some (or all, depending on who you speak to) Oxygen sensors, turbochargers, etc require the engine to be removed.

Look out for general electrical issues. Nothing in particular, but if you find a gadget doing something funky assume it is going to be a job for a specialist seeing how most control modules need programming with the correct diagnostic tools. Plug in and play does not apply.
The process might have changed since I last heard, but I believe the TPM sensors AND control module still need to be replaced about every 5 years on early cars. Easily a 4 figure job, nearly that in parts alone.

Every 4th year service is a spark plug change which requires the intake plenum to be removed to gain access to the plugs which means a lot of potential breakages if you don’t know what you’re doing. Every 6th year is the hydraulic service. Be carefully who you take it to, cross thread the wrong pipe and the engine needs to come out to replace it biggrin.

Would I recommend one? An early 04-05 car? Not a bloody chance. They’re liabilities. I’d entertain a 06+ onwards car, with a proper Bentley approved warranty, but I would have to convince myself that they were a significantly nicer car than say a 6 series or XKR. A Conti does feel like a better place to be than the BMW or Jaguar, but not quite as night and day as you’d have perhaps hoped.

Any questions feel free to post them and I'll do my best to help smile.

Edited by 279 on Friday 21st June 04:15


Edited by 279 on Friday 21st June 04:16
279, top quality post.
I've also been mulling over the GT for a couple of years now.
What would PH be without people like yourself sharing knowledge.
Much appreciated.
Cheers.

300bhp/ton

41,030 posts

191 months

Friday 21st June 2013
quotequote all
Jimmy No Hands said:
http://www.pmcuk.com/content.asp?id=89

Breakdown of a quote for new brakes (well discs & pads) all around on a Bentley CGT.


Comes to... £1650. smile
I'm not wishing to be rude, but did you actually read the thing you posted?

£360 labour??? Changing the brakes on a GT is no harder than any other car, so the labour rate should be no higher. It is higher because of the place you are getting the work done.

So there's a huge saving to be had by just paying more sensible labour rates. Or if you are an enthusiast - have a go yourself for free!

And look at all the other items they charge for. £5.00 for solvent cleaner? What you mean normal brake cleaner that you can buy in Halfords for £2.99 and will last years and years?


And the best has to be the front brake pads £230 they want, despite the fact I've just posted a link to buy Mintex front pads for £31.45