Can I afford to run these cars?

[SuperchargedVR6]

bqf said:

New pads and discs for any of these cars will cost a fkload, and if anything serious goes wrong you'd be very unhappy indeed.

Is that because of the materials used, or purely a profit making scheme because these cars chew through them so much quicker than 'normal' cars?

I can understand carbon ceramics being expensive, but normal steel brakes, I don't get the massive difference in price compared to a sporty road car's brakes.

[bqf]

SuperchargedVR6 said:

bqf said:

New pads and discs for any of these cars will cost a fkload, and if anything serious goes wrong you'd be very unhappy indeed.

Is that because of the materials used, or purely a profit making scheme because these cars chew through them so much quicker than 'normal' cars?

I can understand carbon ceramics being expensive, but normal steel brakes, I don't get the massive difference in price compared to a sporty road car's brakes.

It varies I guess. The differential between, say, a BMW 650i's discs and those on an M6 is horrendous. They're both just steel, but the prices are nuts for proper performance cars.

My old E55 needed new discs and pads all round - £1,000, at an indy, 3 years ago....

[R0B.]

SuperchargedVR6 said:

bqf said:

New pads and discs for any of these cars will cost a fkload, and if anything serious goes wrong you'd be very unhappy indeed.

Is that because of the materials used, or purely a profit making scheme because these cars chew through them so much quicker than 'normal' cars?

I can understand carbon ceramics being expensive, but normal steel brakes, I don't get the massive difference in price compared to a sporty road car's brakes.

Realistically how often do you replace the discs? Unless you're going to be tracking the car (unlikley with the Bentley) you may be worrying about nothing, especially if they've been replaced recently.

[bqf]

R0B. said:

SuperchargedVR6 said:

bqf said:

New pads and discs for any of these cars will cost a fkload, and if anything serious goes wrong you'd be very unhappy indeed.

Is that because of the materials used, or purely a profit making scheme because these cars chew through them so much quicker than 'normal' cars?

I can understand carbon ceramics being expensive, but normal steel brakes, I don't get the massive difference in price compared to a sporty road car's brakes.

Realistically how often do you replace the discs? Unless you're going to be tracking the car (unlikley with the Bentley) you may be worrying about nothing, especially if they've been replaced recently.

Every 3 years max. Particularly the Bentley - it's a properly heavy car

[RWD cossie wil]

Some dealers must be laughing all the way to the bank with some of the figures quoted come service time?!

Do people seriously still take their cars to main dealers for basic work like brakes, tyres, oil changes etc? No wonder you are getting 6k service bills!!!!!

I run 3 cars, a heavily tuned 911 turbo, a supercharged E46 M3 & the daily 535d.... Running all three costs less than £1500 a year for all of the basics (insurance, tax,MOT), Fuel isn't an issue as you can only drive one car at a time, plus tyre wear etc is spread across the three cars... I probably do 4-5k a year in each "fun" car, and 8-10k in the 535d.

The only big bills I have had have been choice spends for tuning work, or improving the cars with bigger brakes etc, if you have half a clue about maintenance then you can get jobs done by specialists for very reasonable amounts, plus you get a much higher quality of work from decent independent traders than you do from any main stealer!

OP, £1500 a month will get you pretty much any car you want, however your main problem seems to be lack of deposit, personally I wouldn't really want to finance much more than 50% of the car, as you are looking at a serious chunk of cash going out every month, any major expenses & it will wipe you out..

Find a car in the 20-25k bracket that is fast, fun, interesting enough not to depreciate & not stupid upkeep costs. You could comfortably run lots of amazing cars, plus be able to chuck 1k a month into a savings fund that will give you a great slush fund for repairs/running costs, and if you don't use it then you have saved 24k in two years & you have a supercar pot ready to go

[phib]

They tend to chew through brakes as the brake force ( if that's the right expression) is much higher.

Think of trying to stop a 2 tonne garden shed from 120mph !!! That used to chew up our GTC's brakes quickly we had disks probably every two years and pads every year ( I did do a lot of miles though and didn't drive it that slowly !!)

As for my elise I think its still on its ( rather horrible now !!) disks as it has no weight to stop !!

