A question for the long timers!

Just had a thought? i guess it would be more suited to the long term owners / daily drive coop members:

Working on increments of 50k - which has been the most expensive in terms of maintenance i.e. first 50k miles or 50k - 100k through to 250k in nigels case?

apologies if this is a poor question as i am pretty bored!

The big jobs just increase with age really. (IMO)

0-50k:

Cambelt

50-100k:

Cambelt
Clutch
Oil cooler
Radiator
Gearbox mounts

100k +:

Cambelt
Clutch
Oil cooler
Radiator
Suspension Refresh
Refresh Various parts

However when buying a car second hand, milage alone wont be an indicator of how expensive it'll be to run.

You could buy a car with 60k on the clock and find that it needs Cambelt, clutch, oil cooler, etc.

Or you could buy a car with 120k on the clock and find that all those jobs were done 10k miles ago.

Depends what needs replacing

I've had mine for 5 years / 37k miles, most of them a short commute to work.

My first 2 years (50k-65k) had nothing more than services and tyres.

Year 3 (70k) had the cambelt service and a trackrod end.

Year 4 (76k) had rad, wishbones and a wheel bearing.

Year 5 (82k) had handling mods, if I wasn't modding though I'd probably have refreshed the suspension (not absolutely necessary). Apart from the service nothing needed doing.

This year (86k) turbo is starting to smoke so that's a fair bill - but I can't complain, it's been quite cheap to maintain compared to some.


Clutch still feels fine and the usual accelerate from 30 in 5th test says it's okay to me. Not tried the stall test because I don't want to hurt it

Not sure if the oil cooler may go next year or in 5 years, it's certainly not been mentioned by any of the specialists who have worked on it. I'll probably mark it up for some 'preventative maintenance' next year if I'm not doing anything else.

Truffle is right - you could buy my car and despite its huge mileage, you could find that it needs nothing for the next couple of years, apart from regular servicing.

Conversely, you could buy a low miler and find yourself needing a couple of grands worth of work straight away

Bought 2 coupe's this year.

16v na with 70k on the clock - Expenditure so far (plus usual years road tax)-
lambda, discs & pads all round, thermostat and CPU sender plus full service and now needs a zorst.

20v vis with 86k - Expenditure so far (plus usual years road tax)- starter motor, clutch slave, belts, air intake (split), wishbones & droplinks, discs & pads, tyres alround, CPU sender, washer tubing and non return valves, all fuses and most of the relays plus the standard full service.

Nothing major on either but with work undertaken both cost over £2.5k....not bad when you consider what you're getting for the money and they should run with just service items for the next year