Am I kidding myself?
Discussion
My wife has recently given up and surrendered to my constant email links to cars I find for sale and has said I should just bloody well buy one and shut up 
So, I now have had a focus for my browsing, and over the past few weeks have refined my wants/needs etc right down to a Lexus LS400.
My budget is small (circa £1k) so it will be an early model. I can afford the tax & insurance and can live with 20mpg as it will only be used to ferry me to work three times a week.
The nagging concern I have is with maintaining it. I currently budget £600 a year for my Octavia, which has proved sufficient during my ownership to service, MOT, repair and tyre it.
I don't doubt that the LS400 will cost more than this, and I could afford to double it to £1200 a year, but that would be about as much as I could give it.
Am I kidding myself that this is enough?
So, I now have had a focus for my browsing, and over the past few weeks have refined my wants/needs etc right down to a Lexus LS400.
My budget is small (circa £1k) so it will be an early model. I can afford the tax & insurance and can live with 20mpg as it will only be used to ferry me to work three times a week.
The nagging concern I have is with maintaining it. I currently budget £600 a year for my Octavia, which has proved sufficient during my ownership to service, MOT, repair and tyre it.
I don't doubt that the LS400 will cost more than this, and I could afford to double it to £1200 a year, but that would be about as much as I could give it.
Am I kidding myself that this is enough?
Gibby78 said:
its a lexus, you could probably budget £0 on maintainance, aren't the V8's the only thing that'll be left come the apocalypse
I like the idea It's comments on reviews like radiators costing £850 and alternators £650 that scare me a little. But then, I rarely trust reviews and assume they trawl through the parts lists and find the most expensive things on there.
I would prefer comments from owners on here to help my decision - at least they will be unbiased and based on owning the car.
phil_cardiff said:
I reckon it'd be enough for basically keeping it on the road legally but might not cover annoying niggles, for example electric window failures or the display on the computer packing in.
Thanks Phil. I could live with some of the toys packing in and having to wait/save up to repair them, providing I could keep it on the road.ETA Trots off to youtube for wheeler dealers......
Edited by cv01jw on Wednesday 9th June 16:11
Yeah, it'll be fine. I generally spend no more than £600 p.a. on the 95 Jag. And that's to fix everything. I could get by on half that if I only wanted to keep it on the road. The only thing is the odd occasion when something big goes wrong. Front brake pistons cost £600 to sort (new pistons, calipers, discs and pads both sides) last year, and that was a definite necessity. But generally, I reckon if you budgeted £600 and had an extra £600 available in an emergency, you'll be fine.
OK I have found a particularly nice LS400 a couple of hours away for £1,385.
Surprisingly the dealer will accept my Skoda as a p/x, albeit for £500 which is a little less than I had hoped for.
I am loathed to go through the faff of selling privately if I can avoid it and I really like the LS. Does anyone on here have any idea what sort of price I might get by putting the Skoda through my local Auction? I know it will be much lower than selling privately but will it be £500 low?
Surprisingly the dealer will accept my Skoda as a p/x, albeit for £500 which is a little less than I had hoped for.
I am loathed to go through the faff of selling privately if I can avoid it and I really like the LS. Does anyone on here have any idea what sort of price I might get by putting the Skoda through my local Auction? I know it will be much lower than selling privately but will it be £500 low?
cv01jw said:
My wife has recently given up and surrendered to my constant email links to cars I find for sale and has said I should just bloody well buy one and shut up
So, I now have had a focus for my browsing, and over the past few weeks have refined my wants/needs etc right down to a Lexus LS400.
My budget is small (circa £1k) so it will be an early model. I can afford the tax & insurance and can live with 20mpg as it will only be used to ferry me to work three times a week.
The nagging concern I have is with maintaining it. I currently budget £600 a year for my Octavia, which has proved sufficient during my ownership to service, MOT, repair and tyre it.
I don't doubt that the LS400 will cost more than this, and I could afford to double it to £1200 a year, but that would be about as much as I could give it.
Am I kidding myself that this is enough?
I posted this on another thread. Seems too good to be true - but worth a call....So, I now have had a focus for my browsing, and over the past few weeks have refined my wants/needs etc right down to a Lexus LS400.
My budget is small (circa £1k) so it will be an early model. I can afford the tax & insurance and can live with 20mpg as it will only be used to ferry me to work three times a week.
The nagging concern I have is with maintaining it. I currently budget £600 a year for my Octavia, which has proved sufficient during my ownership to service, MOT, repair and tyre it.