Added to that Bentley, Ferrari parts are just more expensive. However if your smart there are group buys on disks (Pistonheads / sport Maserati, owners clubs etc) that help.

I think I paid something like £325 for four disks for my Ferrari 550 out of the same factory as opposed to £1200 if I bought through Ferrari UK ( numbers are approximately correct)

Having reflected on this if it was me I would buy something uncomplicated first with cheapish bills ( Elise, TVR etc) , see how you get on with it and then buy what you want.

Phib

[Ranchitup]

Shnozz said:

OP - not meaning to add to the antagonistic posters or those who argue you need to maximise your pension fund etc first but, genuine Q.

If this has been your dream for so long, and your living expenses are so minimal, how come you haven't made big inroads in savings (or equity in an existing motor) to follow said dream? You envisage having £1500 throw away money and, unless your circumstances have changed massively only recently, one would think you would have had that historically to build more than a £3k deposit.

30 something sensible head person thinking here says why not "test run" potential ownership costs of an R8 or whatever by throwing £1500 a month into the bank for 6 months, building up another £9k to put down on the car, and take advantage of winter price drops on sports cars to boot.

Hey. Yeah my situation changed drastically only last year where I finally qualified and landed my job. My pay shot up by about 300%!
Also, since then I’ve been going on loads of holidays to finally do things that I was deprived of for so long so the car took a back seat for a year or so. Now I’m in a position to invest but have one expensive holiday in September. I do wish I had saved enough for the winter price drop though.

RWD cossie wil said:

Some dealers must be laughing all the way to the bank with some of the figures quoted come service time?!

Do people seriously still take their cars to main dealers for basic work like brakes, tyres, oil changes etc? No wonder you are getting 6k service bills!!!!!

I run 3 cars, a heavily tuned 911 turbo, a supercharged E46 M3 & the daily 535d.... Running all three costs less than £1500 a year for all of the basics (insurance, tax,MOT), Fuel isn't an issue as you can only drive one car at a time, plus tyre wear etc is spread across the three cars... I probably do 4-5k a year in each "fun" car, and 8-10k in the 535d.

The only big bills I have had have been choice spends for tuning work, or improving the cars with bigger brakes etc, if you have half a clue about maintenance then you can get jobs done by specialists for very reasonable amounts, plus you get a much higher quality of work from decent independent traders than you do from any main stealer!

OP, £1500 a month will get you pretty much any car you want, however your main problem seems to be lack of deposit, personally I wouldn't really want to finance much more than 50% of the car, as you are looking at a serious chunk of cash going out every month, any major expenses & it will wipe you out..

Find a car in the 20-25k bracket that is fast, fun, interesting enough not to depreciate & not stupid upkeep costs. You could comfortably run lots of amazing cars, plus be able to chuck 1k a month into a savings fund that will give you a great slush fund for repairs/running costs, and if you don't use it then you have saved 24k in two years & you have a supercar pot ready to go

What kinda car do you recommend for £20-25k? How much did your 911 turbo cost if you dont mind me asking? Got any pics?

phib said:

Having reflected on this if it was me I would buy something uncomplicated first with cheapish bills ( Elise, TVR etc) , see how you get on with it and then buy what you want.

Phib

Yeah I'm deffo reconsidering something more sensible. But it has to stand out!

[Impasse]

Too much pontificating, not enough buying going on here. OP, purchase whatever you like but do it this weekend.

[Shnozz]

Ranchitup said:

phib said:

Having reflected on this if it was me I would buy something uncomplicated first with cheapish bills ( Elise, TVR etc) , see how you get on with it and then buy what you want.

Phib

Yeah I'm deffo reconsidering something more sensible. But it has to stand out!

Buy a Tuscan for £25k and I can assure you you will stand out.

[Ranchitup]

Shnozz said:

Buy a Tuscan for £25k and I can assure you you will stand out.

Aren't they horridly unreliable? They dont look ALL that tbh to me.

[Shnozz]

Ranchitup said:

Shnozz said:

Buy a Tuscan for £25k and I can assure you you will stand out.

Aren't they horridly unreliable?

They have niggles. But then you have included a Maserati on your maybe baby list too.

