OT:MOT...

gtvlusso

Quick calculation;

Car costs excluding fuel this year:

£245 - 12 months tax
£129 - Tyre
£1100 - manifold and injector seals
£1075 - MOT, Service Ball joint, new injector

Bike costs (full rebuild and re-paint after 5 years of abuse and no money being spent)

£15 - Headset
£75 - Powder Coat
£60 - Selle Italia saddle
£35 - 2 x Durano tyres
£15 - half link chain
£35 - Drop handlebars (an upgrade)

Hmmmm.......Now looking for a small petrol car, the beast shall be moved onwards, gutted as it is now fully sorted and will probably be good for 200k miles.

rjsterry

gtvlusso wrote:

Quick calculation;

Car costs excluding fuel this year:

£245 - 12 months tax
£129 - Tyre
£1100 - manifold and injector seals
£1075 - MOT, Service Ball joint, new injector

Bike costs (full rebuild and re-paint after 5 years of abuse and no money being spent)

£15 - Headset
£75 - Powder Coat
£60 - Selle Italia saddle
£35 - 2 x Durano tyres
£15 - half link chain
£35 - Drop handlebars (an upgrade)

Hmmmm.......Now looking for a small petrol car, the beast shall be moved onwards, gutted as it is now fully sorted and will probably be good for 200k miles.

Blimey! Not so much a car as a money pit.

gtvlusso

rjsterry wrote:

gtvlusso wrote:

Quick calculation;

Car costs excluding fuel this year:

£245 - 12 months tax
£129 - Tyre
£1100 - manifold and injector seals
£1075 - MOT, Service Ball joint, new injector

Bike costs (full rebuild and re-paint after 5 years of abuse and no money being spent)

£15 - Headset
£75 - Powder Coat
£60 - Selle Italia saddle
£35 - 2 x Durano tyres
£15 - half link chain
£35 - Drop handlebars (an upgrade)

Hmmmm.......Now looking for a small petrol car, the beast shall be moved onwards, gutted as it is now fully sorted and will probably be good for 200k miles.

Blimey! Not so much a car as a money pit.

Even the guy at the Merc specialists looked sorry for us....He said he had never seen so many issues on an ML. And then showed me his own ML270 with 320,000 on the clock and no 'big' issues.....gutted.

beancounter

gtvlusso wrote:

Even the guy at the Merc specialists looked sorry for us....He said he had never seen so many issues on an ML. And then showed me his own ML270 with 320,000 on the clock and no 'big' issues.....gutted.

He's been very very lucky.

You've been probably about average for an ML.

bc

gtvlusso

beancounter wrote:

gtvlusso wrote:

Even the guy at the Merc specialists looked sorry for us....He said he had never seen so many issues on an ML. And then showed me his own ML270 with 320,000 on the clock and no 'big' issues.....gutted.

He's been very very lucky.

You've been probably about average for an ML.

bc

Is this the voice of ML experience or a few googles on t'interweb?

IMHO - the sprinter van engine (OM612 270CDI) is bloody good - common problems are manifold and injector seals, but they live for interstellar mileage with few problems - hence used in the Merc vans. The only other thing that is disappointing is build quality and panel fit on the early ML's - all sorted on the facelift ML's from 2002 (mine is a facelift)

In terms of experience, this is my first ML and my 3rd privately owned Mercedes. I have had 2 Land Rover Discovery's - both had new gearboxes and a multitude of very expensive problems (brakes, fuel system and a new axle on one of them!) within relatively low mileages, luckily, they were both company cars.

So, IMHO, the ML gets a bad rap and considering there are loads about with 150,000 miles + on the clock. The general comments are more than likely because it is quite expensive to buy new and not well kitted out considering the price tag - i.e. people buying cars at this expense expect a 4 x 4 'S-class' and it is definitely not in the same league of refinement.

beancounter

gtvlusso wrote:

Is this the voice of ML experience or a few googles on t'interweb?

