How Much Trouble Could A £10-15k Bently Or Rolls Be

[R500POP]

On the list of possible weekend toy is a Bently or a Rolls, up to about £15k.

Are there certain models best avoided & just how problematic could a car in this price range be?

Edited by R500POP on Thursday 15th September 08:47

[CONTI T]

get your self a turbo r get the best for your money dont worry on its age i believe the nice older ones will start to creep back up in price soon, dont fear them they dont often break and if it does you either have to sort it or you got a dead soldier, they are a fantastic old shooter if you have never drove one it will feel very strange to you at first they are an aquired drive but once your used to it they are great fun........

[Balmoral Green]

As Duncan says, get yourself a Turbo R, £15K should get a quite good one, as average cars appear to be under £10K lately and rough old snotters are almost throw away prices. The best late cars are only running up to £20K, with last of the line RT's into the mid twenties.

Look for as much service history as possible and a big stack of recent bills, some of which should be quite large! And watch out for the rot, and once its started they can rust like hell.

I hope they do start to pick up in value a little, as they appear to be rock bottom at the moment, and as I've spent a fortune on mine over the years, it would make me feel a bit better if they crept up. Not that I'm ever going to part with it though.

Buy a good 'un, and a couple of grand a year should be enough to keep it properly serviced and fettled, but every now & then, even with the best, a big bill can come out and bite you if something goes wrong. I've had more than a few £3-6K hits over the years, and that's at keenest parts prices, and £40 an hour labour, so be warned

[ADP68]

I have a Shadow II and love it. Not as fast as a Turbo R, but great fun nonetheless.
I hear a lot about Turbo R head gaskets, however given people only post things onto message boards when things go wrong, am unsure whether this is a weak point, or whether my view is tainted.
BG- my labour costs are a lot more than that! I thought that you use Phantom and they were on par with my mechanic.
Rgds
Andy

[Balmoral Green]

Hi Andy,

Yes, I do use Phantom, but only for the big stuff and whenever it 'fails to proceed', I get the AA to take it to them (mates rates helps too). I have a friend in the RREC who is more local, so for a short service and things like pads and so on, I use him, and he's really cheap! Although I should be doing stuff like that myself

[R500POP]

I'm OK with the spannery side of things, and to an extent, as long as I have wiring diagram & multimeter I can do electrical stuff. My biggest concern is the "large failures"

[Balmoral Green]

If you're a spanners man, you should be fine. As for large failures, like losing an engine/gearbox/axle, they don't really do that, if they do, it's just bad luck. They are really heavy on brakes and suspension though, so that's where the periodic 'wear & tear' bills can come in every few years. Mine is getting a bit tired in the chassis department, so I think an overhaul might be my next big thing. Putting the Conti SC wheels on it didn't help, they are a bit much for it and Bentley Luxembourg actually told me off about them! But they look good, and it turns in better, even if I did kill the ride.

[kwak]

Do you think the values are going to pick up quickly?
I've been wanting one of these for a while now, but it will be another year or 2 before I will be able to afford running it properly. I hope I will still be able to get a good one then.

[R500POP]

kwak said:

Do you think the values are going to pick up quickly?
I've been wanting one of these for a while now, but it will be another year or 2 before I will be able to afford running it properly. I hope I will still be able to get a good one then.

Likewise, I'm doing the groundwork now, so when we finally get a decent garage I can start searching & have a vague idea what I'm looking for (& what to avoid)

[kwak]

R500POP said:

Likewise, I'm doing the groundwork now, so when we finally get a decent garage I can start searching & have a vague idea what I'm looking for (& what to avoid)

I've bookmarked a few good PH threads on buying these. If you want I'll send them to you when I get home from work.

[R500POP]

kwak said:

I've bookmarked a few good PH threads on buying these. If you want I'll send them to you when I get home from work.

Nice one, thanks.

[ADP68]

I can't see values picking up for decades, they built a lot of them. Just look at spirits, shadows. Clouds and r types are the precedents. Of course, small runs of specials like the turbo s and very clean, low mileage cars will probably be first to climb.
Rgds
Andy

[Touring442]

A mate bought a 1988 Spirit around 6 years ago. It hadn't done a lot of miles (35k?) and was a proper car with proper history. It's well looked after and waxoyled, and has never gone wrong or cost more than £500 a year for servicing. It's done about 20'000 miles in those 6 years.

