On the cheap

[blackpools60d5]

Really does annoy me when people buy very high performance cars and try and run them on a tight budget, as sooner or later it will come back to haunt them,
Cheap tyres , Cheap oil, Dirty coolant, Only basic Services. Its a real shame as most R's are in the hands of dealers who know nothing really about them just they have 300bhp and are very fast, but as these cars get passed on to more and more owners they will be cared for less and less, (Volvo fans not included ) Shame as most i have been looking at months ago need £1000's spending on them for genuine volvo parts like brakes and exhaust and tyres, then try telling the dealer that the car on this pitch needs £1000's spending on it and watch is face smile and try and convince you otherwise. car:

[cookie]

cheap non matching tyres is a walk away for me, if a T5 is well sorted, maintainence isn't expensive

Regular oil changes - I use ***h Titan super synthetic 5-40W in everything, oil and filter changed between 3 and 6k at most, and costs probably 25 quid a time, plugs every 10-15k (again not expensive) flush the coolant, replace brake fluid (ATE suerblue is only about 12 quid a litre from eurocarparts when they have their sales on)

I don't spend much on maintaince, but do majority myself, and everything else goes to Tim

Tyres - current choice is Khomo KU31's, V40 had Federal 595 SS on it, and get a bit of heat and they are both a decent 'budget' tyre, that I'm happy to drive on track with

when you change pads, take of and clean up calipers, the guides etc, it costs nothing.

Its not so much about the budget, its about the care, and if you take your car to a garage, most of cost is labour

I average about £300 per car per year on all maint/brakes/tyres/servicing - and I take T4 on track, so it gets abused.

however there are some sorely neglected cars out there - because of taking cars to garage for annual service, and nothing else, running brakes to metal, tyres to webbing, just trying to eek a little bit more 'value' from car however

if the average person replaced tyres with 1mm more wear on them, pads at 30% worn, I bet in period of ownership additional costs would be nil, as you don't tend to sell a car when tyres are bald and brake pads shot, and probably even replacing oil 1000 miles or a month earlier, would make no difference at all either

So, (for those not asleep, or scrolled down) its not about servicing on the cheap, its about false economy and poor servicing/advice

Greg hardly did servicing on the cheap, (approx 11k in 3years) but that 11k was mainly just RT fleecing him, not doing repairs/main properly, and charging horrific amounts for unnecessary work

[I-S]

I think the issue is that people are short sighted.

They have a budget of £5k and see they could buy a Ford Fester or something, or an older T5.

Fine, the purchase price is similar, but the running costs are wildly different, and people don't seem to have much appreciation for this. If you can't afford to run a performance car, the purchase price is irrelevant.

We've just bought a v70, and I'm fairly clear that it will cost a bit more to run than our Honda accord tourer. It's a bit more to insure, but less to tax and a bit less to fuel (40ish mpg diesel vs 33mpg petrol). Tyres are similar, but I did most maintenance on the Honda myself. I think that taking the volvo to an independent is the right solution, but it will cost us more to maintain than the Honda. I'm ok with that and got all of this information together before purchasing.