A few work colleagues have had problems with their cars recently and it got me thinking "have I just been lucky?"

2005 55 plate Renault Megane 1.9 DCi - This had a full Renault service history, 90K miles (all on the motorway) and seized its engine by the side of the road, after running on its own oil. This occurred as a result of worn oil seals in the turbo. Renualt quoted in excess of £5K to fix and the car was scrapped (fetched ~£500 on eBay).

2007 Zafira 1.8 - completely burn't out on the motorway. Smoke started wafting into the cabin and my colleague pulled over to the hard shoulder. Within 5 minutes the whole thing was ablaze and the car was entirely gutted. The fire was thought to have originated under the bonnet and may have been as a result of petrol leaking onto the exhaust manifold.

2005 Peugeot 807 2.2 DCi - Snapped cambelt, resulting in a destroyed engine and the car being scrapped. Again the car had a full main dealer service history and was within the recommended cambelt change time. Main dealer quoted up to £9K to put it back on the road!

2009 59 Plate Corsa CDTi - Full Vauxhall service history and the vast majority of the mileage clocked up at high speed on the motorway. The car began dropping into "limp mode". Vauxhall diagnosed a failed turbo and EGR. This occurred at 60K miles and 2 weeks out of warranty. Vauxhall contributed 90% of the cost of the turbo as goodwill, but the bill still came to ~£800! The car has now been "off the road" with a Vauxhall main dealer for 2 months, with problems thought to relate to the DPF. The main dealer and a string of Vauxhall mastertechs are seemingly unable to fix it though. Thus far they've checked all the injectors (and replaced one at £750!), forced the DPF to regen, pressure washed it and then tried another one from a new car. The DPF light still comes on after ~30 miles and drops the car back into limp mode. My colleague has spent in excess of £2K. I understand the main dealer has refunded the cost of the EGR valve though.

2005 05 Plate VW Passat 2.0 TDi - predictably a failed oil pump drive at 50K miles - VW main dealer quoted a minimum of £6K to fix and refused to begin work without a sizeable deposit. Repaired at a "back street" garage for <£2K.

2004 54 Plate RX8 - perhaps not unsurprisingly a new cat (>£2K from Mazda!!), x3 ignition coils / plugs (>£750) and <20mpg for less than 200 BHP. Does drive well though.

2006 56 Plate Roomster 1.9 TDi 2 - required new engine wiring loom, due to water ingress - quoted £1100 by Skoda main dealer, with no guaruntee of a fix. Thread here: http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/240400-2006-roomster-requires-new-engine-loom-1100/

2006 56 BMW 335D - entire dash out to fix AC problems. fortunately covered by BMW used car warranty.

A few years ago another work colleagues 2001 Mondeo 1.8 TD snapped its cambelt at high speed. She repeatedly tried to restart the engine, despite all sorts of awful noises from it. The car was out of warranty (1 year back then), but Ford covered the cost of a replacement short engine, as it failed before the planned belt replacement mileage.

The only serious issue I've had with any of my cars, owned over the last 10 years, was a 2005 Lexus GS300SE. This was bought as an approved used car and was 3 years old with <25K miles on the clock. The traction control light came on and the repair, covered under the Lexus warranty, came to £4.5K!! It needed an engine ECU, traction control ECU and x2 new O2 sensors (at £500 each!). Looking back through the cars service history it had already had a new rear axle, steering rack, rear brake assemblies / hubs and fuel lines, all within 3 years / 20K miles. Not a car to own without a warranty!

Cars can be unexpectedly costly can't they!!

On the RX-8 if nothing else they've been over charged. The cats are around online for a few hundred + fitting if you don't go the dealers. And I got 4x plugs, coils and leads for less than £300 from America (proper OEM ones too) including duty fees.

I do wonder what those bills would have been if not taken to a main dealer (although for the newer cars I get why they did).

Reading other stories like that though, even with nearly every VAG car I/family have owned being a disaster story, we've not done too badly in comparison!

Edited 10 November, 201213 yr by TriggerFish

Good post Pinkpanther , this paints a truer picture of the vagaries of car ownership. You can get a bad or good un even though you spend a fortune servicing it to dealer schedules. In 50,000 miles and 5 years the only real fault my VRS has had is the cruise control switch which was solved in under 5 mins by cleaning the contacts with vodka. It's happened twice. It is warranted with Warranty Direct until Jan . I've decided not to renew the policy and you just know that the turbo or the ABS will fail in Feb.I reckon that it's pretty much down to luck unless you thrash it with no oil. My worst car was a 523i which I bought at 4 years old and 54000 miles, which cost me a fortune to keep roadworthy. It had already had a new bottom half when I bought it, and went through a cat, fan, power steering faults, burnt out electric window motors, abs sensors and mysteriously slowly used water which was not water pump or head related, it was investigated several times. The only good point was a great engine which used no oil. I finally lost patience and traded it in.

