MR2 GT Running Costs

[monkeyspank]

my Yoko's lasted about 12K miles but cost over a hundred quid each. I'm gonna try some Falkens out this time I think. They're almost half the price.

 

[monkeyspank]

Oh and I just had to buy a new set of leads at £80. The last set lasted 13 years so I shouldn't have to buy them ever again for this car.

 

[Simon]

That seems very expensive, what oil do you buy? I'm not convinced it's worth getting obscenely priced oils when you change it every 3000miles.

Lol too right.

 

[monkeyspank]

Convince me that it's not worth a fiver a month then...

 

[ci_newman]

It all depends on what mileage you do.. £45 every 3k miles equates to almost £3k worth of oil in 15 years of average mileage. Using £30 a can stuff would cost £1800 in the same time span - £1200 would buy you an engine change but an engine shouldn't need changing after 120k miles...

Using more expensive higher-grade oil is just false economy on standard unmodified cars.

 

[Simon]

Convince me that it's not worth a fiver a month then...

It's not worth paying twice the amout for oil yet changing it twice as often as a normal oil needs anyway.

Fully synthetics main advantage is extended drain. There is zero advantage changing it at 3,000 miles

 

[monkeyspank]

Makes sense I guess. So I'd save about £1.50 maybe £2 per month using the cheap stuff. It all adds up I suppose but I don't think I'll change. I'd rather just go to work on my bike one day a month to make the difference up.

 

[Simon]

So I'd save about £1.50 maybe £2 per month using the cheap stuff. It all adds up I suppose but I don't think I'll change. I'd rather just go to work on my bike one day a month to make the difference up.

How many miles do you do a year then?

 

[monkeyspank]

was 6K but more likely to be 4 or 5 this year.

 

[Simon]

was 6K but more likely to be 4 or 5 this year.

You hardly do any miles then.

An annual oil change would probably be ok, never mind though oil companys love people like you

 

[ci_newman]

was 6K but more likely to be 4 or 5 this year.

In which case, £90 / year for oil is nothing but your average driver will do over double that in a year - added to that is 90% of the population will have a garage carry out this work so add another £30 onto that

It's all figures at the end of the day, and you need to run your car in a way that you're happy with

 

[Dogbreath]

The Toyota oil change interval for the MR2 Turbo is 5000km (~3000 miles) I think. However, as that was back in the early 90's that was probably be based on a mineral oil spec.

I am a big believer in regular oil and filter changes, but I also don't like throwing money away. I used to use semi-synthetic in my MR2 and changed it at the standard interval, but switched to synthetic and changed it at 6k miles simply because of the mileage I was doing meant very frequent changes. I could probably have left it for way longer, but that was doubling the standard interval. Anyway, the car is still going strong and now has about 130k miles on the clock with original turbo, so it hasn't hurt it.

 

[monkeyspank]

I do mostly short journeys although I'm trying to use my other car as much as possible now. The stuff I take out after 3K is usually very dirty. It seems like the right thing to do. I'm probably looking at around £50 per year on oil and filters if I can bring my mileage down.