What is the most expensive repair and the cheapest on your cars?

[stripped fred]

The main beam flasher stick thingy didn't work on my Astra. After several weeks of use it is now working. I can only think the previous owner didn't let anyone out of junctions.

[Guest mark_w2015]

i 'upgraded' my 147 to having cruise control by buying a stalk off ebay for a tenner, and..er...plugging it in. that's it. well apart from cutting a nick in the steering column shroud to fit it, but that didn't cost anything. so i got a 300 quid [what it was new of course] upgrade for the equivalent of a couple of bottles of red. joy.

also, know a guy who said he bought an M3 convertible for a couple of grand on the understanding that it had dropped a valve, when in fact it needed a new spark plug.

hmmm.....i know what you're thinking, and i'm not convinced either.

[Vince70]

My cheapest repair must be on my old Audi 80 as I noticed on the drive home that main beam didn't work so was expecting to at least have to buy a new stalk for it but I had a can of electrical contact cleaner in the shed and sprayed it in a gap in the steering shroud and it started working again straight away..

 

Also on my first Audi A4 the drivers window was held in with clothes pegs and bits of cardboard but apart from that the car was a real beauty with extremely low mileage but I won it cheap on eBay because of the problem (£253) and was told it was going to cost a kings ransom to fix as the window unit will have to be drilled out but I found an old mechanism in the boot of the car and took the clips off it and fitted them and the window worked great afterwards so another free repair.

 

But the best for me was my last A4 which was another nice low mileage example and the owner had been told it needed sensors an ecu and most probably a new cat from a main dealer so I bought it for spares so I could retro fit some posh bits on my other car as it was an upmarket example for (£225) and on the drive home I had a play with it and unplugged the MAF unit and it ran a treat, so I ordered a second hand one off eBay and put it on in 10 minutes so I thought I would use it as my daily driver as it came with nearly 6 months tax and test as I bought it a couple of days before the new car tax law came in force then sold it once the tax ran out.

 

I think the biggest surprise bill for me was back in about 1988 I had a 1981 cavalier Mk2 and the clutch pedal came out of the floor and I ended up with a £400 repair bill as apparently the dash etc had to come out for the repair and it was quite a common fault on a thin gauge Vauxhall but I did just go into the first garage I came across to get it repaired.

 

The thing is years later I had the same problem with an Astra Mk1 and I phoned up a mobile welder who advertised in the local paper and he only charged £50 to do the repair and made a much better job than on the cavalier.

[billyboy406v6]

Fan blower kept stopping, gave it a squirt of WD 40 ( other squirty stuff is available)and bingo it now works ok !

[Cheggers]

*awaits Bub2006's contribution

[Guest mark_w2015]

bought an old E36 BMW a few years ago off a dealer. after the test drive i tried the eleccy windows, the drivers one kind went thud, and dropped downwards. the dealer said he'd fix it before i collected the car. so i paid up, went back a couple of days later. he aplogised that he'd not done the job, he'd lifted the glass up & kind of wedged it in place. he said 'window regulators are about 50 quid secondhand? if i reimburse you, do you mind doing the job?'. so he gave me 50 quid, i drove it home, found that the 2 plastic clips that hold the glass to the regulator had broken, bought 2 new ones off e bay for £2.50. result!

[Ben_O]

I bought a 106 with long MOT for scrap money a few years back. It showed all the symptoms of HGF which is why it was being sold.

Turned out that it was a blocked breather combined with damp weather and lots of short journies.

 

I cleared the breather, changed the oil and ran it for 2 years. Cost nothing as i already had oil laying around and a new filter was found in the boot.

 

Years ago, I was working at a Vauxhall main dealer bodydhop and there was a mk2 Astra estate taken in as PX in the sales dept. I showed some interest but was told that the fuel tank had rusted through and was leaking and there was no MOT.

 

The manager popped it up the side whilst contemplating what to do so i had a cheeky look round it. I had a Mk3 granada at the time that was being scrapped so when the manager said he was going to weigh the Astra in, i offered the fucked Granada as a swap as it weighed more and i would sort the Astra.

Got the Astra home and replaced a rubber fuel pipe at the cost of 90p (no rusty hole after all) 

Before putting it in for the MOT, the manager handed me a brown envelope containing some paperwork for the Astra that he had just been given. I checked through it and it turned out it had 11 months MOT and a stack of history.

 

Result!!

 

i think th dearest repair i have had was the new engine for my Scenic. I paid £90 for a scrap donor with a good engine and did the swap myself

 

Other than that, i dont tend to keep  car if the repair bill is more than a hundred or 2