Residuals, Man Maths and a 540C
Discussion
I'm in a similar position thinking of what comes next and not sure if the jump to the other two you mentioned is justifiable either. Nothing at the 570S price point at just under 100k compares performance or looks wise, I have little interest in Porsches which means maybe something nowhere near as quick but looks and sounds great. That's leaves an AM Vanquish ( I had a V12VS before) or a Maserati GT Stradale only problem with those is they are a bit heavy to take on trackdays which I always do 3-4 of a yr. Will wait until next year to see what happens with used car prices as everything feels v toppy right now.
Completely agree. The Emira is another left field idea
It says a lot for how good the 540/570 is, or what a 'bargain' (relatively) that they currently are.
We watched Skyfall last night so I'm planning a wee jaunt over to Glen Etive in the next few weeks before the weather turns. I did the trip in a V8 Vantage but fancy another visit.
It says a lot for how good the 540/570 is, or what a 'bargain' (relatively) that they currently are.
We watched Skyfall last night so I'm planning a wee jaunt over to Glen Etive in the next few weeks before the weather turns. I did the trip in a V8 Vantage but fancy another visit.
justin220 said:
Afternoon all.
Thought I'd post another quick update on the 540c as I've just had it back from its 4th service and MOT.
Sadly between MOTs I've only done 1800 miles which is far too low. I'm blaming COVID mainly but priorities have changed with my wee boy / dog. Just struggle to find a lot of time to get out and use it.
Saying that it's been relatively faultless, other than the radio tuner failing which was replaced under warranty. Possibly a blessing as the DAB reception is a lot better now.
Service and MOT cost for the 4th (major) service was £2086 all in. I think this is very reasonable as it also included a (£370!) air con regas, wipers and tyre inflator refresh which was out of date (?)
Warranty to renew was going to be £2850, which I've decided to brave and self-warranty. Time will tell if that's a good idea or not, but previous year when I did renew, I never used it other than the radio tuner. And with such little miles it's even harder to stomach!
I'm rapidly approaching my end of term PCP (4 years) so I'm needing to quickly decide what to do with the car come March. I'd love a trade up to a 600LT or 720S but I'm just not sure the cost to change is worth it to me. I'd be looking at a £60k cost to change.. And £60k buys a lot of a second car.
Other option would obviously be to change it for something of similar value, but there is literally nothing out there that tempts me. The 540C is such a good all rounder it's going to be hard to replace. I've thought about a complete change of direction (eg RS6) which i could daily but I'd definitely miss having the fun car in the garage.
I really must get out with the camera and get some pictures before winter hits!
Whilst you’ve sensibly kept your 540C for 4 years, I have changed several times only to end up not far away from where I started. From buying a new 570S, then into a Porsche 991.2 Turbo followed by a new Aston Martin Vantage. When the market bottomed out in January I grabbed the opportunity to upgrade into a perfect spec 10 month old 600LT Spider. It is an utterly stunning car to drive and own. I couldn’t recommend one highly enough as a perfect upgrade from your 540C. Thought I'd post another quick update on the 540c as I've just had it back from its 4th service and MOT.
Sadly between MOTs I've only done 1800 miles which is far too low. I'm blaming COVID mainly but priorities have changed with my wee boy / dog. Just struggle to find a lot of time to get out and use it.
Saying that it's been relatively faultless, other than the radio tuner failing which was replaced under warranty. Possibly a blessing as the DAB reception is a lot better now.
Service and MOT cost for the 4th (major) service was £2086 all in. I think this is very reasonable as it also included a (£370!) air con regas, wipers and tyre inflator refresh which was out of date (?)
Warranty to renew was going to be £2850, which I've decided to brave and self-warranty. Time will tell if that's a good idea or not, but previous year when I did renew, I never used it other than the radio tuner. And with such little miles it's even harder to stomach!
I'm rapidly approaching my end of term PCP (4 years) so I'm needing to quickly decide what to do with the car come March. I'd love a trade up to a 600LT or 720S but I'm just not sure the cost to change is worth it to me. I'd be looking at a £60k cost to change.. And £60k buys a lot of a second car.
Other option would obviously be to change it for something of similar value, but there is literally nothing out there that tempts me. The 540C is such a good all rounder it's going to be hard to replace. I've thought about a complete change of direction (eg RS6) which i could daily but I'd definitely miss having the fun car in the garage.
I really must get out with the camera and get some pictures before winter hits!
