Economic to repair?

bdfh

Grumpy_chap said:

The thing about "bangernomics" is that you might have a car worth £1k, but you know whether it is fundamentally reliable (keeper) or not (get rid).
If the car is worth £1k and you get a bill of £1k at the MOT but that is going to be it for another year, then you are still in an OK place as the alternative is to scrap the old car with no MOT and either:

• Buy another car for £1k, which you might be scrapping in a fortnight if it's a lemon
• Buy a brand new car, in which case £1k only covers 3 month's payments
• Buy some car at some point in between the above two, say £5k to £10k, and still taking a gamble, yet unlikely that you'd lose all the money in a fortnight even if it turns out to be a lemon.

My car is a 2007 Focus purchased for £2k in 2016 and it has run faultlessly.  Last year's MOT landed around £700 bill to pass, but much of that was really wear-and-tear items so I paid and have had over another year trouble-free motoring.
The other benefit of an older car is that you can not worry about parking knocks and things, whereas a new car, that would be another cost to put right.

This is all true - thanks. It’s difficult to gauge whether it’s a keeper or not. Had its MOT and service done immediately before lockdown and repairs of roughly £900 then, including something to do with replacing corroded exhaust hangers. It then sat on the driveway until the trip where it broke down, so in my mind it was £900 and then almost straight away more money to fix this. I guess this makes me concerned that it won’t be very long until the next problem! 

Grumpy_chap

Right, so your OP started with...

bdfh said:

I have a 2010 Mondeo Mk4 2.0 petrol which unfortunately lost its exhaust back box on a recent trip down the M11. The view of the AA recovery man was that the hangers had failed, causing increased stress on the pipe which then sheared off under the extra strain - seems logical. 

Now, you reveal that 

bdfh said:

It’s difficult to gauge whether it’s a keeper or not. Had its MOT and service done immediately before lockdown and repairs of roughly £900 then, including something to do with replacing corroded exhaust hangers. 

Were the reported exhaust hangers just reported by the garage but not repaired, in which case the failure was not exactly unexpected.

OR, did the garage charge for replacing corroded exhaust hangers, in which case you may have grounds for pursuing the current repair costs from the garage that renewed the exhaust hangers in March.

That is a big difference and you need to read carefully what the paperwork says was or was not done.

In terms of assessing whether the Mondeo is a keeper or not, how long have you had it and is it generally reliable?  Two things close together (when one was pre-warned) is not that big a deal.  If it is always £1k then another £1k then another £1k with less than 3 months gaps, then go for a change.  I use the £1k three months guide as that is the payments rate of a new car.  Obviously, the bangernomics requires you to be trending well below £1k every three months, or you might as well spend the money and enjoy a shiny new car into the bargain.

fred246

If you go on
http://www.bosal.com/en/catalog
Click on I am a car owner and enter your details. You will get a picture of your exhaust and it's mountings. I have never had an exhaust fitted by a garage where they have connected ALL the mountings. They leave some unconnected because they can't be bothered. Your exhaust won't fall off immediately if they miss one out. I used to ask to see the exhaust before I paid for it. I would then insist they put all the mountings on. Now I just do it myself. It's cheaper, you know it's done properly and there's no bad feeling.

MinuteNoodles

bdfh said:

 so, pleased that it sounds like it won’t be terrifically expensive and makes sense to keep the car. It’s literally worth £1k anyway and I hope you’ll all agree that some repairs are surprisingly expensive and can get up to near that amount easily. 

I just don’t have the knowledge, and found it difficult to find a clear answer online - so I don’t think trying to find out was a ridiculous endeavour and I now know what to expect. 

Even if the repairs were £1000 they were still worth doing on a car you know and which is otherwise OK because at £1000 to replace it you're into banger money and the chance of a bill on the horizon on anything you buy. £1000 a year spent on maintenance is insignificant compared to loan/PCP/lease deposit and annual repayments on a new or nearly new car. Last year I sold my 2010 Mondeo to my parents. In its last 18 months of my ownership I spent £480 on tyres, £400 on renewing all four shock absorbers, about £100 on brakes and about £150 or so on a wheel bearing and a track rod end plus about £300 in servicing. I didn't bat an eyelid because some of those were costs you'd have on any car (tyres and brakes) and I couldn't guarantee that what I'd buy for the money I spent would be as reliable or trouble free as that car was. Even though it had 155,000 miles on when I sold it to them it's rock solid reliable and it went straight through its last MOT.

fred246

They call it a 'heap' on this forum.