On the RX-8 if nothing else they've been over charged. The cats are around online for a few hundred + fitting if you don't go the dealers. And I got 4x plugs, coils and leads for less than £300 from America (proper OEM ones too) including duty fees.

I did suggest trying an independent specialist, but he insisted it was "main dealer" all the way! I suspected the main dealer weren't experts either, given lack of interest they show in retailing used RX'8's (too costly to warrant second hand apparently).

We did find genuine plug leads and coils at much reduced cost online, but the main dealer would only contemplate fitting parts supplied by their own parts department.

The cat is an interesting one though. A genuine Mazda UK supplied cat for a 192 BHP RX8 retails for in excess of £2K. We found a whole range of non OEM cats for sale online, at prices ranging from £200-£900. I subsequently had a conversation with a chap who bought my old winter tyres last year. He worked for a scrap yard who specialised in recovery the rare metals from catalytic convertors. The platinum was then re-sold to exhaust / cat manufacturers. He had a price list with him that gave the prices his yard would pay for a range of different cats. The OEM cats from cars under 1.6 litres were worth ~£30, over 2.0 litres was ~£50 and larger (6 or 8 cylinder) engines could be as much as £150. He told me that non OEM cats were largely worthless however, due to the relative lack of rare metals used in their construction. I mentioned my colleagues RX8 and he told me the old cat was probably worth ~£150 scrap, but that a replacement (non OEM) cat would be largely worthless, as it would contain very little platinum.

I imagine the main dealer who repaired my colleagues car didn't simply dump the old cat in the skip!

My worst car was a 523i which I bought at 4 years old and 54000 miles, which cost me a fortune to keep roadworthy. It had already had a new bottom half when I bought it, and went through a cat, fan, power steering faults, burnt out electric window motors, abs sensors and mysteriously slowly used water which was not water pump or head related, it was investigated several times. The only good point was a great engine which used no oil. I finally lost patience and traded it in.

that reminds me of the only other really bad experience I had with a used car. It was a ~1989 BMW 740i I bought on a whim. I was taken in by the 286 BHP V8 under the bonnet and electrically adjustable leather interior. I paid less that £700 and had a wonderful week running around in it, until the oil light suddenly came on. I refilled it with oil and watched the majority of it disappear as smoke out of the exhaust! I took it to a mechanic friend of mine, who immediately told me it would be low on compression. True enough the rearmost cylinders had virtually no compression, probably as a result of the Nikasil issue. I was initally gutted, but actually sold the car at a profit on eBay Turns out the heated electric leather interior and gearbox was worth more than the car as a whole.

I remember the car ran on 6 cylinders better than most 4 cyclinder cars I'd owned up until that point.

The smoke out of the back of it (when the engine had oil in it) was that bad, you could see anyone following you

It helps me to appreciate how well I've been served by my array of old Skoda's over the last 10 or so years

Old or new can indeed present you with the same headache

I've been lucky so far with all my cars. even my Clio dci which had a multitude of minor faults under warranty never really had anything major.

VRS is 5 and a half and so far (touch wood) I've had nothing other than the same cruise control problem as the OP which was fixed in about 15min with a £3 can of contact cleaner and a cotton bud.

I do live in fear of something big, but that can happen on any car.

The worst thing that happened to me was when the alternator went on my ZXR400. Luckily I was out with a mate who was able to get his dads pickup otherwise it was a 4 mile push home

Edited 12 November, 201213 yr by Aspman

First fault with the Yeti - one of the rear louvres has become detached from the rear aircon vents. Fortunately main dealer has agreed to replace under warranty - FOC, RESULT!!

Other people's car I know tend to break a lot but these are people who have no mechanical sympathy whatsoever. One mate cooked his engine because he was too lazy to put water in and thought he could make the 15 miles down the motorway to work. He then bought a Punto where lots went wrong. It leaked petrol for 8 months and he just carried on driving round. His current car, a Clio DCi has EGR/Turbo faults, sticking handbrake, etc. I'm really not sure if he's all there.

Parents Octy had every common fault they have including a strange one where when it had warmed up it would cut out completely if you stuck it into reverse.

Parents Octy had every common fault they have including a strange one where when it had warmed up it would cut out completely if you stuck it into reverse.

my first felicia does that from time to time, pretty sure its down to water getting in the reverse lights. sometimes could reverse off downhill driveway onto the road before it cut out which made me think water sloshing around.. dont remember it happening since its been garaged either.

It was a loose connection under the dash in the end. No idea what though but the 109 relay was mentioned