Find one with a rebuild (and ideally with transferable warranty) and cross your fingers.

[Ranchitup]

Shnozz said:

They have niggles. But then you have included a Maserati on your maybe baby list too.

Find one with a rebuild (and ideally with transferable warranty) and cross your fingers.

The Maserati Granturismo apparently is quite reliable; only going to the garage every two years for services. It APPARENTLY has improved a lot from its predecessors.

[bqf]

Ranchitup said:

Shnozz said:

Maserati Granturismo is quite reliable; only going to the garage every two years for services. It APPARENTLY has improved a lot from its predecessors.

...it's too young to properly drain your cash....wait until it starts getting old

[jamieduff1981]

SuperchargedVR6 said:

bqf said:

New pads and discs for any of these cars will cost a fkload, and if anything serious goes wrong you'd be very unhappy indeed.

Is that because of the materials used, or purely a profit making scheme because these cars chew through them so much quicker than 'normal' cars?

I can understand carbon ceramics being expensive, but normal steel brakes, I don't get the massive difference in price compared to a sporty road car's brakes.

Economies of scale. Mondeo pads are churned out by the thousand, and the discs probably fit numerous models throughout the range. Manufacturing costs are minimised due to huge numbers of units. Tooling costs are dispersed across millions of units.

Not so with a halo model or anything unusual with unique/bespoke brakes. Tooling costs are just as high as for a Mondeo but spread across a much smaller number of units sold.

Same goes for stock-holding costs etc etc etc.

[750turbo]

I would recommend the R8 with ceramic discs, just what could go wrong?



Jeesus wept!

[phib]

Ranchitup said:

The Maserati Granturismo apparently is quite reliable; only going to the garage every two years for services. It APPARENTLY has improved a lot from its predecessors.

The oldest ( cheapest 4.2) will be 7/8 years old now, as with anything 7/8 years old you will run into brakes, wheels, bushes etc etc basically all the things that perish or are consumables. This would be the same with any car of this age.

So how about a mini Ferrari .... ( the one on the left !!)

photo uploader
Or if you want to be noticed
image upload no compression


Phib

[Hungrymc]

Impasse said:

Too much pontificating, not enough buying going on here. OP, purchase whatever you like but do it this weekend.

I did exactly this last weekend.

[Ranchitup]

phib said:

The oldest ( cheapest 4.2) will be 7/8 years old now, as with anything 7/8 years old you will run into brakes, wheels, bushes etc etc basically all the things that perish or are consumables. This would be the same with any car of this age.

So how about a mini Ferrari .... ( the one on the left !!)

photo uploader
Or if you want to be noticed
image upload no compression


Phib

Phb what is that car? Elise S3? Would look really good in white. Dunno if the gf would find it comfortable mind you.Prices are coming up to Maserati GT money. Maintenance on this is much cheaper I assume?

Edited by Ranchitup on Friday 29th July 16:50

[phib]

Ranchitup said:

Phb what is that car? Elise S2? Would look really good in white. Dunno if the gf would find it comfortable mind you.

The red one is an elise S2 and the green one is a lotus elise s cup ( based on the s2 I think) (decent elise s2 is something like £15-25K) mine is a basic 1.8 Toyota one with air con and not much else, will happily run rings around the Ferrari's in real world driving, not a bad place to start but very different from Bentley, I have a GTC as well.

My elise is pretty comfortable once your in, I use it more than all the others

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/l...

or a bit cheaper in orange !!

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/l...



Phib

Edited by phib on Friday 29th July 16:53

[Ranchitup]

phib said:

The red one is an elise S2 and the green one is a lotus elise s cup ( based on the s2 I think) (decent elise s2 is something like £15-25K) mine is a basic 1.8 Toyota one with air con and not much else, will happily run rings around the Ferrari's in real world driving, not a bad place to start but very different from Bentley, I have a GTC as well.

My elise is pretty comfortable once your in, I use it more than all the others

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/l...

or a bit cheaper in orange !!

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/l...



Phib

Edited by phib on Friday 29th July 16:53

The second link is the same as the first. These seem really decent though with aircon and heated seats. I really need to test drive this, the porsche and the R8