I looked into these for another reason entirely, spoke to experts and the advice was to buy on condition and not model/year. £10'000 will buy a stonkingly nice Spirit or Bentley Eight from the mid eighties. What a car.

[bergxu]

My '96 Turbo R is driven on a daily basis and with 89K behind her, has only needed routine things doing, save for a heater matrix and a power steering reservoir replaced (which was USD $1,300 just for the part--although it is a magnificent looking aluminum job which I'm sure took some artisan a week to make).

I'm in the US, so these cars aren't quite as cheap as they are in the UK, and most get put away in the winter months here (including mine). I can only assume a lot of them are driven year-round in Blighty, given their cheap acquisition costs and the horrific numbers of rust cases I hear from over 'yonder...

This one is my second Turbo. The first was an '89 which, although the driving characteristics of my current car are better, I liked the aesthetics of the earlier car (side mirrors, non auto-dimming rear-view mirror, 'balloon' tires, etc..just more classic looking, IMHO).

Since you guys have carb'ed Turbos over there, I have no idea what those drive like, as the US only got fuel injected models, but given a choice, if they're all similarly priced, the Bosch CIS is pretty much bulletproof, so go for an injected car if possible.

And as some here have said, a budget of a few thousand (dollars, quid, whatever....) per year ought to be sufficient to keep the car in good order and if you luck out and don't incur much expense after the first year, you'll have a slush fund for when something big goes bang

[Thin White Duke]

I'm thinking of hopefully purchasing a Bentley/Rolls Royce in this price bracket next year.

I'm still researching and divided between a Silver Spirit or a Turbo R. I think the Bentley will win in the end.

I've always taken risks with my cars, always bought cars that most people my age wouldn't consider (due to the running costs).

But I like big saloon cars, and I want something with a classic look about it.

I'll be keeping an eye on this forum over the next few months.

Thanks to all the current Bentley/Rolls owners for your posts and insight.

[2woody]

if you're handy with spanners, then you can get great results with very little - the cars are really no more complex than something like an XJ-S, although parts prices are around ten times those for the corresponding Jaguar.

My Mulsanne was £4000, and although it's consumed the smae in parts over the years, it's still great value.

just watch out for the parts prices tho.

actually, I suspect you might be more than "handy" with spanners (thanks to a bit of internet trawling I just did)

Edited by 2woody on Wednesday 21st September 10:50

[R500POP]

2woody said:

actually, I suspect you might be more than "handy" with spanners (thanks to a bit of internet trawling I just did)

Edited by 2woody on Wednesday 21st September 10:50

Why's that then?

How long have you had the old girl? If you say it's cost £4000 in parts that would be OK if over 10years, but if over 2 it's a different strory.

[bergxu]

@ ThinWhiteDuke;

Agree, I am much the same in respect to 'risk-taking' with my cars. I'm 30 and have owned automobiles that guys twice my age wouldn't even consider (Turbo R, Ferrari 400i and 308, several V12 Jags of different flavors, etc...). For the most part, I've been 'lucky' with them and haven't really ever had anything horribly big go wrong on any of them, although the 400i tune-up was a bit eye-bulging, not to mention the 21 litres of oil it took for a complete oil change.

And yeah, the scariest thing about RR/B ownership is the price of the parts. Even those among us who are incredibly well-heeled will agree, I think, that what Crewe charges for some things is simply ludicrous. In my mind, things like bushings, ball joints and brake discs are grossly overpriced and wear out at a faster rate than on a big Merc/BM/Audi...

But, if you drive the car on a regular basis and don't just let it sit standing in the garage all season, I think *some* of the cost can be justified. But let it be known, a Ferrari 308 is peanuts to maintain and drive (A LOT) over the course of a few years compared to a Roller or Bent. I put 30,000 miles on my '82 308GTSi over a four year period with minimal expense. Essentially, I did the cambelt/water pump service, fluid changes and an ignition tune-up when I got the car and never looked back. I think my single biggest expenditure was when I upgraded to 16" QV wheels from Superformance UK, and that was only $2K or so WITH tires.