Jack_Cork

fred246 said:

They call it a 'heap' on this forum.

I prefer 'old banger' or 'bag of !!!!!!'

Car_54

MinuteNoodles said:

bdfh said:

 so, pleased that it sounds like it won’t be terrifically expensive and makes sense to keep the car. It’s literally worth £1k anyway and I hope you’ll all agree that some repairs are surprisingly expensive and can get up to near that amount easily. 

I just don’t have the knowledge, and found it difficult to find a clear answer online - so I don’t think trying to find out was a ridiculous endeavour and I now know what to expect. 

Even if the repairs were £1000 they were still worth doing on a car you know and which is otherwise OK because at £1000 to replace it you're into banger money and the chance of a bill on the horizon on anything you buy. £1000 a year spent on maintenance is insignificant compared to loan/PCP/lease deposit and annual repayments on a new or nearly new car. Last year I sold my 2010 Mondeo to my parents. In its last 18 months of my ownership I spent £480 on tyres, £400 on renewing all four shock absorbers, about £100 on brakes and about £150 or so on a wheel bearing and a track rod end plus about £300 in servicing. I didn't bat an eyelid because some of those were costs you'd have on any car (tyres and brakes) and I couldn't guarantee that what I'd buy for the money I spent would be as reliable or trouble free as that car was. Even though it had 155,000 miles on when I sold it to them it's rock solid reliable and it went straight through its last MOT.

I wouldn't disagree with that, so long as you don't lose sight of the car's real value. We see lots of posts from people who have spent £hundreds on their pride and joy only to be offered market value when it's written off in an accident.

bdfh

Feel the need to explain myself further! Was really only after a rough cost of the repairs, should’ve made that clearer at the outset. The car will be replaced with a new one relatively shortly regardless of what condition it’s in, because it’s not really suitable for what we want from a car any more, life circumstances having changed etc. The money for the replacement is in place and has already been ‘budgeted’ as it were, and definitely wouldn’t be buying a £1k banger (or a heap - whatever you want to call it!)
The way I see it is this: if it will cost almost or more than the car’s part ex value to repair it, then there is no point doing that and I might as well add the repair money to the pot for the replacement. If, however, as now seems to be evident, it will be significantly less, then it’s worth paying that now and then recouping at least some of it back with a part ex a few months down the line. 

AdrianC

Jack_Cork said:

fred246 said:

They call it a 'heap' on this forum.

I prefer 'old banger' or 'bag of !!!!!!'

"Shed" would be the usual term of semi-endearment.

I'm just trying to remember ever owning anything but...

AdrianC

bdfh said:

Feel the need to explain myself further! Was really only after a rough cost of the repairs, should’ve made that clearer at the outset. The car will be replaced with a new one relatively shortly regardless of what condition it’s in, because it’s not really suitable for what we want from a car any more, life circumstances having changed etc. The money for the replacement is in place and has already been ‘budgeted’ as it were, and definitely wouldn’t be buying a £1k banger (or a heap - whatever you want to call it!)
The way I see it is this: if it will cost almost or more than the car’s part ex value to repair it, then there is no point doing that and I might as well add the repair money to the pot for the replacement. If, however, as now seems to be evident, it will be significantly less, then it’s worth paying that now and then recouping at least some of it back with a part ex a few months down the line. 

That does put a slightly different picture on things, although you do seem to have forgotten what you'll be using as transport in the interim period.

TBH, I'm not sure I'd PX it. Unless you're being gouged on the purchase, when they'll give you a "really generous" PX price (which makes the relevant figure, the cost to change, merely a bit juicy), they'll give you a derisory figure simply because they don't want to be bothered with it. It'll get taken straight from wherever you park it to the local auction house, do not pass go, do not collect £200.