Are All Used Cars A Horror Bag Money Pit ?

Bint Box

Bint Box

Bint Box

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Hi,

Thinking of changing the car from our trusty 20 year old Audi Mk1 3.2L TT and have been reading up a little on possible upgrades.

It seems that practically every make/model of modern used car less than 5 years old is potentially a horror bag for things to go wrong.
Sure, I accept that used cars need servicing, replacement parts and things do fail. However it seems a minefield with high risk or losing an arm or a leg in repair bills?

Is this just a case of the minority of cars are dogs but their owners have a high shout percentage on the online forums with the majority of cars being reliable and much less shouting?
A bit like the saying "it only takes a few good people to do nothing for the loud minority to win the day"

Just asking like....
 
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It's worth remembering there are millions of cars built worldwide per year and people don't generally post "everything has been fine" type threads as a rule so you will get negatively biased responses.

You also can't be sure how many of those cars have not been cared for well or not before said threads have come up around these issues. For example, I had a 10 year old second hand car at Uni that hadn't had an engine service for 6 years when that was the best I could afford (the coolant wasnt particularly liquid).

There also seems to be a large amount who aren't happy that things like exhausts have a finite life and road salt isn't kind.
 
dont always believe what you read, ive owned cars that people often slate and never had real problems, do your homework on particular models.
ive had citreons/renault/bmw/merc/ford/etc and every, one has had small problems but not huge even had hondas but guess what so reliable needed a engine in one hmm.
its just the luck of the draw. good history/bodywork and condition go a long way towards saving problems.
 
Not at all. I have a 2015 BMW 428i Gran Coupe bought in June 2021. Other than general maintenance, tyres, servicing etc it hasn't gone wrong at all. Even two MOT tests have been passed without even an advisory.

It's not been particularly cheap, mainly due to my servicing schedule (once a year oil changes regardless of what the OBC says) Brake pads all round last year and 4 new Michelin tyres but it hasn't set a foot wrong. You have to buy right and buy well.
 
A fact of life is that one way or another cars end up costing you money. Sometimes it's wear and maintenance, sometimes you get unlucky and something breaks.

I think sometimes people go in with the unrealistic expectation that because they paid 'somebody' a lot of money for a car, they shouldn't have to spend more money on it later.
 
kaku said:
A fact of life is that one way or another cars end up costing you money. Sometimes it's wear and maintenance, sometimes you get unlucky and something breaks.

I think sometimes people go in with the unrealistic expectation that because they paid 'somebody' a lot of money for a car, they shouldn't have to spend more money on it later.
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Not only this but you can literally google any car followed by "common problems" and you'll find page after page of people talking about knackered parts. A lot of it is white noise tbh, nobody hops on the internet to go "my car's working fine".
 
Diddums said:
You're selling a knackered old 290k mile TT for a grand aren't you?

Some friend you are.
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If that comment was aimed at me it is incorrect.
I am not selling a knackered old 290k TT.

My TT is a 2004 Mk1 3.2L V6 Automatic model with 78K guaranteed mileage and it is not yet for sale.
If it goes up for sale I will be asking quite a bit more than a grand for it.

Get your facts right before making snide derogatory remarks to other forum members.
 
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Bint Box said:
If that comment was aimed at me it is incorrect.
I am not selling a knackered old 290k TT.

My TT is a 2004 Mk1 3.2L V6 Automatic model with 78K guaranteed mileage and it is not yet for sale.
If it goes up for sale I will be asking quite a bit more than a grand for it.

Get your facts right before making snide derogatory remarks to other forum members.
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It was a reference to this thread - a bit of forums humour if you like.

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/audi-tt-mk1-225.18984979/
 
Bint Box said:
Get your facts right before making snide derogatory remarks to other forum members.
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Calm down, it was a joke ;)

Audi TT MK1 225

Hi, So I've always loved the style of TTs. Someone I know has a 2003 black TT coupe that they're looking to get rid of. Only wants about £1k. They've owned it from new and it's had full Audi service history. I'll need to check when the last cam belt change, etc was done but had all new tyres...
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
 
Diddums said:
Calm down, it was a joke ;)

Audi TT MK1 225

Hi, So I've always loved the style of TTs. Someone I know has a 2003 black TT coupe that they're looking to get rid of. Only wants about £1k. They've owned it from new and it's had full Audi service history. I'll need to check when the last cam belt change, etc was done but had all new tyres...
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
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It aint me with the forum name "Diddums", you are well named.
 
All cars fail to some degree.

Over time, manufacturing methods and technology improve, but at the same time complexity increases and cost of manufacture can reduce quality/robustness.

Net result, stuff breaks and wears out - always has, always will.
All vehicles will require expenditure on both preventative and corrective maintenance, and that's before you take into account rogue failures caused by things like lack of mechanical sympathy by the operator or manufacturing defects, or even poor/compromised design decisions.

So in short, yes all used cars are a money pit to a greater or lesser extent, but that's also something completely normal.
 
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Diddums said:
Calm down, it was a joke ;)

Audi TT MK1 225

Hi, So I've always loved the style of TTs. Someone I know has a 2003 black TT coupe that they're looking to get rid of. Only wants about £1k. They've owned it from new and it's had full Audi service history. I'll need to check when the last cam belt change, etc was done but had all new tyres...
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
Click to expand...


I do not accept that it was a joke, if it was intended as a joke you could have put an emoji or some other indicator in the reply.
My opinion is that it was intended as a snide comment that has backfired and you are now trying to back track by saying it was a joke.

Do the decent thing, apologise and we can all move on.
 
Bint Box said:
I do not accept that it was a joke, if it was intended as a joke you could have put an emoji or some other indicator in the reply.
My opinion is that it was intended as a snide comment that has backfired and you are now trying to back track by saying it was a joke.

Do the decent thing, apologise and we can all move on.
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It was pretty clearly a joke!
 
Jesus someone's had a humor transplant.

All new cars are total and utter money pits and will fail causing you to remortgage the house every 2 years to fix.

Should the above have an emoji or not?
 
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