General: £154m Cost of car owners’ neglect

[julianps]

New research has revealed that a fifth (20%) of car owners have skipped their car’s service or other maintenance and repairs over the last twelve months. Moreover, the study carried out for Kwik Fit revealed that many of these seven million drivers are well aware that their neglect will prove more costly in the long run.

Almost half (45%) of those neglecting their car’s servicing or maintenance said that they would be spending more as a result of the delays, with the additional bill for drivers totalling £153.9 million.

If all chickens come home to roost then £153.9m in skipped maintenance at the beginning of a car's life must result in £153.9m in either additional maintenance in the middle, or an earlier end to the cars' lives, than expected.

The old adage of a stitch in time saves nine remains as true today as when our grandmothers first told it to us as children. However, it’s not just in the pocket where car owners can feel the impact of neglecting their car. Those looking after their car will find that it looks after them when they need it most, whether that’s starting first time in an emergency or gripping the road surface in bad weather.

Source: Warranty Direct blog

On that basis maybe there's some truth to the idea that a car is economically finished after 7 years; certainly any penny you spend after that will be lost if you sell the car or it's written off.

[Austin160]

Reliability of source evidence!??
A bit like the sugar producer's research concluding that sugar is good for you?

[julianps]

Agreed; it's marketing research commissioned by Kwik-Fit and of course their argument is that drivers of New (1-3 years) and Nearly New (4-7 years) cars should be saving money buying manufacturer-grade servicing at KF rather than at a main stealer.

I'm not justifying the results, simply begging the question that, with a billion pounds in backlogged maintenance who'd buy a car at 7 years and older?

Case in question; search eBay for any 1.6 diesel running the same engine as Volvo's 1.6D, so S40/V50, Mini, Pug, Citroen, Ford (van and car) at 7 years/70-75,000 miles then compare the selling price to Parkers'/Glasses/CAP and see the drift in value (eBay actually has a specific warning page about the issue of DPF replacement on these engines).

If the DPF's been changed already then sales're not doing too badly (still, until EU 4 is further demonised in the press) but if they've not they can close either unsold or I've seen them going for £2,000 less than book/equivalent sales ... as was the case of a 2008 Pug 208 estate in metallic blue. 72,000 miles in pristine condition with FSH (whatever that means) with a book price upwards of £2,800 yet it struggled to make a grand at auction for this very reason.

And yet the car-specific forums here are fulling up with of tales of woe, by new members who've just bought a pig-in-a-poke and found they've thousands to spend keeping it going.

Please feel free to shoot down the message, and the messenger, but i'm just wondering if the way we all used to/do buy cars is coming to an end and we're just being a little slow to see how we're being ripped off.

[cheshired5]

Originally Posted by julianps

we're just being a little slow to see how we're being ripped off.

I bought my car for £1500 three years ago and could sell it for about £1000 now.
£500 depreciation for 36 months motoring and about £30 a month maintenance costs.
Can you explain how and when I was ripped off because I must have missed it?

[julianps]

Originally Posted by cheshired5

I bought my car for £1500 three years ago and could sell it for about £1000 now.
£500 depreciation for 36 months motoring and about £30 a month maintenance costs.
Can you explain how and when I was ripped off because I must have missed it?

But sire, you are a sage on these pages, a voice of knowledge and of experience and of reason (and no, I'm not takin' the p!ss). On the other hand you also service and maintain your car(s) yourself; therefore your costs are, at the minimum, a half if not a third of someone else who might rely on their local grease-monkey every time a job needs doing.

My sainted mother was charged £150 (by a national chain of otherwise tyre replacement specialists) to replace brake pads on a '97-plate Polo. Cost to you; £25 but only if you bought good ones.

If you take your depreciation and £30/month over 30,000 miles (3 years at average milage) that's 5p/mile for maintenance which is the budget I use too. Add another 5p/mile for insurance and VED and 20p/mile for fuel and you're at what is basically the ground-zero for car costs or 30p/mile [I'm not sure I'd believe many who said they were driving more cheaply than that].

But if your car had to go to a garage for work done, where labour was £60 an hour and parts prices were predicated upon the inflated aspirations of the local motor factor that could quickly become 40p/mile or more [if it threatened to became more I'd do the math and scrap the car rather than pay the bill].

But, and rhetorically, why pay 40p/mile for a banger when 50p/mile would buy you three years in a V40/T2 with 40,000 miles on the clock and 60p/mile a new one?

I guess all I'm thinking is the world that we inhabit, where we can maintain cars ourselves, and the world our wives and children inhabit, where they mostly cannot (that is even if they have their own house with somewhere to do the work) is changing and even putting aside the costs of a younger driver insuring an older car, what advice should we give them about buying a car today?

[Austin160]

Well, of course, your discussions continue - still based around possibly biased market research so the whole thing becomes academic, and perhaps it's me, but it would perhaps be good fodder for an economics classroom. Still good luck with getting some helpful replies to add to K F's evidence.

[julianps]

Originally Posted by Austin160

Well, of course, your discussions continue - still based around possibly biased market research so the whole thing becomes academic, and perhaps it's me, but it would perhaps be good fodder for an economics classroom. Still good luck with getting some helpful replies to add to K F's evidence.

I'm only really thinking out loud; but there's no lack of anecdotal evidence for my concerns.

[volvorocks]

Originally Posted by julianps

If all chickens come home to roost then £153.9m in skipped maintenance at the beginning of a car's life must result in £153.9m in either additional maintenance in the middle, or an earlier end to the cars' lives, than expected.

I can't see how that can be correct.

We have had cars in the past, owned for a good number of years and or a good number of miles and actually never serviced them at all. They were simply driven. Can't really see much point in spending £100's of pounds servicing either an old car or a newish car that has starship mileage. Also I must say they were more reliable than newer stuff that we have owned that has been religiously serviced, and few if any issues ever arose due to the lack of servicing.

Regards

[GMcL]

Originally Posted by volvorocks

I can't see how that can be correct.

Exactly, if your car has missed a filter change, they won't fit two in there to make up for the earlier miss.

[XcOM]

but on the other hand it depends how it is driven, you can indeed miss a service now and again if you don't do many miles, but you still have to concede that things to break down, even when not in use, Oil for example starts to brake down when used, gets hot, compressed ect ect so it needs to be replaced depending on your engine, type of oil, miles covered and driving style.

Belt's and tyres will still degrade if not used, the cost of running a car as above depends on many things, I use a main dealer for my work but I have a deal where I can supply the parts and I just pay labour, if I supply genuine new Volvo parts than I get all the usual included bonus' but if I supply non genuine parts or aftermarket parts they are happy to fit them but I only get a warranty on the workmanship, likewise if my part causes another to fail I am on my own, and I take that risk, I do most of the basic stuff myself, I check my oil quality every 6 weeks or so, had my engine anti-freeze checked last week to make sure it's good for winter, basic things like that which don't cost the earth can do wonders for bringing down your running costs, if you can do everything yourself again the costs come down even further.