Running Costs

[acstua]

Hi All

Just pondering a change of car atm, presently got a Civic Type R EP3

anyhow really would like to try a 4wd turbo'd motor and the S4 seems to suit what im after (something abit less in yer face heh)

How much would you say the car costs to run a year?
what are the service costs like etc?
how long the tyres tend to last with a fairly enthusiastic driver

anything else that might be useful to help wiegh up the costs

Cheers

Andrew

[bobbler]

Car costs around 3 grand a year to keep on the road without problems.
That's petrol (20 mpg is average, £1 a litre, 10k miles), annual service at independent VAG guy (upto £200), insurance (£550), road tax (£190) and MOT (£60). Petrol is by far the biggest cost on the vehicle. But remember this is without parts, extras (say cambelt or tyres) or tuning/mods which also add up.
£400 ish for a cambelt service
£150 for a couple of control arms on last MOT fail
£120 for ABS controller repair/refurb
£600 for tyres
£80 today for another tyre thanks to pothole
£290 for a replacement wheel thanks to same pothole
£170ish for an EGT sensor
£80 on front brake pads (though those are big brakes I have)

Mods I am not gonna go into because it will make me cry LOL

There's nearly another 2k this last 12 months on top of the 3k general running costs that I can recall off top of my head. You could perhaps discount the extra tyre and wheel, but at the end of the day <beep> happens and there is nothing you can do to get round that. Remember you are buying a car which is gonna be around 10 years old, which may or may not have been looked after (and my examples above are on a car which is from another enthusiast owner, a car that really wanted for nothing IMO), that will have worn out parts like suspension, bushes and clutches, due it's second cambelt most likely, ABS controllers about to pack up, EGTs wanting replacement, K03 turbos which could cost you big if they are on their last legs, leaking boost pipes/DVs...

This is not a cheap motor to keep on the road and don't kid yourself that the (relatively) low purchase price of a 98.99.00 plate S4 is getting you cheap motoring because it's not.

But don't let it put you off The car is a hoot to drive, feels safe, is damn fast, has big tuning potential if you have the money, and puts a smile on my face every single time I plant that accelerator pedal and feel the snails spool up watching yet another <beep> who had no idea that he was about to beaten to submission by a fast blue family estate car

[BourtonS4]

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1036625.htm

[acstua]

Cheers for that
atm my Civic is about 150-500 dependin on the service, and honda parts arent cheap heh
so i save about 125quid a month , so about £1400 for service/mot/insurance/tax/extras
tho it did cost me £1000 last year due to tyres/brakes/pads needing doing plus some other bits

Petrol aint too big an issue as i dont do too many miles, but im a little worried that short journeys most days will play havoc with the Turbo

the thing that also worrys me is the age of the car, i did have a 10 year old RS2000 for a bit, and generally it wasnt too bad, but ford parts were cheap

also having a high revving N/A car going to a low revving (?) v6 hmm heh


food for thought tho ta

[ShaneyB]

Do it,
They're a great laugh. Turbo's could be an issue but as an indication my old B5 S4 Avant was remapped at 85k miles to 326bhp. I sold it at 120k and it still pulled like a horse. I really miss it to be honest as the B6 S4 just doesn't give me that 'grin' that Bobbler mentioned above. I'm now looking at getting rid of the B6 and going back to a B5 RS4.

Good luck mate.

[s4marsh]

you can either spend money on older cars or loose money on new cars i know which suits me,