How much do you save for car repairs?

ratrace

andydownes123 wrote: »

Yes - I've heard of the roof issues - hope it doesn't happened to mine. Nice, my cousin had an R32 Golf. Great until the DSG box goes then you better have deep deep pockets.

Looking for a manual only as they are more easy to sell on if needs be plus you get a better drive out of them, i love dsg had a golf gti dsg it was great for an r32 or m3 always manual even the m3 smg are crap and fail

gingercordial

We have a 1999 BMW Z3 which we bought in 2015 with over 100k miles on the clock for just over £2,000. Love it, but repairs have not been cheap! I think it has had about £3,000 of repair work needed at MOT since then (and I do trust our garage that this was all necessary). Still worth it but not sure how long for if something else major goes wrong.

My brother is a mechanic in the Forces so we have had some free work done on top of that but he is not local to us so that only helps if we catch whatever needs doing in time to visit him and he isn't deployed at the time. Doesn't help if something breaks suddenly or if a serious failure is found at MOT.

So at the moment the budget is £800/year (£66.67/month) for repairs including the MOT charge. This is still much cheaper than leasing/PCP on a new car and also we don't think the actual value will have dropped much from what we paid from it (ignoring the cost of the work done) if we decided to sell. We also have a separate emergency fund which we could use for a replacement if it becomes beyond economic repair, although would see if we can do without a car at all for a while as it is a luxury for us living in London.

The Z4 is very cool too though I always liked the "shark gills" on the Z3!

Deep_In_Debt

At the moment, I am saving £50pm for car repairs. My car is fairly low mileage (25,000) and bought new in 2014. It's a cheap and economical to run which suits me.


The £50 is for repairs only at the moment as my insurance and tax are both fairly cheap and as I intend to keep the car for a good few years yet I would like to build a nice pot if something major needs doing.

chelseablue

You couldn't make it up! Today a message came up on the bmw screen saying brake pads need replacing.

I'm off to lay down in a dark room

ratrace

chelseablue wrote: »

You couldn't make it up! Today a message came up on the bmw screen saying brake pads need replacing.

I'm off to lay down in a dark room

oh blimey, when was they last changed? they disks may need doing aswell, if they do the its best to do them both disks + pads they will wear better and labour should be a bit cheaper as they doing the pads anyway



hopefully its just the pads they are not expensive to replace

Apodemus

Pads are really easy to replace on a DIY basis! If you are serious about keeping the costs down and have never done this sort of thing before, then look on this as a chance to learn!

Willing2Learn

chelseablue wrote: »

You couldn't make it up! Today a message came up on the bmw screen saying brake pads need replacing.

I'm off to lay down in a dark room

Buy yourself a Haynes manual for the make and model if you are going to try and DIY the pads...that way you can learn how to do all the easy stuff and save a big chunk of money.

Apodemus wrote: »

Pads are really easy to replace on a DIY basis! If you are serious about keeping the costs down and have never done this sort of thing before, then look on this as a chance to learn!

chelseablue

Can just imagine the disasters that would occur if me or the husband tried to fix a car :rotfl:

ratrace

chelseablue wrote: »

Can just imagine the disasters that would occur if me or the husband tried to fix a car :rotfl:

Give it a try you never no what you are capable of

a month ago we did a patio and large decking first time ever, never done it before, we did it as we was getting silly quotes so we went down the diy route, saved a ton of money, yes we took time and yes we made rookie errors but you learn as you go on, we have had a lot of compliments from people on how good it looks

the point is try, and if you are good at it then you have skills for life as long as you own a car

someone said to me once " you're going to eat all your life, so learn how to cook, because if you dont then you will get ripped off, its cheaper in the long run" i think it was my college lecturer who said it lol

Willing2Learn

chelseablue wrote: »

Can just imagine the disasters that would occur if me or the husband tried to fix a car :rotfl:

I once turned up at my best friend's house and their tumble dryer wasn't working. We agreed that we could probably fix it as we both knew how to fix cars. I mean, how hard could it be? Anyway, we proceeded to take the tumble dryer to pieces. I remember us saying "let's take one more piece out"...The long and short of it is that we couldn't work out how to put the thing back together again. There were just too many parts lying on the kitchen floor. His missus went berserk when she came in lol. Oh...happy days...