Annual running costs on a 4.2/4.5
Discussion
The Cerbera has always been a pin up of mine. But as you from time to time I've been having a browse of the classifieds. This lead to a but of a Google too.
How scary are the running costs for a Cerbera? I've read that you need to budget £2000-3000 a year for normal maintenance
are they truly this costly?
I've had yank metal for the past 5 years and to date it's cost me £2.67 in non service items and even including all new brakes only £500-700 in total over this period of time.
Are 4.5's and better/worse than 4.2's to run and maintain?
Ta
How scary are the running costs for a Cerbera? I've read that you need to budget £2000-3000 a year for normal maintenance
are they truly this costly?I've had yank metal for the past 5 years and to date it's cost me £2.67 in non service items and even including all new brakes only £500-700 in total over this period of time.
Are 4.5's and better/worse than 4.2's to run and maintain?
Ta
These are the sort of numbers (guestimates rather than precise):-
Engine rebuild £3K (without engine in/out costs)
Engine in/out £1K
Disks £500
Clutch £1.5K
Tyres £600
Rad £500
Hoses £250
Chassis £3K
Suspension rebuild etc £750
Niggle fixes, average = £250
Service = £700
Tappets = £300
Aircon fixes / regas = £100 to £350
Steering rack = lots
Accelerator cable = a bit.
Upgrades = whatever you want to spend.
It depends on your appetite for risk plus your handiness with spanners plus your luck with your car plus the maintenance spend by last owner plus your ability to ignore/miss niggles etc etc
Ultimately if you cant afford £3K per year then, IMHO, you are into taking a risk that you might not be able to buy yourself out of. I have had very few years where a cerb has cost me £3K - most years have been much much more!
Engine rebuild £3K (without engine in/out costs)
Engine in/out £1K
Disks £500
Clutch £1.5K
Tyres £600
Rad £500
Hoses £250
Chassis £3K
Suspension rebuild etc £750
Niggle fixes, average = £250
Service = £700
Tappets = £300
Aircon fixes / regas = £100 to £350
Steering rack = lots
Accelerator cable = a bit.
Upgrades = whatever you want to spend.
It depends on your appetite for risk plus your handiness with spanners plus your luck with your car plus the maintenance spend by last owner plus your ability to ignore/miss niggles etc etc
Ultimately if you cant afford £3K per year then, IMHO, you are into taking a risk that you might not be able to buy yourself out of. I have had very few years where a cerb has cost me £3K - most years have been much much more!
Gazzab said:
These are the sort of numbers (guestimates rather than precise):-
Engine rebuild £3K (without engine in/out costs)
Engine in/out £1K
Disks £500
Clutch £1.5K
Tyres £600
Rad £500
Hoses £250
Chassis £3K
Suspension rebuild etc £750
Niggle fixes, average = £250
Service = £700
Tappets = £300
Aircon fixes / regas = £100 to £350
Steering rack = lots
Accelerator cable = a bit.
Upgrades = whatever you want to spend.
It depends on your appetite for risk plus your handiness with spanners plus your luck with your car plus the maintenance spend by last owner plus your ability to ignore/miss niggles etc etc
Ultimately if you cant afford £3K per year then, IMHO, you are into taking a risk that you might not be able to buy yourself out of. I have had very few years where a cerb has cost me £3K - most years have been much much more!
So should expect most of the above to be yearly things??Engine rebuild £3K (without engine in/out costs)
Engine in/out £1K
Disks £500
Clutch £1.5K
Tyres £600
Rad £500
Hoses £250
Chassis £3K
Suspension rebuild etc £750
Niggle fixes, average = £250
Service = £700
Tappets = £300
Aircon fixes / regas = £100 to £350
Steering rack = lots
Accelerator cable = a bit.
Upgrades = whatever you want to spend.
It depends on your appetite for risk plus your handiness with spanners plus your luck with your car plus the maintenance spend by last owner plus your ability to ignore/miss niggles etc etc
Ultimately if you cant afford £3K per year then, IMHO, you are into taking a risk that you might not be able to buy yourself out of. I have had very few years where a cerb has cost me £3K - most years have been much much more!
Thanks for help. But for my own sanitise sake could you maybe give some examples over the past 2-3 years?
Are the cars really fragile or is it something more specific that makes them so costly?
