Another year. Another service & MOT. Another £85.
Bought almost 2 years ago as a 6month stop gap between more 'interesting' cars, my '98 2.0 petrol is fast becoming hard to replace. It is a versatile hatch, very comfortable leather interior, nice panoramic glass roof, digital climate control. decent quality Clarion 6disc sound system, returns 36/40mpg and lives happily for hours with the repmobiles on our motorway system when so required.
It cost me £995, and apart from a precautionary belt change (£92) and 4 new Michelin Energy's last year (£300)the annual service charge is around £85 for oil, filter, labour, VAT and MOT.
I find it very strange that as someone who has been fortunate to own some wonderful cars over the past 35 years, I have come to love this car. Some time in the next 12 months it will have to go when SWMBO and I buy ourselves our promised convertible wedding present, but until then I shall just have to put up with it.
Is anyone else in the same situation? And whoever buys it had better look after it!!!
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I felt the same about my Y reg 3 door Corolla
Was completely reliable, never missed a beat
Sadly its gone to others now, but I was forever amazed they could build a car so faultless no matter what abuse was thrown at it
Edited by rtj70 on 25/08/2009 at 19:09
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I felt the same about my old Mazda 626 diesel. In 7 years it never let me down, did 180k miles and sailed though MOTs. Then it developed a diesel leak which proved difficult (time consuming and expensive) to fix so had to go.
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Similar thing with my 99 Mondy estate. Had it over 4 years now. Paid £1100 originally. At near 130k and it still hadn't died, decided to bite the bullet and change the cambelt and oil, seeing as we were about to embark on another 1800 mile holiday jaunt. Belt change was £160 all in. Put it in for MOT and it passed after replacing a broken spring (£25, new). It did 41mpg over the holiday tour. And (attention Fiat_Ignis) given a 1/4 mile straight it will easily overtake 2 cars plus the 36mph Agila they're trailing...
I don't love this car in a crawl-on-the-roof-licking-the-paint kind of way, but goodness me I admire it greatly. So, fresh MOT - set up to see if it does yet another year, because I just couldn't justify changing it other than on unnecessary, self-indulgent grounds; the darn thing just keeps doing everything I need.
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With you there tunacat re Mondeo estate. I should relace mine. Trouble is, I can't think of anything which would be such a competent all rounder for my very specific needs. Might have to get another one eventually.....
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I should possibly even "replace" it too.....
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Perhaps the owner of this 626 wasn't so confident about reliability?
tinyurl.com/m3g86k
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I agree less of the boring though. they are not too bad. I have had mine 6 months now (98 2.0 GSi petrol 85k, not as nice inside as Legacylad's!) and I have spent £70 which is HT leads, oil change, plugs, 2 bulbs and 1 set rear brake pads. Fuel ecomony ranges from 35mpg to 40 mpg depending which again is very reasonable. It seems comfortable enough for 11 year old car. There is a few bad niggles, rear arch drivers rusting but not too bad, wheel arch front drivers bit loose and vibrates, squeaky clutch pedal which I cant find, non functioning air con and to top it all off I managed to scrape the bumper on the gate post but you cant blame the car for that.
As long as it stops starts and goes without too much fuss, it will have been worth the £995 is also paid for it.
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I bought one a year ago, 2000 my GSI 2.0 petrol. I am convinced that its the only one with any rust! I am fitting a new sump this weekend as the original is flaking off with corrosion. 148 pounds from mazda!! Apart from that I had new pads all round for the MOT, but everything else works (except climate!! )
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I had one of these, it was the worst car I ever had. The build quality was very flimsy, plasticy, and lightweight. The price of parts was ridiculous. Most parts were £275. £275 for an electric aerial. £275 for a mirror as no glass available seperately, £275 for a rear brake caliper as they had a design fault where the handbrake mechanism would seize. No wonder so few are left on the road. It sounds as though you are lucky rather than it being to do with the model. It had horrible handling too.
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from my experiance of jap cars they are very reliable BUT if they go wrong they cost the earth to fix. the new radiator needed for my carolla was going to be near 200 quid. i feel better knowing when, not if, my ford breaks down it will be cheap to fix.
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Hamafar, did you ever try ebay or a breakers for the mirror?? You were ripped off for the caliper I had a mot failure due to the caliper 1 year I think it was about £75 , not bad. I have had the car 7 years its had a couple of batteries and needed a clutch this year but i dont think i ,ve done too bad,.
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I bought one a year ago 2000 my GSI 2.0 petrol. I am convinced that its the only one with any rust!
My 2000 MY was rusting too particularly round the rear wheel arches. I remember reading somewhere that this is a common fault. The a/c stopped working too. This would have been relatively cheap to fix but then it started leaking diesel so I didn't bother.
Edited by merlin on 26/08/2009 at 20:21
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