Are expensive cars worth it

[99AUXR]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

Also owners of older second hand Euro cars seem to have an issue with paying to have their cars fixed which has been my experience because "why does X cost so much". Just because you bought a 10 year old Euro for 1/10th of its RRP doesn't mean the parts are 1/10th of the price they used to be as well, and it doesn't mean since its old they will be common either, cheaper option is to source things from overseas but you might be waiting a few weeks.

THIS ^ Why I dont like working on Old Euros.

[Bearman]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

Also owners of older second hand Euro cars seem to have an issue with paying to have their cars fixed which has been my experience because "why does X cost so much". Just because you bought a 10 year old Euro for 1/10th of its RRP doesn't mean the parts are 1/10th of the price they used to be as well, and it doesn't mean since its old they will be common either, cheaper option is to source things from overseas but you might be waiting a few weeks.

And why I won't be buying one.

[Binny]

Everyone has different tastes, different requirements and different interpretations of "value"
So the answer to your question in this topic is it depends who you ask.
I've never spent more than 25k on a car so anything over that I don't consider "Worth it". Most people would scoff at that. Thats why we have such a huge variety of different cars available, we are all different.
My current car cost 15k. My requirements were -
- Under $20k
- Under 3 years old
- Under 60,000k
- Liftback or Wagon
- Family size with a big boot
- Economy under 8L/100
- nice to drive

I was able to exceed all those requirements for 15k with the Mondeo so I did.
Its no fireball but that was not a requirement. I have a motorbike for that.
If more people actually sat down and wrote down their requirements before they went to a dealer maybe they wouldn't get railroaded into spending more than they planned to
Or maybe they would anyway, emotion is a large part of the purchasing process.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by 99AUXR

THIS ^ Why I dont like working on Old Euros.

Come across a customer with a 1993 Mercedes SL500, a car which cost $279,000 when it was new back then.

Picked it up cheap at the auctions, deceased estate or something, was in mint condition so it had obviously been looked after.

Insulation on the engine bay wiring had decayed:



Causing miss fire because the wiring is shorting out together inside the loom, the WHOLE ENGINE BAY LOOM has this problem.

Where does one buy a new engine loom for a car from 1993, which cost $279,000? Its not exactly common, dealership couldn't help me, rang around different suppliers no one could get one for us, no point ringing wreckers because they will have the same problem, found some on Ebay but they're from the USA, is the loom the same on a LHD car/different market as our car? If I buy it is the customer willing to pay $1500 USD + shipping + 10% import tax + customs fees + markup for us to make something for a loom which might possibly be the wrong one and not work?

How much is it going to cost in labour for us to find and source all the right connectors and terminals, then actually make the entire loom? Before we even make it you're up for a few hours for us to actually pull the loom from the engine bay.

Its luck of the draw, just remember that when you buy a 15 year old 7 series BMW for the price of a 2 year old WM Caprice, luck of the draw.

If something does go wrong are you going to source parts and fix it yourself with the help of a forum or are you going to drop the car off to your local auto electrician who has never touched one before?

[AUwindsor]

Maintaining old euros will quickly end up costing a lot more than the purchase price of the car. And that's if sourcing parts yourself from overseas. Buying parts from a BMW Mercedes Jaguar Landrover etc dealer locally.. in some cases you will wonder where the added extra zero comes from.

[GasoLane]

I'm guessing that all these people telling us that Euro's, old and not so old, are horrendously expensive to maintain have first hand experience and knowledge of this !

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

I'm guessing that all these people telling us that Euro's, old and not so old, are horrendously expensive to maintain have first hand experience and knowledge of this !

Yeah the old lady with the 2003 VW Golf that we had to change a rear passenger side door lock on didn't appreciate the $900 bill because we had to take the outer skin of the door off to do it rather than just the door trim like regular cars

Another customer didn't like the 4 figure bill mostly made up of labour costs for an alternator on their older V6 VW Passat either.

For some reason people don't like it when their car repair bills get into 4 figures.

Think about it:

There exist workshops who specialise in European cars, then further specialised is workshops who specialise just on VWs and I'm not talking about dealerships.

That tells you everything you need to know about VW

I appreciate Euro cars, I just really do not enjoy working on them and their owners (mostly people who bought them second hand) unfortunately do not like paying for the work.

It amazes me when you can buy a genuine ECU from Holden for $1000 for a VE Commodore, I blew a PSM in a Mercedes Sprinter (All it is, is a little module which takes CANBUS signals from the car and convert them into 12V positive or 12V negative outputs) and that little optional module cost $3000, imagine how much an ECU would cost?