The cars in between the McLaren’s had their own unique abilities but neither is a supercar. The Porsche was fast but bland, the Vantage is an epic GT but not a drivers car compared to the McLaren. Now that I’ve owned the 600LT for a few months and covered over 3,000 miles, I am totally delighted I took the plunge. I’d only own a Spider version going forward. It offers you 2 cars for the price of one, a hardcore track tool and a relaxing topless stunner to enjoy when the suns out. I’ve had the roof off for 80% of the miles I’ve covered this year, good going in Scotland. The ride quality is not dissimilar to the 570S, the steering even sharper and every mile is epic. I was worried about the comfort of the Senna seats but they are brilliant, much better than the Porsche carbon buckets I had in my Porsche 981 Spyder, which are far too upright. I also notice an improvement in the build quality compared to my 2017 570S.
I’ve enjoyed a couple of Knockhill track days and the 600LT was amazing, but the standard Pirelli tyres are rubbish. You don’t notice it’s a Spider on track, nor at any other time regarding roof off rigidity. However, its an even better road car. I really don’t know what I could buy to replace it. When my manufacturers warranty expires in 2023, rather than spend a small fortune replacing my 600LT I am planning on extending the warranty.
Just want to say that this is one of my favourite forum threads, the combination of the wonderful photographs and your words opening up the experience of McLaren ownership and encouraging me to hope to follow suit in future. So yeah, sorry to hear of the recent issues you had with the car.
So yeah, but of an update well overdue. This thread was meant to be the ownership experience, warts and all, and this for me for the first major wart.. To set the scene, I've now owned the car for 4.5 years roughly and covered 15k miles. So averaging around 3k miles a year give or take. That's not taking account for COVID where the car probably did around 1k miles that year.
It's now 5 years old and overall it's been absolutely fantastic. Genuinely love it as it's been a complete pleasure, with no major issues along the way. The corrosion of the paint has been frustrating but McGlasgow have always been superb in sorting it and nothing that has really caused the car not to run. Pretty good going I guess in comparison to some unlucky others.
I was booked in for its 5th service at Glasgow recently which I believe is a major, plus coolant change. So I was expecting a reasonable bill, as there is normally something needed doing over and above the service alone.. As above, very little issues with mine so I self warranty. I renewed the warranty on the 4th year but for the 5th I decided not to. Only other minor issue was the plastic panel on the A pillar had snapped so needed replaced. Seems fairly common?!
I dropped the car Thursday evening, and Friday evening I had a missed call from McGlasgow, I knew it wasn't going to be good news! Quick call back to Ricky (who has recently replaced Scott) for the full run down of the issues. It seems the Scottish roads have had their way with the underneath, as quite a lot of corrosion was spotted. The full list was, and all was also recommend replacing rather than repair -
Air Con pipework corroded and leaking
Coolant pipework corroded and leaking
Wiper motor earth fault - wiper not parking correctly
Both rear suspension springs snapped due to corrosion (McLaren only replace full damper assemblies)
Tyres all at 3mm
Brakes with a bit of surface corrosion (suspect this is due to lack of use more than anything)
Service
Plastic panel replacement
Total bill - £13.5k
Naturally , caught me completely off guard and actually put a bit of a downer on the weekend as we were away for a wedding. Ricky was superb throughout though, and had a good chat through all of the issues. I understand McLaren need to recommend replacing parts rather than repairing, but the coolant pipe was simply just a clean up and remake job. It was only the connection leaking, and with a defuzz and refit it's fine. Still, has been by far my most significant bill to date, in fact most expensive car bill I've ever had, period. It's put me in three minds as to what to do next, do I keep it now this has all been done.. do I sell it on now that it's in a good state.. or trade up for an LT :lolup:
So yeah, bit of a nasty bill that certainly caught me unaware.. but I guess even with warrabty a lot of that wouldn't have been covered. Unsurprisingly since the service, the car feels brilliant . The rear suspension change has obviously made a huge difference.
Last frustrating point is that when the car was being cleaned up post service the guys noticed some more paint bubbling on the arches. These have already been replaced twice, and will now be changed for a third time thankfully it is within the 5 year window, just. But there seems to be a serious issue here as replacing wings can't become the norm on a car like this. Not sure what the issue is?!
It's now 5 years old and overall it's been absolutely fantastic. Genuinely love it as it's been a complete pleasure, with no major issues along the way. The corrosion of the paint has been frustrating but McGlasgow have always been superb in sorting it and nothing that has really caused the car not to run. Pretty good going I guess in comparison to some unlucky others.
I was booked in for its 5th service at Glasgow recently which I believe is a major, plus coolant change. So I was expecting a reasonable bill, as there is normally something needed doing over and above the service alone.. As above, very little issues with mine so I self warranty. I renewed the warranty on the 4th year but for the 5th I decided not to. Only other minor issue was the plastic panel on the A pillar had snapped so needed replaced. Seems fairly common?!