Various sources, although my only direct experience was of a next door neighbour who had an ML55 which was quite literally constantly broken, culminating in a £16,000 replacement engine. Eventually he made Mercedes take the thing back.

bc

Fireblade96

"cheap petrol car". Just for comparison, here's what mine costs me:

Ford Focus 1.6 estate, bought for £3,300 with about 30k miles 4 years ago.
Annual service & MoT (my 1-man garage does the service, then takes it elsewhere for MoT) : £200
Does 40-45 mpg.
Other expenses - a couple of tyres @ £70-ish each, one or two bulbs.

I'd get another one when this one wears out, but I only do about 3-5k miles/year so it should be good for a while yet.

EKE_38BPM

gtvlusso wrote:

Quick calculation;

Car costs excluding fuel this year:

£245 - 12 months tax
£129 - Tyre
£1100 - manifold and injector seals
£1075 - MOT, Service Ball joint, new injector

Bike costs (full rebuild and re-paint after 5 years of abuse and no money being spent)

£15 - Headset
£75 - Powder Coat
£60 - Selle Italia saddle
£35 - 2 x Durano tyres
£15 - half link chain
£35 - Drop handlebars (an upgrade)

Hmmmm.......Now looking for a small petrol car, the beast shall be moved onwards, gutted as it is now fully sorted and will probably be good for 200k miles.

Ouch.

It is not uncommon to spend loads on a car then get fed up with it and sell it. Basically, the last bill you pay on any car is usually the biggest. Mrs EKE spent ~£400 on her crappy Corsa a month before scrapping it.

SimonAH

There should be some very cheap Saabs out there soon........ That's where I'd be putting my cash if I was in the market for a car at the moment.

veronese68

SimonAH wrote:

There should be some very cheap Saabs out there soon........ That's where I'd be putting my cash if I was in the market for a car at the moment.

I know of 2 Saabs that have been written off recently. I was dealing with the insurance for one of them and the assessor did comment that Saab values have fallen through the floor.

UndercoverElephant

People are worried about getting parts for Saabs in the future. It's a shame, because they did make some extraordinary cars at times.

First.Aspect

They key word here is "Mercedes" not "diesel".

I splashed on a Deutsche Auto myself and despite best efforts could only manage £170 on tax and £117 on run-flats (make that run-coccyx), so I applaud your efforts GTV. Did you buy Rapha tyres?

The best financial decision you could make at this stage would be a vacetomy I think. Coupes cheaper than people carrier 4x4s I think.

Chics dig coupes.

nation

Veronese68 wrote:

SimonAH wrote:

There should be some very cheap Saabs out there soon........ That's where I'd be putting my cash if I was in the market for a car at the moment.

I know of 2 Saabs that have been written off recently. I was dealing with the insurance for one of them and the assessor did comment that Saab values have fallen through the floor.

There are also a few part supply problems since they went out of business - mostly weird little bits where you would usually buy the part from a third party manufacturer that also supplies the factory. Some of them are still going, some decided to wash their hands of Saab since the bulk of their sales were parts for new cars. Insurers will tend to write them off rather than take the chance that all the parts are going to be available in a reasonable timescale - bodyshops aren't keen on attempting repairs for the same reason.

Anecdote: I once knew a guy who managed to get his shed of an Audi Quattro through an MOT despite it not having a boot floor. It had rusted through where the spare wheel sits, he'd cut a big section out intending to weld it up, stuck the boot lining back in, and forgotten about it. Shows how thorough some testers are.

gtvlusso

beancounter wrote:

gtvlusso wrote:

Is this the voice of ML experience or a few googles on t'interweb?

Various sources, although my only direct experience was of a next door neighbour who had an ML55 which was quite literally constantly broken, culminating in a £16,000 replacement engine. Eventually he made Mercedes take the thing back.

bc

The 5.5 litre handbuilt engine has been used on the complete range from C-class to S-class, so, I think that this is more down to a coincidence that it was an ML fitted with the AMG engine, rather than it being an ML based issue. Interestingly, I hear nothing but good from the AMG series - one of the most powerful daily use engines ever built and it can be supercharged without any drawbacks or loss of resilience.