I personally wouldn't be after perfect and I'm also not fussed about air con. And immlewd to believe early cars didn't have PAS.
300bhp/ton said:
So should expect most of the above to be yearly things??
No, definitely not, many of these are every few year items. A clutch lasts around 25k, although mine had done 36k when I finally had it replaced. I went through a few slave cylinders at roughly 10-11k miles a time, fortunately the Raceproved slave cyl seems more durable than the standard item. I'm not sure if £600 for tyres is for 18" rims, but I'd say that's a little high. I've paid £210 front and £230 rear in the past for 17s, I'd expect this to be up in general, but I recently found bargain pair of fronts for £150.
300bhp/ton said:
Are the cars really fragile or is it something more specific that makes them so costly?
They're not that fragile, but some of the parts are expensive and some of the jobs require a lot of labour. The early cars were PAS as are all cerbs afaik (unless leaking!).
I can give you lots of examples of my annual running costs but tbh thats not really relevant.
I am trying to give you an example of stuff that COULD need work (you asked why you might need to budget plenty of £s) and as a consequence would need money spent.
Clearly not all of this will need replacing / fixing every year or even every 3 years. But much of it could need work.
As the cars get older then the money being spent moves to items that are ageing rather than worn out through lots of miles pa. IMHO. So things like chassis start to creep up the chart.
The general annual running costs / budget are generally considered to be £3K pa. Albeit I think I made that figure up about 8 years ago?!
All IMHO
I can give you lots of examples of my annual running costs but tbh thats not really relevant.
I am trying to give you an example of stuff that COULD need work (you asked why you might need to budget plenty of £s) and as a consequence would need money spent.
Clearly not all of this will need replacing / fixing every year or even every 3 years. But much of it could need work.
As the cars get older then the money being spent moves to items that are ageing rather than worn out through lots of miles pa. IMHO. So things like chassis start to creep up the chart.
The general annual running costs / budget are generally considered to be £3K pa. Albeit I think I made that figure up about 8 years ago?!
All IMHO
tejr said:
Gazzab said:
I have had very few years where a cerb has cost me £3K - most years have been much much more!
Is this because expensive things broke? Or because you just like things 'perfect'? I've had my 4.5 for over 2 1/2 years and spent £5900 on servicing, maintenance and tyres (APM do all the major stuff except for the relatively easy bits I do myself). It works out at £2200 per annum.
This could have been lower but I like to keep everything right on the car and not store up problems for the future. For example I've refurbished the original wheels (It had perfectly good SP12s on but I didn't like the ride that 18" wheels give), replaced the screen as it was generally poor but far from an MoT fail, had the exhaust manifolds ceramic coated while they were out for welding the cracks, and replaced the exhaust with an ACT stainless one while the manifolds were being done (the old one was legal and might have gone another year or two). So maybe this would have been £1600 lower if kept to absolute essentials, but still £1600 per annum.
This could have been lower but I like to keep everything right on the car and not store up problems for the future. For example I've refurbished the original wheels (It had perfectly good SP12s on but I didn't like the ride that 18" wheels give), replaced the screen as it was generally poor but far from an MoT fail, had the exhaust manifolds ceramic coated while they were out for welding the cracks, and replaced the exhaust with an ACT stainless one while the manifolds were being done (the old one was legal and might have gone another year or two). So maybe this would have been £1600 lower if kept to absolute essentials, but still £1600 per annum.
The £3K figure is IMHO more of a contingency fund figure that will cover the majority (though not all) of the single big problems.
I've yet to spend £3K in a single year, but I have come damned close a couple of times.
A good year is about £1K and I don't think you would ever really get away with spending much less, but that's not too bad really considering.
You can save LOADS by doing the easy jobs yourself as some of them are fiddly and time consuming, but not 'difficult', and it's labour that often bumps up the costs.
It really is a 'how long is a piece of string' question, but I can assure you that their potential to throw a HUGE bill at you is surpassed by only one thing - the grin factor of driving it.
Nobody else will truly understand the ups and downs of Cerbera ownership other than your brethren in here, and you will question your own sanity on the down days (I know I do). However, if you have have a Cerbera itch there is only one thing that can scratch it.
eta - mines a 4.2
I've yet to spend £3K in a single year, but I have come damned close a couple of times.
A good year is about £1K and I don't think you would ever really get away with spending much less, but that's not too bad really considering.
