Falling out of LOVE
 

Yep it's true, i think i'm falling out of love with my scoobs!!!!! It has been ultra reliable, ultra grin after grin. Weve been around Europe together, all over England and i have LAVISHED obscene amounts of money on her. BUT and as you can see it's a big BUT, i hardly get to use it (the wife is using it all the time),when i do use it don't get me wrong, its still an awsome motor, but the costs seem to outway the grin factor.Mainly because of work tie's, the only time i can use it is on a sunday,(misses uses it all week) and i feel i can't give it the attention it needs anymore, plus the insurance, fuel, servicing etc...

I doub't the wife will give it up easily :D

And why should she

I know exactly what you mean. Sell it and buy a diesel if it bothers you, or grin and bear it if you think you can.

I couldn't bear it, so the car had to go. It went two weeks ago. The final nail in the coffin for it was a Fabia VRS diesel being nearly as fast both in a straight line and in the twisties, and those things cost pocket money to run.

Don't go and drive any "performance" diesel, as you will be shocked and your car will be for sale. I ended up with a BMW 330D sport tourer, as I'm sure everyone's sick of hearing about. Halved my insurance, doubled my fuel economy, halved servicing costs, and depreciation is not going to roger me sideways either. And, worryingly, the car is more fun that the WRX... Nowhere near as much grip, but embarassingly good fun.

I guess the point of the post is to say if the impreza goes, it's really not the end of the world. I've ended up in a car that I think is way more fun, and is costing less than half of what the Impreza costs! Have test drives, but honestly be prepared for a shock.
Nick
PS - I hated the whole image of the 3 series (and still do), but ended up buying one.

I am sure your wife can pay attention to it and you can pay insurance,service,fuel etc for happiness? She may be able to afford all if she works?Or, do you reckon she aint bothered what she drives and you are the one who want scooby in the household? In that case,i understand you thinking of getting rid mate.
:)

I don't think any fabia vrs will be staying with webbys scooby. I had the misfortune of seeing it go and I have the STI PPP.

:notworthy :notworthy

Fair enough, but if webby can't justify spending out to keep it then I'll put money he can find another car that is half the cost of a scoob to run, but which puts nearly as much grin on his face. I know that if I was in a VRS and held my own against a WRX, or "didn't get my ass handed to me on a plate" ;) then I'd be the one laughing more than the WRX driver :D

If I was in a stirring mood, I'd ask why you need a car that's faster than an STI PPP anyhow... ;) But let's not debate that eh? :D

...took a test drive in a Seat Leon Cupra 1.9tdi not so long ago.
Shockingly quick...loads of torque....lots of grip...and absurdly cheap to run for the fun.

So why do i still have the Scoob?

blinkers?

Chiark, you are right about the bugeye wrx being of similar performance to other vehicles in standard form. I used to have one and i thought i would run away from certain vehicles but it was more of a struggle than i thought.

It was a standard WRX blobeye, that's all. Modifying it would have hammered my insurance, and would have got expensive :D

Pappasmurf, why do you still have the scoob then? :)

Know what you mean. I rarely drive my P1 even when I have the free time. Its much less hassle getting into the diesel for shopping trips and generally running around in, especially parking! For 8 years Ive been paranoid about where to park, now I have no concerns whatsoever.

Thinking also of a 330d, getting rid of the P1 and the golf and getting a kind of mix of the two. Can afford to keep the P1 but Im seriously questioning why i should keep shelling out on something I dont have as much passion about before.

For what it costs to keep on the road each year compared to a normal car I can have two lots of good holidays a year.

How unlike you to be normal and not abusive to anyone. Or PM them with the same abuse or comment.

Pot/kettle. Crawl back into your hole and dont ruin the thread.

Are scoobies really that expensive to run in the UK, mine costs me next to nothing to run each month.

Can someone give a breakdown of what it costs to run a scooby in the UK.

Not interested in depreciation as if that is what worries you then you shouldn't drive a car.

I use mine everyday for work and it costs me about €70 for V-Power 100ron or BP Ultimate 100Ron per month

Insurance is round €700 a year
Servicing is negligable
Road tax €122 a year

so what else is there??

My next service will be around £1,000, the big 4 year service and the timing belt.

Depreciation around £13,000, although Im not specifically complaining about that.

Optimax, dont know how much it is now, but was an easy £45-£47 for a full tank (circa 260 miles) over £7000 in petrol for my mileage 42k

Insurance, £1100 32 full no claims no accidents but 6 points.

Renewall of warranty (not due for 16 months but has recently over doubled I hear), Tracker subs etc circa £600 pa

Tyres, say £85 a corner.

So to run a P1 for 3.5 years probably cost me near 30k adding in road tax and a few minor mods. Sink the 30k 4 years ago into a house as a deposit and rent it out I would have been looking at +40k, so if I went down that route I'd be 70k up.

I'm not going to tot up over 7.5 years for the other 2 imprezas Ive owned, I could have been minted :eek:

Hewlett Packard ?
 

Hi Wurzel,

are you working at HP ? I stayed in gaertringham near Boeblingen in 93' while doing my sandwich placement as "Practicant" at HP.

