To think we should just get a new car

[PoliteSquid]

I have an old car worth approx £5k and the bills are mounting up. Took it to the garage today, it’s knackered… looking at £2k or more to get it back on the road!!! We’ll know for sure after the weekend.
Our second car is similar in age and condition and no doubt something dreadful will happen to that one too 🙄
DH thinks repair, I think replace…. thoughts?

Replace, rather than throw good money after bad. Cut your losses.

Depends completely on the car, mileage, age.. how much a replacement would cost but Id opt for a repair than replacement if mileage were relatively average for age.

Replace, it’s just wasting money to repair.

That’s depends, what work needs doing? If it’s just wear and tear, then those parts won’t need doing again for a long time.

was it in for an MOT? If you spend 2k and it gets you through another MOT, and most of the one after that, then it could be worth it, if you think of how much it’s costing you a month to run a car.

What age / price are you considering for a “new” car? Unless you're buying brand new, then there’s no guarantee that another car will be without issues. It’s may be out of the frying pan and into the fire.

You can’t make a total blanket statement like that. If spending 2k on repairs gets the OP 2 more years of driving the car, I’d say that seems like a good deal.

It’s a better deal if putting the same £2k towards a new car gets her ten years of driving.

DS needed a new clutch for his car but it got replaced then packed in again a few weeks later! He decided he would trade it in as he didn't want to waste anymore money on it. I agreed with him. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses.

It’s 8 years old, a boring but practical ford cmax with 80ish thousand miles on the clock.

It went in because despite running fine the oil and engine management lights came on. Turns out the timing belt had disintegrated and I’m bloody lucky the whole engine didn’t seize up!!

That’s not particularly old or a high mileage at all.

re the timing belt, if the engine hasn’t seized up then it sounds like the belt hasn’t snapped, and it just needs changing. This shouldn’t cost anywhere near 2k, more like £500 BUT changing belt is a routine part of maintenance on any car that has one. And it sounds like your car is about the age / mileage that it needs doing anyway. It certainly shouldn’t be a reason to get rid of a car.

What has the garage says needs doing exactly? Is it a dealership or an independent?

Finally, it sounds like this issue should have been picked up when the car was last serviced, have you been servicing it regularly? Usually every 12 months or 10,000 miles, whatever comes first.

Ford ecoboost engines have a wet belt, submerged in oil! It had its annual service in March and it wasn’t picked up then. The belt has disintegrated and bits of it are clogging up the engine. So they’ve got to empty the sump, and clean/flush the engine from the inside and obviously replace the broken parts. Basically take it all apart and rebuild. The labour is what’s costing the money I think. We’ve been using the same independent for about 10 years so I trust them.

So frustrating that it happened without warning because it’s not visible like a normal timing belt would be!

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!

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?

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.

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

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!

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

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

I said towards a new car.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.