Dream Weaver

Just landed a new job and need a new car at the beginning of March/April.

Can any of you give me some estimated monthly running costs for owning a standard UK Scoob?

Travelling 60 miles per day
1/2 mway, 1/2 twisty A/B Road,
NSL/30 limit on/off,
Lots of wagons (i.e. plenty of overtaking required).

This needs to include fuel, servicing, tyres etc.

I could do with an average monthly cost, though it doesn't need to include purchase or insurance.

Simon

BarryK

I travel a similar route and mileage each day.

SUL petrol, reckon on filling up, say £35 every four days, ie don't leave it until the last minute! You'd probably scrape a week out if careful and prepared to run on fumes!

Tyres, replaced two OEM Bridgestones in September at the 15k service, £220, will need to replace other two in March at 22.5k service. (That was with rotation of wheels, front to back, but not exactly at the right time.)So reckon on £440 for 12 months, for safety's sake. Servicing, 2 services should cost around £220 at a dealer. Oil, rarely needed.

So £660 plus say £35 a week at approx 50 weeks, budget for around £200 a month and hopefully, you'll have too much, and of course you won't actually spend that every month, so it doesn't seem so bad.

cwal1

A rough quide would be;

£240 per month fuel
£500 per year tyres (top quality tyres !)
£400 per year servicing (using top oil and after you average out to take into account the major services)
£400 every 2 years on disks and pads

Therefore approximate monthly average would be around £330.

Chris.

[This message has been edited by cwal1 (edited 25 January 2001).]

Dream Weaver

So we have £200/month from BarryK, and £330/month from Chris!?!?!

I have reckoned about £240/month.

Any advances from anyone else.

BarryK - you may spookily be doing the exact same route!!

HunterB

DW,

The costs above just seem to be for the trip to work and back. I do 37 miles each way every day (around 27 miles smooth and fast A road, around 10 miles 30/40mph limits. That equates to around 17,500 miles a year just in commuting, but I do around 36,000 a year in total so, for me, all these figures are roughly doubled (e.g. I get through two sets of S-02s a year, the car is serviced every 10 or 11 weeks, and I spend around £500 a month on petrol )

Make sure you budget for your leisure (i.e. non-commuting) miles as well, 'cos it all adds up

Brian

Gary Foster

I do that mileage and I swear it costs me more than that ....

Oh yeah, I factored in insurance into my calculations @ £130 per month, and I do about 10K of personal mileage as well. Then there's the finance costs (£500).

I reckoned on £930 a month (incl all the above), but I can't remember the figures for purely running costs, looks like £300 bang on to me.

Of course we have not included track days / modifications ...

I'd just buy a diesel if I were you

Jerome

I assume you don't want to factor depreciation in? If so, my Scoob has cost me over £1000 per month. Could have rented a BMW M5 for that...

Jerome.

Dream Weaver

Nah Sod depreciation, I have always lost money on my cars so that doesn't matter.

Think I will stick with buying an MR2 for now. Similar costs to buy and insure but better fuel econ - my dad runs a 96 P-Reg and reckons he gets 40mpg on a run.

Any opinions on this?

BarryK

Erm, he did ask for commuting costs without insurance, finance or depreciation.

I don't really want to think how much I have wasted on cars over the 25 years I've owned them. (Or drinking, or women, or holidays, or houses blah, blah, blah. I could have bought BMW for that!)

They are a debilitating illness that drain the blood from you as soon as you get one.

However.............................

airhead

40MPG.... but how fast does he drive ???

BarryK

MR2?!

MR2!?

Leave this board immediately and ask one of your customers if they "want something for the weekend".

Good luck whatever you choose. Oh and congrats on the new job.

camk

If your buying second hand outside Subaru warranty then I'd budget minimum 75 quid per month for repairs,e.g. for Clutch your looking at 500-600 quid. Don't believe that they don't break down, they do and parts/labour are expensive. This is the one area I spent the most on over 2 years ownership.


Cammy

Missing Details

Dream Weaver
Get the 306/6 as a compromise - then next car buy a Scoob - you know you want one. Do us all a fovour and don't get a hairdresser MR2 (cos we'll really show you up when you meet us for a Sunday run)

Jerome - are you trying to say you loose £500/month on your car depreciation alone - you must mistreat it a little.But if thats the case, when it's 3 years old will you give it to me??

Dream Weaver

Cheers chaps, I suppose I should just go for the Scooby and live by the "Only young once rule" and all that. I could always flog it I suppose if it was costing too much.

BarryK - you forgot to mention the extra spent on fuel by getting lost - which way will you be going to Oulton by the way???

BarryK

Not going to Oulton for reasons outlined in e-mail.

Just thought I'd ask what is unfortunate about being a passenger with DALES?

Ha, ha, ha.

Dream Weaver

BarryK

See you got the mail then - not sure if you would. Dales is here at the moment so I need to explain really. The "unfortunate" meant not having my own Scoob so having to bum the lift with Dales. Still we should get there quicker not following your good self.

See you on the next meet - Dales and I were on about organising Dales Run 2 tonight - you up for it????

Ian E

iTrader: (1)

Dream Weaver,

I've previously owned two MR2 GTs a 91 'J' and a 94 'L' .... and I've heard all the hairdresser jokes!

Servicing is relatively cheap and at the time I had them depreciation was very low. I did 40000 miles in the first one and got £400 more than I paid for it when I traded it in.

My 'J' reg was far quicker than the 'L' reg - don't know if this was just down to lack of a cat though.

Tyre replacement was one of the main costs - rear tyres needed replacing at around 7000 miles ... then again thats about how long a full set of tyres last on my Scoob

Fuel economy is leagues ahead of the Scoob - I regularly got 30 MPG plus. I've yet to see much above 20 MPG with the Scoob.

I presume insuring an MR2 is also considerably cheaper that the Scoob.

A chap at work has a 91J MR2 which has done 130000 miles and has never needed any major work doing to it.

Still prefer Scoobs though!

Cheers,

Ian.

BarryK

DW, yeah I'd be up for Dales2.

If you didn't follow me how would you know where you were going?

I sent you antoher e-mail, but it got returned because fsnet had gone AWOL or something.

And take no notice of Ian E, if your dad can get 40mpg out of his MR2, make sure he drives you everywhere in the Impreza!!