I don't doubt that the LS400 will cost more than this, and I could afford to double it to £1200 a year, but that would be about as much as I could give it.
Am I kidding myself that this is enough?
http://search.autotrader.co.uk/es-uk/www/cars/LEXU...
LEXUS LS400 Auto V8
Price: £995
77,000 miles
H reg. virtually excellent cond tout, UK supplied vehicle with only 77,000 careful miles, beautiful black green metallic + contrasting tan leath int, fully loaded inc elec seats, elec tilt steering column, CL alarm, EW, EM, AC, cruise control, lovely stereo & multi CD player, alloys etc. runs/drives beautifully, v powerful comfortable large cruising car, recently serviced taxed & MOT Aug, suit enthusiast, excellent value. Any car van p/ex welcome and all debit/credit cards. £995. n/o. 07831 389483 /
Trade Seller:
S J Evans
Contact number: 07831389483 or
01252 330915
I'm near Guildford, and it shows as 3 mile from me.
OP, did you catch the Wheeler Dealers episode? I noticed I had it on Sky+ so watched it last night. If you didn’t get a chance to watch it then I’ll summarise. They interviewed an owner who stated that the things to watch out for were
• Power steering pump leaking fluid onto the alternator
• Pixels on the LCD display giving up the ghost
• Full history
They bought a 1991 LS400 with 140k or so for £1200. All that was wrong with it was a scrape on the rear bumper, the pixel issue and worn bushes on the front suspension. They had the bumper resprayed, changed the control arms (I think) and changed the LCD display. All in it was roughly less than a grand if someone else had done the work.
In fact there was so little wrong with it that they spent the rest of the programme upgrading (unnecessarily I thought) things by adding a HID kit, clear indicator lenses, a Bluetooth kit and adding 17” alloys from the IS series. To be fair it looked like a nice old barge by the end of the show.
• Power steering pump leaking fluid onto the alternator
• Pixels on the LCD display giving up the ghost
• Full history
They bought a 1991 LS400 with 140k or so for £1200. All that was wrong with it was a scrape on the rear bumper, the pixel issue and worn bushes on the front suspension. They had the bumper resprayed, changed the control arms (I think) and changed the LCD display. All in it was roughly less than a grand if someone else had done the work.
In fact there was so little wrong with it that they spent the rest of the programme upgrading (unnecessarily I thought) things by adding a HID kit, clear indicator lenses, a Bluetooth kit and adding 17” alloys from the IS series. To be fair it looked like a nice old barge by the end of the show.
cv01jw said:
OK I have found a particularly nice LS400 a couple of hours away for £1,385.
Surprisingly the dealer will accept my Skoda as a p/x, albeit for £500 which is a little less than I had hoped for.
I am loathed to go through the faff of selling privately if I can avoid it and I really like the LS. Does anyone on here have any idea what sort of price I might get by putting the Skoda through my local Auction? I know it will be much lower than selling privately but will it be £500 low?
Why on earth would you even consider selling through an auction?Surprisingly the dealer will accept my Skoda as a p/x, albeit for £500 which is a little less than I had hoped for.
I am loathed to go through the faff of selling privately if I can avoid it and I really like the LS. Does anyone on here have any idea what sort of price I might get by putting the Skoda through my local Auction? I know it will be much lower than selling privately but will it be £500 low?
Sell it privately. If you can't be bothered, trade it in.
Putting a £500 car through an auction is madness unless you need money yesterday....
cv01jw said:
My wife has recently given up and surrendered to my constant email links to cars I find for sale and has said I should just bloody well buy one and shut up
You have those conversations with your wife?? I thought that was what PH was there for I tend to instigate the wife in a car conversation at the stage when I come home in something different to what I left in that morning
Matt UK said:
cv01jw said:
My wife has recently given up and surrendered to my constant email links to cars I find for sale and has said I should just bloody well buy one and shut up
You have those conversations with your wife?? I thought that was what PH was there for I tend to instigate the wife in a car conversation at the stage when I come home in something different to what I left in that morning
cv01jw said:
Gibby78 said:
its a lexus, you could probably budget £0 on maintainance, aren't the V8's the only thing that'll be left come the apocalypse
I like the idea It's comments on reviews like radiators costing £850 and alternators £650 that scare me a little. But then, I rarely trust reviews and assume they trawl through the parts lists and find the most expensive things on there.
I would prefer comments from owners on here to help my decision - at least they will be unbiased and based on owning the car.
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