I dropped the car Thursday evening, and Friday evening I had a missed call from McGlasgow, I knew it wasn't going to be good news! Quick call back to Ricky (who has recently replaced Scott) for the full run down of the issues. It seems the Scottish roads have had their way with the underneath, as quite a lot of corrosion was spotted. The full list was, and all was also recommend replacing rather than repair -
Air Con pipework corroded and leaking
Coolant pipework corroded and leaking
Wiper motor earth fault - wiper not parking correctly
Both rear suspension springs snapped due to corrosion (McLaren only replace full damper assemblies)
Tyres all at 3mm
Brakes with a bit of surface corrosion (suspect this is due to lack of use more than anything)
Service
Plastic panel replacement
Total bill - £13.5k
Naturally , caught me completely off guard and actually put a bit of a downer on the weekend as we were away for a wedding. Ricky was superb throughout though, and had a good chat through all of the issues. I understand McLaren need to recommend replacing parts rather than repairing, but the coolant pipe was simply just a clean up and remake job. It was only the connection leaking, and with a defuzz and refit it's fine. Still, has been by far my most significant bill to date, in fact most expensive car bill I've ever had, period. It's put me in three minds as to what to do next, do I keep it now this has all been done.. do I sell it on now that it's in a good state.. or trade up for an LT :lolup:
So yeah, bit of a nasty bill that certainly caught me unaware.. but I guess even with warrabty a lot of that wouldn't have been covered. Unsurprisingly since the service, the car feels brilliant . The rear suspension change has obviously made a huge difference.
Last frustrating point is that when the car was being cleaned up post service the guys noticed some more paint bubbling on the arches. These have already been replaced twice, and will now be changed for a third time thankfully it is within the 5 year window, just. But there seems to be a serious issue here as replacing wings can't become the norm on a car like this. Not sure what the issue is?!
Thanks for sharing. What's striking is that all of those sound like very normal running issues with a car a few years old, yet as you say the total cost is rather out of the ordinary. I mean, it's not like it's a German performance car that needs an engine rebuild or anything.
To me this sort of situation does rather make the case for independent specialists over McLaren dealers for maintenance, since they can often offer more cost-effective fixes (such as replacing the springs but keeping the dampers, as has been discussed). However I'm not aware of any convenient for Glasgow.
The corrosion is odd, I understood it was a question of ensuring the appropriate surface preparation and primer is used before the paint is applied to the aluminium panel, to prevent the paint reacting with the metal. However one would have thought the replacements would be prepared with sufficient care to avoid the same problem recurring on the same panel. There are lots of cars with aluminium body panels that don't have these repeated issues - Volvo 740 estate tailgates and Mazda RX-7 bonnets to name just two. It seems like somebody needs to come up with a permanent solution for the issue, otherwise there are going to be a lot of wrapped Sports Series McLarens around!
I'm not convinced that you could buy anything else that wouldn't either feel like a step down, come with similar maintenance costs, or both. Perhaps a 911 GT3 of some kind?
If you're in a position to trade up to say a 2020 600LT that would obviously reset the clock on corrosion and might have lower costs if kept under warranty. For some people, trading up to stay within the five year window would work.
If I were you I'd assume that the overall running costs to date over 4.5 years are representative, including this latest bill, work out the annual average so far and ask yourself if the car's worth that to you.
Here's hoping for many more happy and problem-free miles!
To me this sort of situation does rather make the case for independent specialists over McLaren dealers for maintenance, since they can often offer more cost-effective fixes (such as replacing the springs but keeping the dampers, as has been discussed). However I'm not aware of any convenient for Glasgow.
The corrosion is odd, I understood it was a question of ensuring the appropriate surface preparation and primer is used before the paint is applied to the aluminium panel, to prevent the paint reacting with the metal. However one would have thought the replacements would be prepared with sufficient care to avoid the same problem recurring on the same panel. There are lots of cars with aluminium body panels that don't have these repeated issues - Volvo 740 estate tailgates and Mazda RX-7 bonnets to name just two. It seems like somebody needs to come up with a permanent solution for the issue, otherwise there are going to be a lot of wrapped Sports Series McLarens around!
I'm not convinced that you could buy anything else that wouldn't either feel like a step down, come with similar maintenance costs, or both. Perhaps a 911 GT3 of some kind?
If you're in a position to trade up to say a 2020 600LT that would obviously reset the clock on corrosion and might have lower costs if kept under warranty. For some people, trading up to stay within the five year window would work.
If I were you I'd assume that the overall running costs to date over 4.5 years are representative, including this latest bill, work out the annual average so far and ask yourself if the car's worth that to you.