Cheers,

RickJ.

One of the things that didn't croos my mind to ask when ordering the car was "whats the mpg ?"

I just paid 160 quid for 10K service, my insurance is approx 600 quid a year and I put 20 quid of Optimax per week.

I was considering PPP but its 1600 + the hike in insurance taking it close to a 2K upgrade. Unfortunately I can't afford this as the missus has allocated spare cash for house renovations !!! So PPP will have to wait.

So as far as ongoing costs, I can live with 20 quid a week for fuel to drive my pride and joy...

Come on guy's, I think your all suffering from Monday morning blues...and it aint even Monday.:cry:


The reason you all purchased your sccob in the first place was becuase it was fun !

If its no fun anymore sell the scoob...dont moan about it...

Just imagine having to drive a for KA for a week....then you would regret it.....and you would remember why you got the scoob in the first place!

According to Autocar this month unless you do 30K miles a year theres no cost saving to buying a diesel, fuel is not the highest cost, its just the one you see most often!
The comparison between the 330D and standard WRX is fair, the scoob is a bit quicker point to point, 0-100mph and in give and take situations, plus it has the benefit of AWD making it a better all weather performance car. The 330, is very desirable once the BMW badge has been removed! - probably faster over some in gear accelleration times, certainly in top due to the torque and is a more comfortable long distance car.

Where the BM falls down is purchase cost:
WRX-19K New
BMW 330D Sport -31K New
Used - as per Autotrader National search just now-Search Criteria less than 20K miles/under 2 years
Red WRX 03 wagon 17K miles private - 12700
WRBlue WRX 03 17K miles 'showroom Cond' dealer - 13500
BMW 330D Sport 03 17K miles dealer 22,945

So new you are looking at 12K more for the BM, Used 10K more - thats a lot of fuel.

I would say the STD 03 WRX is the best £ vs performance available on the market today.

If you really want to save money according to todays MSN homepage the Nissan Micra is the one to go for!

hey nothing wrong with a ford ka-it is a great drive and the limits are much lower than scooby so safer fun can be had,i remember flying past a wrx around a corner -he was not happy
martin

All very true but leaving aside the sport, you can pick up MY2000 330ds for around the 10-11k mark (13k ish for sports) in the autotrader too. I certainly would never buy a new one, but one 3-5 years old seems a sensible option. most would have been fleet cars with motorway mileage.

Over a period you would see the benefit of the 330d due to lower running costs. Getting a micra is probably not a pratical option for a lot of people, family/long distance driving etc etc, although I'd love the running costs!

A standard Impreza will be the best £ for performance on the road, but I'd say an older one for about 5-6k. And at the end of the day, for me, I don't really miss the performance that much. The grin factor is losing the arguement against costs for me :(

Guess I feel the same way as chiark

Feck me, that wasnt me was it? Nah that was a roundabout and the Ka nearly crashed as a result :D

Yes I was off boost and didnt even see him coming before you ask!

But they're not comparing a car that does 20mpg on average with a diesel, are they? I worked out what I'd spent on Optimax for the car... For the sake of your sanity, don't do it. Don't then work out how much it'd cost at 40mpg rather than 20 (hint - half). Halve the insurance and servicing costs, and the equation has changed. Or it did for my situation - your mileage will of course vary :D

Scoobynutta, I thought the "sport" spec was only released on the facelift model? Either way, I'm in a car whose depreciation and running costs I can live with :) . Performance-wise, I'm not missing the Impreza. I'm still getting used to RWD, which is more fun than it really should be :D

I'm with you fully on the best value impreza being a classic MY99 at about 6k... For that money, it's shedloads of performance and providing you're not doing more than about 15k a year I could live with the costs - just.

Yep sure am, I am in the sh1tty smst compound in a sh1tty IBM building.

Like I said earlier in the thread, I am happy with costs of my WRX. Its boggo standard and plenty fast enough for me and manages to put a grin on my face every time I drive it.

I could spend thousands making it go faster but I'm happy with the way it is.

I took a colleague of mine who owns a TT for a spin one lunch time and he was blown away with the way it handled. He spent 7K more than me and he can't believe the performance difference. In terms of value for money for performance its a bargain IMHO.

Be happy then mate :D . Just do yourself a favour and don't have a run-in with a nippy diesel, as it'll shift your perception of whether its fast enough or not :D . I know just what you mean about the grin thing tho: mine did too for 2 years, and the old scoob for 4 years prior to that, but I'm grinning even more in RWD at the moment.

I guess what shocked me so much, and the reason I keep banging on about how much I like my new car, is that I was expecting that I'd be buying a boring car in order to get the "cheap to run" bit. :D

Promise I'll shut up now :)

Cheapest sport I could find was

http://atsearch.autotrader.co.uk/WWW...00509184511917

Lot of car for the money, and further down is
http://atsearch.autotrader.co.uk/WWW...00508183875311

255 bhp?

Yes, I agree with what you say. I am watching the space known as 335 twin turbo with interest but the scoob will be staying on my drive for now.

Chiark, how are you finding the 330d, performance, toys, running costs etc etc etc. Very very tempted to go down this route. Did you go through a dealer? Are there any bad points?