You can save LOADS by doing the easy jobs yourself as some of them are fiddly and time consuming, but not 'difficult', and it's labour that often bumps up the costs.
It really is a 'how long is a piece of string' question, but I can assure you that their potential to throw a HUGE bill at you is surpassed by only one thing - the grin factor of driving it.
Nobody else will truly understand the ups and downs of Cerbera ownership other than your brethren in here, and you will question your own sanity on the down days (I know I do). However, if you have have a Cerbera itch there is only one thing that can scratch it.
eta - mines a 4.2
I've had a timing chain break which meant full rebuild. Not cheap!
Diff rebuilt. Twice.
Hoses and water manifolds.
Rad.
Brakes.
Suspension.
Manifolds.
All of the clutch.
Chassis sorted.
Bushes.
Ecu replaced.
Battery.
All this plus usual service costs and tyres etc. I have spent a fortune on it over the last three years, and I've done a lot of the work myself.
Diff rebuilt. Twice.
Hoses and water manifolds.
Rad.
Brakes.
Suspension.
Manifolds.
All of the clutch.
Chassis sorted.
Bushes.
Ecu replaced.
Battery.
All this plus usual service costs and tyres etc. I have spent a fortune on it over the last three years, and I've done a lot of the work myself.
I bought a really well sorted Cerb last summer.
My thinking was that because it had so much money spent on it that i would have a relatively cheap first year of ownership.
Ha!
I bought a pair of rear tyres........................................£250.00
Had the front resprayed and wheels refurbed in a anthracite colour...£1500.00
New alarm from Carl Baker............................................£540.00
New Alpine cd/ipod/ handsfree thing .................................£400.00
12k service including new master cylinder and slave seals & MOT......£1180.00
Door solenoid........................................................£7.99 (phew)
Booked in for a new alternator next week............................ £300.00
So far so good;)
My thinking was that because it had so much money spent on it that i would have a relatively cheap first year of ownership.
Ha!
I bought a pair of rear tyres........................................£250.00
Had the front resprayed and wheels refurbed in a anthracite colour...£1500.00
New alarm from Carl Baker............................................£540.00
New Alpine cd/ipod/ handsfree thing .................................£400.00
12k service including new master cylinder and slave seals & MOT......£1180.00
Door solenoid........................................................£7.99 (phew)
Booked in for a new alternator next week............................ £300.00
So far so good;)
With a toddler in the house I too have for the past 6 months seriously thought about changing my Griff for a Cerb.
I have been spoilt though as for the last four years my Griff has run from one service to the next with only chassis cleaning/waxoil costs in between (touching timber while I type this).
Then again, I did invest in the car after I bought it, so perhaps the same applies to the Cerb - buy a good one, replace all the usual culprits/consumables, and then have relatively low maintainance for a few years after? Swings and roundabouts I suppose.
I have been spoilt though as for the last four years my Griff has run from one service to the next with only chassis cleaning/waxoil costs in between (touching timber while I type this).
Then again, I did invest in the car after I bought it, so perhaps the same applies to the Cerb - buy a good one, replace all the usual culprits/consumables, and then have relatively low maintainance for a few years after? Swings and roundabouts I suppose.
coetzeeh said:
With a toddler in the house I too have for the past 6 months seriously thought about changing my Griff for a Cerb.
I have been spoilt though as for the last four years my Griff has run from one service to the next with only chassis cleaning/waxoil costs in between (touching timber while I type this).
Then again, I did invest in the car after I bought it, so perhaps the same applies to the Cerb - buy a good one, replace all the usual culprits/consumables, and then have relatively low maintainance for a few years after? Swings and roundabouts I suppose.
Roundabouts especially I have been spoilt though as for the last four years my Griff has run from one service to the next with only chassis cleaning/waxoil costs in between (touching timber while I type this).
Then again, I did invest in the car after I bought it, so perhaps the same applies to the Cerb - buy a good one, replace all the usual culprits/consumables, and then have relatively low maintainance for a few years after? Swings and roundabouts I suppose.
How home service friendly are they? I'm used to a bit of spannering as since 99 I've been running classic Triumphs, current one is a modded V8 since 2001. Although in fairness it's been fairly reliable. I'm also used to tinkering with land Rovers and I'm currently building a Series III trialler. So I don't mind normal service stuff at home.
Edited by 300bhp/ton on Wednesday 16th February 21:36
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