Here's hoping for many more happy and problem-free miles!
Some great points there but don't agree on the running costs being regular. For me suspension, air con, coolant pipework and wiper motors shouldn't be failing after 5 years or 15k miles. The car is garaged at all times.
I do agree on keeping it though, probably makes the most sense, given what else is going on just now.
I'll be honest, the GT3s do nothing for me other than I respect how good they are. Just not something that I'd buy. I'd actually be more likely to go Boxster Spyder route I think but again, it's never really tempted me. It's an odd statement I know as I am extremely taken by our Cayenne. My wife misses her old Disco Sport but I think the cayenne is significantly better
I do agree on keeping it though, probably makes the most sense, given what else is going on just now.
I'll be honest, the GT3s do nothing for me other than I respect how good they are. Just not something that I'd buy. I'd actually be more likely to go Boxster Spyder route I think but again, it's never really tempted me. It's an odd statement I know as I am extremely taken by our Cayenne. My wife misses her old Disco Sport but I think the cayenne is significantly better
Edited by justin220 on Sunday 14th August 20:33
justin220 said:
Some great points there but don't agree on the running costs being regular. For me suspension, air con, coolant pipework and wiper motors shouldn't be failing after 5 years or 15k miles. The car is garaged at all times.
I do agree on keeping it though, probably makes the most sense, given what else is going on just now.
I'll be honest, the GT3s do nothing for me other than I respect how good they are. Just not something that I'd buy. I'd actually be more likely to go Boxster Spyder route I think but again, it's never really tempted me. It's an odd statement I know as I am extremely taken by our Cayenne. My wife misses her old Disco Sport but I think the cayenne is significantly better
I quite agree. On a car that’s done so little mileage it’s not acceptable. I do agree on keeping it though, probably makes the most sense, given what else is going on just now.
I'll be honest, the GT3s do nothing for me other than I respect how good they are. Just not something that I'd buy. I'd actually be more likely to go Boxster Spyder route I think but again, it's never really tempted me. It's an odd statement I know as I am extremely taken by our Cayenne. My wife misses her old Disco Sport but I think the cayenne is significantly better
Edited by justin220 on Sunday 14th August 20:33
Some of your list of issues are wear and tear or service items which you could do at the McLaren garage. The other corrosion related issue I would imagine could be done at a competent specialist for a fraction of the price.
What was the actual bill then? If you remove the tyres and servicing from this bill was it actually all that bad? I know its a bugger but TBH I went into Porsche and got rinsed £5000 for a service and tyres on one of their yawn machines that's with no faults or issues!
It would be interesting to know if all the issues would have been done under warranty I would say the AC pipe and coolant hose corrosion wouldn't be covered on an extended warranty would they?
I have certainly just accepted that the warranty is a fact of ownership. I haven't heard of any engine replacements on the 600 I have but have heard that the gearboxes are one that's been swapped out a fair bit.
Sounds like you have a had a decent run with nothing major for 4 years or more. I would imagine you'll probably get another 4 after this pain!
It would be interesting to know if all the issues would have been done under warranty I would say the AC pipe and coolant hose corrosion wouldn't be covered on an extended warranty would they?
I have certainly just accepted that the warranty is a fact of ownership. I haven't heard of any engine replacements on the 600 I have but have heard that the gearboxes are one that's been swapped out a fair bit.
Sounds like you have a had a decent run with nothing major for 4 years or more. I would imagine you'll probably get another 4 after this pain!
fridaypassion said:
What was the actual bill then? If you remove the tyres and servicing from this bill was it actually all that bad? I know its a bugger but TBH I went into Porsche and got rinsed £5000 for a service and tyres on one of their yawn machines that's with no faults or issues!
It would be interesting to know if all the issues would have been done under warranty I would say the AC pipe and coolant hose corrosion wouldn't be covered on an extended warranty would they?
I have certainly just accepted that the warranty is a fact of ownership. I haven't heard of any engine replacements on the 600 I have but have heard that the gearboxes are one that's been swapped out a fair bit.
Sounds like you have a had a decent run with nothing major for 4 years or more. I would imagine you'll probably get another 4 after this pain!
You were mugged, my wifes 991 has just had a major service including plugs and it was £1600It would be interesting to know if all the issues would have been done under warranty I would say the AC pipe and coolant hose corrosion wouldn't be covered on an extended warranty would they?
I have certainly just accepted that the warranty is a fact of ownership. I haven't heard of any engine replacements on the 600 I have but have heard that the gearboxes are one that's been swapped out a fair bit.
Sounds like you have a had a decent run with nothing major for 4 years or more. I would imagine you'll probably get another 4 after this pain!
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