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I recently had a problem with my car misfiring and being bad to start (Merc C220CDI). I have now got it back, in full working order, but am £975 the poorer after the garage had to replace all 4 fuel injectors. Can anyone top the £1k?
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Brought a Renault 25 V6 1985 in 1989 so 4 years old for £4995. Put it in for a service at the local dealer eventually came out with a bill for £ 1,399. For head gaskets, hoses, suspension etc. It then proceeded to cost me a fortune as well as being extremely unreliable. Eventually got shot after 10 months to dealer. Brought X Plate Mk2 Granny Ghia X Estate for £ 1,600 which ran like a top from 116K to 195K miles and cost peanuts in the process.
Jim
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Bought a Peugeot 605 Dt Auto in April 2000 and sold it in April 2001. I lost £4,000 in the year having only driven 12,000 miles at most 36,000 - 48,000. In the meantime it cost me £1,500 when the fan belt snapped, wrapped around the pulley and yanked the cambelt off. Destroyed the top of the engine and never ran again properly after the repair.
Pity - I loved that car.
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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It's not over £1K, but yesterday I had on my desk someone's motor expenses that included an invoice for the first service on a Merc C220CDI. From the paperwork it seemed to be nothing more than a visual inspection of the car and an oil change. Bottom line was £419.37. Does this qualify as the most expensive oil change?
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My first car. An 18 month old 1600E, my pride and joy.
Engine blew up at 25K. I had only done 10K in it and not thrashed it.
I stripped it and found a main bearing cap snapped as the root cause. Cant buy those sir, its competition caps or salvage them from another dead engine cos they come with the block.
Then you need a line bore, rebore, piston, rings etc. etc.
Resulted in having to buy a main dealer exchange engine cos the 1600E was too new to get recon engines.
I do not recall the cost which seemed very high.
I do not recall if I advised the dealer what the fault was.
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1985 - 60k miles service on A Maestro. £650 - whats that in todays money 1500 -1800 quid?
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Do these count? ;-)
2001: Crash damage, £2700
2003: Crash damage, £400
2003: Crash damage, £3200 (all three are the price that the repair places invoiced the insurance company for.)
In total, over £1000 more than I paid for the car, but thankfully that lot has only actually cost me £250.
Luckily (!!) I've never had to have anything mechanical done to my car, apart from servicing. (Watch it fall apart now...)
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PG - you are a breed apart. How much more are you paying in premiums though and if you're not please tell us the name of your broker!
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Failed cambelt on a Fiesta Diesel cost me just short of £1,000. Luckily the cylinder head and diesel pump didn't require replacement.
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Er... I think when I first got polo in 2000 it was about £750 fully comp with 2 years NCD. Now it's around £860, maybe more, fully comp, with 2 years NCD.
Not that much difference really, considering apparently insurance costs have gone up anyway. I've also moved from Hampshire to the crime ridden midlands, and gained 3 points in that time.
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£975 really isn't that much these days. 4 years ago a new diesel pump for a BX cost me £850. Didn't get that much for the whole car a year later! A fluid-change service on the JGC at a main dealer will cost £500 - add new pads and discs and you're well up around the £900 mark. And don't talk to me about tyres.
Take a look on the Technical forum at a bill for MOT emissions testers allegedly breaking a BMW!
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Terry
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Oops sorry - it was a breakdown man, but I'm sure there's something there about an emissions test too!
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Terry
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It would have been over £1400 for a new short engine and gearbox (MG Metro piston ring broke and dropped in to the gearbox) on a car worth £1000 at the most, but I did the work myself for less than half that cost (okay, plus a few days holiday), as well as greatly increasing performance and using higher quality components in the process.
I got several years more totally reliable motoring from the car, before it succumbed to tin worm that was beyond (my) economic repair.
I sold it to a welder (true story that he fell in love with the lumpy idle and gorgeous exhaust note) for £500 when the value if roadworthy was £600 or so, and three years later (now eleven years old), happened upon it in a car park one day.
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My most expensive repair was back in 1984 ( can probably remember the day and month and what I had for breakfast ) over £250 on a motorcycle worth only £150 when I was skint. It did teach me a valuable lesson - never to trust motor dealers whose morals may only be marginally better than those of our travelling friends.
John
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I've been quite lucky really. I consider an extra £160 to be a blow.
This happened on my Trafic. I got the cambelt changed and the garage only discovered that the power steering pump was leaking all over the place, so out it came - 2 days for a replacement at £130 plus extra fitting.
