Biggest car repair bill you've ever had?

[paulplom]

£4.5k on a new engine in my transhit custom. The fucking thing cost me £8k in 2021 when it also shit its gearbox and other bits and pieces.

What do I win?

[Metal Guru]

£2450

Major service (Impreza) , one of the front subframes replaced and extensive welding to rear turrets. Main dealer.

Labour rates were around £100 .

Once I had the MOT, I could then spend a further £300 on road tax and similar on my insurance. So the whole lot topped £3k.

[Stinkwheel]

16 hours ago, sierraman said:

£500 it’ll just be complete rubbish. 

Just not true though, did 25k in my 500 quid focus mk2 with just serving. Have so far done 15k in my 200 quid Peugeot 206.

I once ran a 2CV for 3 years with nothing but serving costs that I’d paid 50 pence for

cheap cars aren’t ‘always’ fucked. You just have to buy the right cheap cars. 

[Timewaster]

Just spent £1100 on Mrs TWs beloved 206 which us probably worth about half that.

I borrowed it, drove over a chunk of metal in the road and holed the sump. 

Recovered back to my local spanners, told them to sort it, plus the obvious rumbling wheel bearing .

Oh and while its in the air, could you look at the back end, something goes clonk.

Well, we've done the sump and the wheelbearing,  but you know that clonk from the back end?

Rear axle is fucked.

Oh well, in for a penny.......

[juular]

My biggest single bill is nearly always tyres as I tend to buy half decent ones, so typically £400 at any one time.

Repairs on the other hand, I tend to do in small jobs here and there so typically under £100 at a time. I avoid going to a garage whenever possible so this keeps the repair costs pretty low.

My biggest parts bill has been a set of forged rods, big end bearings and a gasket kit for a Volvo T5 engine, when I bent a rod on my C70. All in I think I was around £500 which isn't bad for a bottom end rebuild with uprated parts.

Not sure what that bill would have been had I taken it to a garage..

[chadders]

24 minutes ago, paulplom said:

£4.5k on a new engine in my transhit custom. The fucking thing cost me £8k in 2021 when it also shit its gearbox and other bits and pieces.

What do I win?

Nothing.

New sills alone cost more than £5k on my MGB let alone all of the other work.

It cost me £1,700 secondhand, admittedly quite a while ago.

As barefoot implies T2s are far more expensive.

[RoverFolkUs]

15 minutes ago, Stinkwheel said:

Just not true though, did 25k in my 500 quid focus mk2 with just serving. Have so far done 15k in my 200 quid Peugeot 206.

I once ran a 2CV for 3 years with nothing but serving costs that I’d paid 50 pence for

cheap cars aren’t ‘always’ fucked. You just have to buy the right cheap cars. 

This can be true however you typically only find out if you've bought a nail and wasted your time after you buy it! They say hindsight is a wonderful thing, so if you end up getting lucky it's not to say every 500 quid car will be a peach

I struck gold with my Xsara picasso, £500 and it had and 34k miles on the clock. Those deals do exist, but you have to get lucky

[Timewaster]

2 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

I struck gold with my Xsara picasso, £500 and it had and 34k miles on the clock. Those deals do exist, but you have to get lucky

Who did you buy it off?

 

 

Who?

 

 

 

Who's that?

[RoverFolkUs]

11 minutes ago, Timewaster said:

Who did you buy it off?

 

 

Who?

 

 

 

Who's that?

A lady who said it drives better than her Lamborghini. I'm sure it's true to an extent! 

About 3 years ago now..

[Matty]

50 minutes ago, paulplom said:

£4.5k on a new engine in my transhit custom. The fucking thing cost me £8k in 2021 when it also shit its gearbox and other bits and pieces.

What do I win?

Piston with a hole in the crown mounted on a nice bit of wood.

[catsinthewelder]

About £1100 putting a second hand engine into my mk1 Megane which was mostly an issue as it was the 3rd repair like that within 18 months!

More recently the Focus arrived needing a cambelt so I got a garage to replace that and the water pump.  It needed an injector seal too, no apparently all of them. £780.

Obviously the injector seals lasted about a month so have been chuffing away for years now.

[Mally]

Apart from Stock car engines. £150 on a Saab 9-3 clutch assembly.  Cant remember anything else over £100.

After my Saab experience outside in the snow, I may farm the Rover 75 clutch out if it expires before the MOT.  Around £700 if it happens.

[2flags]

My biggest bill was £4500 for the chassis change on the Landrover. Galvanised chassis, new suspension and Polly bushed all round, various odds and sods, as you do in these circumstances. Had it for 25 years now. Spent other monies on it too, but, for 25 years use, not too bad. 

[Jerzy Woking]

£850 for a new, sealed ECU from Lithuania (VW dealer wanted £1350 for it) for my VW T5 VW. 

£1,500 for a clutch and flywheel in my Guzzi V1200 Sport. My fault as it had started slipping under acceleration  but I nursed it for the next 6000 miles. Had I got it done immediately  the cost would have been £350 (its a frame off job to do).

