To think we should just get a new car

How long have you owned the vehicles?

I'm running an old car but it's been in the family since new and I know it's been lovingly looked after, making it worth spending out on repairs.

That's assuming they have a spare £270 per month!!

I show a lot more interest in cars these days than I did when in my 20's when I used to trust the garages/mechanics. I now check things out myself and keep myself informed as to what services are due, when, and what else needs to be checked/replaced.

We "should" be able to trust garages to do the job right, but at the end of the day, it's the car owner who loses out when, say, a garage puts in the wrong oil or doesn't change the timing/wet belt to schedule as they'll always find a way to wriggle out of any responsibility.

Also, using a dealership garage is no guarantee of them getting it right. Some "back street" garages are just as good, if not better, as they'll often be more experienced and are more likely to be "proper" experienced mechanics than just young "fitters" used by main dealerships.

Quite impressed with our village "grease monkey" garage around 15 years ago when I first booked my car in for a service with them, and the receptionist at the desk was very thorough, checking the manufacturer's service schedule to list down exactly what needed doing at that age/mileage, checking the handbook for what had already been done, and then flagging up the timing belt was due the year after, but that it would be better to do a year sooner to coincide with a full oil/oil filter change as it would have to be done again the year after if we had the timing belt done the year after. She also flagged up that a different kind of engine oil was needed for that make/model, rather than the usual one they use for most cars! I think that was the point in time when I realised there's more to it than taking it once a year to a random garage for "a service" and that there has to be a bit of owner responsibility to keep yourself informed. Very impressed that a receptionist went into so much detail rather than the usual "is it a big or small service?"

get an Omoda 5

part exchange with £5k
£250 deposit
less than £270 repayments
7 year warranty

Urgh, is it an EcoBoom engine? Wet belts have always been stupid and whoever thought a 1L engine could power large cars was mad.

I've been warned about wet belts too. Something to consider if you do start looking for a new car. I'm at the same stage of having to think about saying goodbye to a very faithful and beloved car, because it's not going to get through another winter. You don't want to spend 2k on a car that's only worth 5k, knowing that more expensive repairs will soon be necessary. Better to sort it now than wait for a crisis

Indeed

Agree, but any decent garage would be using the right oil for the particular make and model of car. It's easy for the garage to check the recommended viscosity etc.

Turns out the timing belt had disintegrated and I’m bloody lucky the whole engine didn’t seize up!!

If the car is substantially OK, apart from this, I would repair. It's fixing one (big admittedly) thing, rather than a slew of problems which would indicate the car is on its way out.

My fiesta's belt is due next year.

In fairness, the schedule is 10 years or 150k miles. Most people would recommend replacement before that. There’s no real way of inspecting it without dismantling things. Often the belt starts breaking down due to the incorrect oil being used.

That's not especially old, or an especially high mileage... My general rule is get it to 10 years old, or 100K mileage, whichever comes second, and look to replace.
I've had a lot of Fords over the years, and they'll give you not a whisper of a problem until 10 years old, then it all starts giving up on you.

This happened with my 6 year old astra in 2022. I traded it in.

Our Ford Grand C Max in now 12 years old and it’s got 148k miles on the clock, we’ve had it since it had less than 5k on it. It’s been well maintained and nothing major has gone wrong with it. It’s starting to give me the fear though as it’s inevitably going to conk out at some point. We use a local mechanic who loves Ford cars, said they don’t make them like they used to and we will more than likely see 200k on the clock with this one. We will be looking at a new car before the winter although we are going to keep this one as a second car. I took 5 yrs finance on the car so it was paid off 6 years ago, the way I saw it was worth it for a few £100s repair bill once a year than £300 a month for new finance.

For me it depends what’s wrong with it. OHs car is 9 years old and just had £1700 worth of work done on it, but it was worth having done, as it was the rear main seal. It was expensive to have done, but we had the clutch and flywheel replaced at the same time (why wouldn’t you), the flywheel being the most expensive part, typically the main seal was only £25.

Was a big job, but worth it, as at least we know driven properly, the clutch is good for quite a few thousand miles.

Ford's have lots of problems with the wet belts. Look it up. I had a 4 year old fiesta 30,000 miles. Timing belt / cam belt went. Had to replace it, despite this has endless problems over the next few months so just got rid

But not a problem if it’s replaced as per service schedule recommendations. It’s a consumable item not intended to last forever. It needs to be replaced as per age and mileage and the correct viscosity of oil used in the engine, of course oil also to be replaced as per servicing schedule according to age and mileage. Trouble is that people don’t have the car serviced to schedule, and some garages don’t bother to check manufacturer service schedules.

I said towards a new car.

My mechanic advised me not to have a Ford EcoBoost car. Apparently it’s a known Wet Belt fault that ruins the engine.

I did! You said £2k of spending for 10 years.

Any decent garage would have flagged up the wet belt was due for replacement before it started disintegrating. They should be servicing to schedule as per the exact car make, model and mileage. If it’s the same garage giving such a high quote, they probably don’t know what they’re doing or ripping you off. Shop around now you know what needs doing. These wet belt engines are well known as they’re in very popular cars, so there’ll be other garages capable of doing it. Very annoying for you that the garage doing the servicing didn’t warn you of the need for replacement which is part of the routine servicing schedule!

Try reading what I actually posted, not what suits your narrative.

For just £2k more, you’re getting like for like rather than something that will be cost free for 10 years. Every chance a car worth just £2k more than the current one will have similar repair bills.

If the current one is otherwise in good order, low mileage, properly serviced, it could well be £2k well spent to keep it going.

One of ours was only worth £1k and needed £1.5k spending on it. That was 5 years ago and it’s not needed anything else other than yearly service and mot ever since. One hell of an investment! Still going strong.

Our car is ten years old, three years ago we paid £1500 for a new clutch and a couple of other things (wear and tear) and were originally told, by another garage, it would be £5000. Glad we went for it, dh was all for scrapping it. Could you get a second opinion too?

My Ds had the same in his 13 plate fiesta and it was only £1200 to replace, he had teeth floating in his oil. It ran fine after that although he got rid of it about 6 months later because he wanted a new car, one of its great trade in points was it had a new wet belt!