The total bill came to £300 including parts.
H
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just the same car, merc c220 diesel, £1,000, fuel system up the swnaee, been fine since.
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My Vauxhall Omega Elite has a BM 2.5TDS engine, the waterpump impeller is made of plastic and broke, and the car overheated.
It cost me £1200 to have the waterpump and head gasket replaced, but the car continued to have problems with coolant over-pressuring, so they changed the fan coupling and radiator and a prerequisite to doing the head gasket again under warranty they were £450.
I have just had to put a new head and associated tackle on myself to finally cure the problem, this came to around £1200+.
So nearly £3000, for the sake of a poor waterpump design.
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My biggest single repair job: Land Rover 90. The transfer box needed to be removed and rebuilt because a little bolt had dropped out of the selector mechanism inside the box.
I think it cost about £400.
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I can't quite top the £1k mark, but back in '93 I took my 1.2 Nova to the place where you can't fit quicker to have the exhaust looked at, they "replaced" the exhaust, two rear shocks and brake pads a plenty! I came home thanking Dad's Amex card (and his very generous payment terms!) and vowed never to go back there again.
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I drive a Honda....what's a repair??
Andy
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Clutch change on a VW Polo diesel - £590 from an independent chain of well-known clutch fitters. They initially quoted me in the region of £150 and I was a bit peeved when they phoned me back after I'd had the car towed there to say that it was fitted with a "dual-mass flywheel" which apparently needs replacing when the clutch does and costs £250 just for the part. Apparently, a lot of the bigger VW's/Audis are also fitted with these so it's one to watch out for!
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£100 for new front discs & pads & a bottle of fluid. (No labour in that, either.)
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Land Rover Discovery
Zilch (LR critics shove that in yer pipe an smoke it!!)
Granada 2.0 GLX
Auto Gearbox & Torque Converter £1050
Damp Fuse Box £160
Astra 1.6 16V Ecotec
Premature Timing Belt failure £1049
Head Gasket failure £250
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£400 for a Peugeot 104ZS with a displaced liner; engine out job as was the clutch and pretty much anything else south of a plugs change. This was 1983 when £400 was close to a month's take home, well over a grand in today's money allowing for inflation.
Lovely car to drive when it went properly.
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Not my own experience, but a friend of mine has a '00 Citröen Xsara which needed a new gearbox after shredding it's own differential after 33k, costing £600. This was just after the warranty expired!
Mind you, he got his warranty's worth, including:
- New clutch and weld in gearbox after plate spring went on M-way.
- Airbag-light-under-seat-plug-thingy problems
- Rich running engine (oil stank of petrol and pinked!)
- 2 punctures
- Headlight's mis-adjusted (finally got it sorted after it failed MoT test!)
- Air-con radiator replaced after wrong one was fitted following a shunt which didn't get put on HPI!
- Oh, same with cooling fans which span freely on the motor axle even after dealer "fitted" the right one.
The only problems with it now are the aircon not working and a hole in the glass-fibre under-tray where he tried jacking it up (... btw I must remind him of that :-) )!
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If I "got my warranty's worth", I'd be damn sure to sell it just before the warranty expired!
Most expensive moneypit - Alfa 156, needing close to £1,000 of various repairs within a year, most unsatisfactory, also shedding over £2,000 of value into the bargain.
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Mattster
Boycott shoddy build and reliability.
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If there are any Skoda owners out there - you will know the wretched quality of the Skoda badges fixed to the grille & boot of our cars.
It doesn't take long before the silver paper breaks up and the black background starts to show through.
I am currently on an extended trip to the UK from my home in Spain, having driven from the Costa del Sol to Dunquerke and thus to GBR. The car performed well (Fabia 1.9tdi, returning 5 litres per 100 km over the 2400 km).
I decided to call at the local dealership to purchase two new Skoda badges - I thought about a tenner the pair as they are only plastic - NO! - including VAT, two Skoda emblems came to an eye watering £33.77. They are still cheap & nasty at THIS price and they are made in Italy.
Not the Most expensive repair, but the MOST for the LEAST!
Roger. (in Spain).
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Do German & Sweedish/Eurocarparts do them?
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My dear old mum's elderly Saab 9000 Turbo threw a con-rod about 5 years ago so she had a new engine fitted by a main dealer.
Oops! £3525.17 Silly girl.
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