Average annual running cost for 20 year old 'weekend car'?

Average annual running cost for 20 year old 'weekend car'?

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Discussion

MickyveloceClassic

278 posts

46 months

I bought a 1996 C36 when it was ten years old, and 17 years later, I’ve spent about £9.5k on maintaining it, including having it painted, wheels done at least twice etc. so I’m thread average at £558 per year.

Needless to say, some of the expenditure wasn’t essential, but I consider it cheap to run when depreciation is applied to the equation.

For context, I’ve done 42000 miles in it in the time I’ve owned it.

AlexGSi2000

132 posts

181 months

I have found it varies.

I have a 22 year old BMW that I purchased in early 2019.

There was a fair amount of initial spend during the first two years of ownership, as I needed to refresh / renew quite a few things (suspension components.etc) - this amounted to around £4k in the first year and another £4k in the second year in parts (some of the second year spend included modifications, so would have been avoidable if needed).

The past two years of ownership have cost relatively little, the car is stored over the winter months and only ever used in the summer when the weather is nice.

It's averaged around 1,000 miles a year in my ownership, last year the costs were as follows;

- Insurance - £400
- MOT - £40
- Oil & FIlter - £110
- Around £300 in fuel

I have this year needed to send the instrument cluster away for repair - expecting this back in the next week or so with a cost of around £200.



AlexGSi2000

132 posts

181 months

AlexGSi2000 said:
I have found it varies.

I have a 22 year old BMW that I purchased in early 2019.

There was a fair amount of initial spend during the first two years of ownership, as I needed to refresh / renew quite a few things (suspension components.etc) - this amounted to around £4k in the first year and another £4k in the second year in parts (some of the second year spend included modifications, so would have been avoidable if needed).

The past two years of ownership have cost relatively little, the car is stored over the winter months and only ever used in the summer when the weather is nice.

It's averaged around 1,000 miles a year in my ownership, last year the costs were as follows;

- Insurance - £400
- MOT - £40
- Oil & FIlter - £110
- Tax - around £150 over the months it was taxed.
- Around £300 in fuel

I have this year needed to send the instrument cluster away for repair - expecting this back in the next week or so with a cost of around £200.

Gad-Westy

13,265 posts

200 months

It's worth mentioning the sporadic nature of costs on cars at this age. On our old 996, maintenance was pretty good as far Porsche ownership goes (think about £1k per year) but if I'd have kept it longer, I'd have needed to get some paint on the front arches, probably a suspension rebuild somewhere down the line and clutches don't last forever. That's ignoring the outside possibility of a full engine rebuild, shudder. A 996 is maybe an extreme example but 20 year old cars are full of 20 year old components and typically will require more than just routine servicing from time to time. There is plenty of stuff that becomes to-do list type stuff that you just don't need to care about on newish cars. Brake lines, exhaust, radiators, hoses etc. And then there is rust. Admittedly you can do a lot of preventative stuff if your car is a garage queen but any serious corrosion or paint type issues can really cost a lot. Not trying to put anyone off, just trying to be realistic. If you keep a car short term, you can often get away with avoiding some of these big ticket items and just cover routine servicing. If you intend to keep it longer term, you tend to start to start to build up a to-do list far beyond regular oil changes.

samoht

4,441 posts

133 months


I think I averaged about £3-4k a year over the ten years I had my '96 RX-7. Some of that was upgrades but the majority was fixing stuff - two engine rebuilds, lots of rust, brakes, suspension bushes, dampers, etc etc.

I got about half that back in appreciation when I sold it.


My current '07 C55 is probably averaging around £2k a year, although that's been driven up by a rather expensive rear brakes rebuild just recently.



AlexGSi2000

132 posts

181 months

Gad-Westy said:
It's worth mentioning the sporadic nature of costs on cars at this age. On our old 996, maintenance was pretty good as far Porsche ownership goes (think about £1k per year) but if I'd have kept it longer, I'd have needed to get some paint on the front arches, probably a suspension rebuild somewhere down the line and clutches don't last forever. That's ignoring the outside possibility of a full engine rebuild, shudder. A 996 is maybe an extreme example but 20 year old cars are full of 20 year old components and typically will require more than just routine servicing from time to time. There is plenty of stuff that becomes to-do list type stuff that you just don't need to care about on newish cars. Brake lines, exhaust, radiators, hoses etc. And then there is rust. Admittedly you can do a lot of preventative stuff if your car is a garage queen but any serious corrosion or paint type issues can really cost a lot. Not trying to put anyone off, just trying to be realistic. If you keep a car short term, you can often get away with avoiding some of these big ticket items and just cover routine servicing. If you intend to keep it longer term, you tend to start to start to build up a to-do list far beyond regular oil changes.
Exactly this. Mine is going to need sills in the next couple of years - saving has already started!