[sierraman]

2 hours ago, Stinkwheel said:

Just not true though, did 25k in my 500 quid focus mk2 with just serving. Have so far done 15k in my 200 quid Peugeot 206.

I once ran a 2CV for 3 years with nothing but serving costs that I’d paid 50 pence for

cheap cars aren’t ‘always’ fucked. You just have to buy the right cheap cars. 

You could at one point buy a decent car for £500 but now 80% chance it’ll be total shite, if you don’t mind putting up with it possibly lasting anything between a week and a few months then maybe it might be for you, for me I don’t want to live like that. Starting point for something even worth having is probably £2,000 now, as you say I’m sure you could get something for less but the probability is not stacked in your favour.

I do note though a lot of these £500 ‘bargains’ on here seem to have a tenure of about 38 minutes - you must be the exception! 🤣

[artdjones]

2 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

This can be true however you typically only find out if you've bought a nail and wasted your time after you buy it! They say hindsight is a wonderful thing, so if you end up getting lucky it's not to say every 500 quid car will be a peach

I struck gold with my Xsara picasso, £500 and it had and 34k miles on the clock. Those deals do exist, but you have to get lucky

You can find bargains at low money if you aren't rigid about what you buy. Any ideas about image should be firmly suppressed. 

[Asimo]

£790 last year for clutch, concentric slave cylinder, thermostat housing and MOT on my Transit Connect.

Which about equals all of it's other repair bills together over the last eleven + years.

[dome]

Engine rebuild on my 911. 

5 figures, that's all I'm saying.

What was particularly painful was that I bought that particular car in a large part on the basis of it having had a previous rebuild by a renowned specialist 🤬

[barefoot]

Just remembered, campervan curtains!

The wife said to me, 'the curtains are beginning to look a bit shabby, I'll make some new ones... But then the upholstery will look old, so I'll do that at the same time. Could you have a captain's seat base fitted at the same time? And while everything's coming out, you could get a price for new furniture...'

The garage then said to me, 'we should take advantage of the bus being empty. We could replace the inner and outer sills, and the rear wheel arches... outriggers and belly pans would make sense as well whilst we're under there'.

Curtains = £5,000

[lisbon_road]

The biggest bill would be about £1000 for respray - that's a good few years ago mind.  After that, probably engine rebuilds but at a max around £400.

I really do everything else myself, like many on here.

 

 

[artdjones]

59 minutes ago, dome said:

Engine rebuild on my 911. 

5 figures, that's all I'm saying.

What was particularly painful was that I bought that particular car in a large part on the basis of it having had a previous rebuild by a renowned specialist 🤬

I wouldn't be fishing in the Porsche pool. But any talk of engine rebuilds, or any work that involves stripping the engine down puts me right off. Because the slightest mistake in the work can mess everything up again. 

Better a car that's never been messed with and runs well, even with a high mileage.

[Pete-M]

Sierra Cosworth engine rebuild back in 96 or 97.  That came to north of £3k.. 

My C32 is gonna swallow about double that over the next year or so. 

[Homersimpson]

£420 to respray a mini shell back in 1998.  Other than MOT's and tyres thats the only thing I've ever paid a garage to do on a car.

[Soundwave]

Largest overall bill was about a grand for a mediocre external blowover on my Beetle, way back in 2004.

Largest bill vital for keeping a car on the road was about £750 to have the rear sills and arches done on my MX5, including panels and welding done at mates rates. That was 3 years ago, and seems to have been a worthwhile investment.

[Matty]

1 hour ago, lisbon_road said:

The biggest bill would be about £1000 for respray - that's a good few years ago mind.  After that, probably engine rebuilds but at a max around £400.

I really do everything else myself, like many on here.

 

 

If I could find someone now to spray that godawful brush painted car of mine for a grand!

[stuboy]

i cringe for the day the mk2 galaxy needs a clutch replacement............

[bangernomics]

£4.5k on a new engine in my transhit custom. The fucking thing cost me £8k in 2021 when it also shit its gearbox and other bits and pieces.
What do I win?

A small tax bill that year?

[cbowditch]

My mercedes was burning loads of oil. Engine was stripped down to discover this. Being a modern mercedes v12 engine, rebuilding it wasn't something you could DIY at home. Total cost of rebuild £26K 😬

 

[Bradders59]

My biggest repair bill was £1200 in 1980. That was a hell of a lot of money then.

I put my Chevette HS in a ditch and bent it pretty badly. Local body shop charged me £1200 to fix it and made a right fucking mess of it.

We live and learn.

[Crackers]

30 minutes ago, cbowditch said:

My mercedes was burning loads of oil. Engine was stripped down to discover this. Being a modern mercedes v12 engine, rebuilding it wasn't something you could DIY at home. Total cost of rebuild £26K 😬

 

OK, you win 😮