Your biggest loss

[Claret Badger]

Thought it would be cathartic to vent after losing over £30,000 in under five years on a Porsche 928 I've just sold. I bought it for £7,500 then had it restored and bits done when needed. I added up all the bills and nearly had a heart attack.

Make me feel better with tales of your biggest money pits!

[RATATTAK]

I've just sent my TR6 to Bonhams today ... I'll post when it's sold but hoping to break even or a very small loss

[Ambleton]

Current A35 build.

You can get a decent one for £4-£5k and an absolute minter for £8k, even fully spec academy racer for £15k.

Or you can be given a "free" rotbox that's been in the family for 50yrs and now on its third generation and spend a fortune on it.

So far I'm £10k in. Realistically ive got about another £10k if I paint it myself, don't get the chrome redone, and stick with the standard wheels/tyres.

[austina35]

I've got a shoe box full of invoices from my A35 van build. I purchased it about 5 years ago. Spent big and have never added up the contents of that shoe box. I don't need to know. (That's what I tell myself). I just have the fun of driving it.

I'm currently restoring a P6 rover and have a 2nd shoe box....

[DickyC]

RS2

Bought in 2007 for £11,000

Sold in 2009 for £12,000

Spent £8,000 not including fuel, road tax and insurance

Overall - glad I did it

[MitchT]

Not an actual loss, but...

I have an E36 3 Series which is worth about £1k and has immense sentimental value, such that I'd spend what it took to get it mint if I had money to burn. I was given an estimate of £15k + VAT on the basis of some photos that I supplied. It'd probably end up costing more when they get it in bits and discover more work... and when done it'd be worth about £5-8K

Claret Badger said:

Thought it would be cathartic to vent after losing over £30,000 in under five years on a Porsche 928 I've just sold. I bought it for £7,500 then had it restored and bits done when needed. I added up all the bills and nearly had a heart attack.

Make me feel better with tales of your biggest money pits!

Be interested to know what you sold it for and what you paid for the work. I know 928s have gone up, but clearly not enough!

[Riley Blue]

austina35 said:

I've got a shoe box full of invoices from my A35 van build. I purchased it about 5 years ago. Spent big and have never added up the contents of that shoe box. I don't need to know. (That's what I tell myself). I just have the fun of driving it.

.

I'm the same with my Riley One-Point-Fives. I bought one for £2,500 in 2009, it has two box files of paperwork (mostly invoices) that I put things in but never take out again. I'll never add up the total spent, we get so much fun from that car.

I paid £1,500 for my other one a year or two later. It was (still is) a rolling shell and 14 boxes or parts. It hasn't been on the road since the 1980s when the previous owner got hold of a new shell and started to rebuild his old car into it, adding a few modifications along the way.

Sadly he died, I bought it from his widow. I've completed some work he started and had it resprayed. That's as far as I got, it's been like that for 10 years...

It's not about profit and loss to me.

[Turbobanana]

Mine will look trifling in comparison with others', but in % terms it's terrible.

Saab 900 T16S 3 door, bought at 200,000 miles for £2000. Ran as daily driver for 4 years and 46,000 miles before being replaced by a convertible. Parked on in-laws' drive for a year during which the clutch slave cylinder failed. Sold for £150 to a bloke who turned out to be a drug dealer.

Good ones are now £10,000 +.

[fatjon]

Got a TR6 that stands me at £65k. Were I to sell it I doubt it would push beyond £27k, but I won’t be selling it.

[aeropilot]

Claret Badger said:

Thought it would be cathartic to vent after losing over £30,000 in under five years on a Porsche 928 I've just sold. I bought it for £7,500 then had it restored and bits done when needed. I added up all the bills and nearly had a heart attack.

Make me feel better with tales of your biggest money pits!

If I had to sell my toy today, after the past 6 years of restoration bills, my negative equity would be double your 30k........

[PomBstard]

MitchT said:

Claret Badger said:

Thought it would be cathartic to vent after losing over £30,000 in under five years on a Porsche 928 I've just sold. I bought it for £7,500 then had it restored and bits done when needed. I added up all the bills and nearly had a heart attack.

Make me feel better with tales of your biggest money pits!

Be interested to know what you sold it for and what you paid for the work. I know 928s have gone up, but clearly not enough!

I’d be interested too. I put about £20k into my 928, mostly into the engine bay, but also got my insurer to up the valuation to match. Which helped when it got smacked up the arse and written off a couple of years ago.

I had looked at a few cosmetic things - new window seals, full respray, new wheels - prob another £20k - but just couldn’t see how I was ever going to see any of that back. I guess I’m just not as adventurous as some…

[MitchT]

PomBstard said:

I’d be interested too. I put about £20k into my 928, mostly into the engine bay, but also got my insurer to up the valuation to match. Which helped when it got smacked up the arse and written off a couple of years ago.

Also a very good point. I could spend £20k turning my £1k E36 into an £8k E36 and then be £12k out of pocket if it get's written off, unless I manage to convince an insurer to value it at what I've spent. Another reason why I'm reluctant to get it done as someone who doesn't have money to burn.

[R6tty]

fatjon said:

Got a TR6 that stands me at £65k. Were I to sell it I doubt it would push beyond £27k, but I won’t be selling it.

Fortunately you haven't made a loss. Only when you sell it!

[Pit Pony]

I once spent £1450 on a Mk2 Cavalier CalibrE, which turned out to be a dog. I replaced the engine with one from a low mileage second hand mk3 cavalier SEH as mine was very worn out.

Weeks later that engine threw itself apart on the Runcorn bridge.
I sold it on to someone in the club, who fixed it and sold it on to someone in the club.

I think my 3 months of ownership cost me £1000.

Nothing like the amount of money that I see above, but 1000% of my spare income for a year. (At the time, we were skint and it was all of our savings I'd wasted)

And isn't that the point, it's not the exact amount, it's how it compares to the spare cash you've got.

[ClaphamGT3]

Just be glad youre into cars not boats. My father made the mistake o calculating the lifetime running costs
of his Hallberg Rassy 36 between buying it in 1989 and selling it in 2019.

£1.2m

[Chunkychucky]

Not a loss as such as I haven't thought about selling the car (yet!), but i'll throw my hand up for another A35 money pit.

Bit embarrassing adding up all the invoices for parts and labour, especially when I found out the car owed me more than the deposit I put down 3 years ago on my 3 bedroom semi.....

[Pit Pony]

ClaphamGT3 said:

Just be glad youre into cars not boats. My father made the mistake o calculating the lifetime running costs
of his Hallberg Rassy 36 between buying it in 1989 and selling it in 2019.

£1.2m

What's that per hour of use ? Could you rent one cheaper ?

[Claret Badger]

MitchT said:

Be interested to know what you sold it for and what you paid for the work. I know 928s have gone up, but clearly not enough!

Sold it for £10k. I was led to believe that it would make more and that I should "not put a reserve on it as that will help achieve a higher price". That will teach me. Meanwhile on a different auction platform last night, a 928 of similar value made £20k.

[Yertis]

fatjon said:

Got a TR6 that stands me at £65k. Were I to sell it I doubt it would push beyond £27k, but I won’t be selling it.

I think TR6 values are only going the wrong way now

Unless you want to buy one, in which case they're going the right way I guess. Thinking about selling mine after 28 years. Feel like a change.

[ClaphamGT3]

Pit Pony said:

What's that per hour of use ? Could you rent one cheaper ?

Undoubtedly, but there are few - if any - charter companies that would have a 36' yacht equipped to sail to New Zealand, to Alaska and, even, to the Caribbean on multiple occasions