kambites

65,755 posts

208 months

The full running costs for my Elise, which is just coming up to 20 years old, are in my profile. I've recently been averaging around £1100 a year in total for about 3500 miles a year with a breakdown of roughly:

Insurance: £200 (full comp, £150 excess, estimated 4000 miles a year including commuting)
Tyres: £50
Servicing/Repairs/MoT: £200
Tax: £200
Fuel: £450

So with your exclusions it's just the £200ish. Last year that figure was closer to £400 (new gear linkage, track-rod ends and central locking ECU); the year before it was about £250 (new battery, a lambda sensor and 3 years' worth of oil, filters, etc.). The two years before that were nothing except the MoT itself (because I was using service components bought in bulk the year before that).


However, I do all the servicing/repairs myself which keeps the costs down. I'm also not precious about appearance so haven't bothered to fix any of the huge number of stone chips, etc. it's picked up over the years. I could probably have spent another £500 a year on it if I wanted to keep it perfect. It does currently have a VERY annoying rattle from somewhere inside the dashboard which I need to spend some time tracking down and the driver's door still doesn't lock with the central locking, I think the wiring loom has failed somewhere between the control module and the door so I need to dig that out and splice a new piece of cable into the loom.

The counter to that is that over the last five years or so, its value seems to have gone up by about £5k, which would easily cover getting it back into perfect condition. However, I'm under no illusion that values are going to continue to rise at that rate!

Edited by kambites on Friday 24th March 09:42

SturdyHSV

9,736 posts

154 months

Our household has a 1998 E36, 2003 Holden Ute, 2005 Monaro and a 2008 Commodore, so almost everything falls in to your 20 year old weekend car category hehe

Do the work myself, would agree ignoring VED / insurance / petrol (thankfully) even with regular use they really don't cost much, the odd track rod end, drop link or whatever is ~£30 ish, pads £35 ish, discs maybe a few hundred, so yeah, £500 / year for each car would comfortably leave plenty of change.

Jamescrs

3,551 posts

52 months

Porsche 986 Boxster (2001) has cost me around £2000 in the last 12 months on repairs service and MOT with me buying some parts but fitting them myself.

Insurance is around £200 then VEL around £300.

I think it did around 2000 miles in the last 12 months so it's cost me £1 per mile plus fuel.

I do question whether it's worth it when its sat in my garage out of sight all winter but when I get back in it I just love the thing, couple of road trips into Europe planned this year.

Cambs_Stuart

2,286 posts

71 months

My daily is a 17 year old Subaru Legacy 3.0 and my fun car is a 20 year old clio 172. I like a bit of driveway tinkering.
Some things were common between the two. At this age suspension is at the end of it's life, so if you're in the market for a car of this age among the usual service history look for things that have had money spent on bushes, shocks etc.
The other thing is rust. There are a lot of cars of this age where it's an issue.
Generally the mechanical bits of naturally aspirated cars of this ear are fairly tough, but the more complicated things are the more risk you get (turbos/superchargers).
So if you're thinking about a fun car, finder the owners club forum, find out the common issues, and keep an eye on the club "For sale" pages. The reader's cars threads on her can also be a useful insight into ownership experience.

soxboy

5,187 posts

206 months

Jamescrs said:
Porsche 986 Boxster (2001) has cost me around £2000 in the last 12 months on repairs service and MOT with me buying some parts but fitting them myself.

Insurance is around £200 then VEL around £300.

I think it did around 2000 miles in the last 12 months so it's cost me £1 per mile plus fuel.

I do question whether it's worth it when its sat in my garage out of sight all winter but when I get back in it I just love the thing, couple of road trips into Europe planned this year.
My 2005 Boxster has cost on average £1200 a year on maintenance over the last 6 years I’ve had it. Some years it’s been £2k, others £500. It’s also a pretty much 50:50 split between regular service/ consumables and age-related issues (e.g. coolant pipes last year).

Insurance £150, VED £30pm. It does about 1500-2000 miles a year. No idea on fuel, I just stick £50 when it needs it. This year it needs 4 new summer tyres so that’ll be expensive, I’m also pondering sorting the AC out so it works.

On the plus side depreciation has been nil (actually in profit) and we’ve not needed to pay for a regular second car that would hardly get used.