The cost of 1 years Cerbera ownership.
Discussion
Well I’ve had my Cerbera Speed Six for just over a year now and was interested to see how much it’d cost me… I nearly fell off my chair !.
I filled in my car details on my profile and it did the calculation for me. Including depreciation it cost me about £13,500 for one years motoring!! AHHHHH!
Now don’t get me wrong, I do love the TVR but I’m starting to question the reasons why! Getting all my old bills out it seems that:
It has had to go back to the garage 19 times! (although some trips were for trivial things)
It has been off the road for 3 ½ months through various problems
It has cost me £4800 to maintain it, even though I had a full TVR Sprint warranty and the car had only done 8,500 miles when I bought it !
Worse stats included the £1.61 per mile to run…. That’s £50 for my 15 mile run to work and back….. I could afford a chauffeur driven limo for that !
At this rate I might be “doing a Benno” and buying a 996 ! I mean, I do love the car but I didn’t realise how much they cost to keep on the road.
Has anyone else gone through and tried Teds car profile worksheet, I've seen Oilver Kelly's and his is even worse than mine ?
I filled in my car details on my profile and it did the calculation for me. Including depreciation it cost me about £13,500 for one years motoring!! AHHHHH!
Now don’t get me wrong, I do love the TVR but I’m starting to question the reasons why! Getting all my old bills out it seems that:
It has had to go back to the garage 19 times! (although some trips were for trivial things)
It has been off the road for 3 ½ months through various problems
It has cost me £4800 to maintain it, even though I had a full TVR Sprint warranty and the car had only done 8,500 miles when I bought it !
Worse stats included the £1.61 per mile to run…. That’s £50 for my 15 mile run to work and back….. I could afford a chauffeur driven limo for that !
At this rate I might be “doing a Benno” and buying a 996 ! I mean, I do love the car but I didn’t realise how much they cost to keep on the road.
Has anyone else gone through and tried Teds car profile worksheet, I've seen Oilver Kelly's and his is even worse than mine ?
Oliver
I'd probably be looking at this the same way you are if I'd paid out what you have, particularly when explaining it to the missus. In fact she assumes that I do stretch the truth anyway on the subject of car running costs.
But really, whether some was expected or not expected, you've still forked out £8,500 and that's a hell of a lot of cash! Presumably your £8.5k doesn't include depreciation?
You could legitimately exclude 'nice to have stuff' (e.g. cosmetic trim, or a new exhaust because you liked the noise, not because the old one was knackered), but you can't ignore the cost of 'must haves', e.g. tyres, in your calculations just because you know you're going to get through them.
Tales like yours (and others on here) don't put me off buying a TVR, but they do put me off buying a Cerbera!! Its a shame, because the Cerb is a great looking car.
I'd probably be looking at this the same way you are if I'd paid out what you have, particularly when explaining it to the missus. In fact she assumes that I do stretch the truth anyway on the subject of car running costs.
But really, whether some was expected or not expected, you've still forked out £8,500 and that's a hell of a lot of cash! Presumably your £8.5k doesn't include depreciation?
You could legitimately exclude 'nice to have stuff' (e.g. cosmetic trim, or a new exhaust because you liked the noise, not because the old one was knackered), but you can't ignore the cost of 'must haves', e.g. tyres, in your calculations just because you know you're going to get through them.
Tales like yours (and others on here) don't put me off buying a TVR, but they do put me off buying a Cerbera!! Its a shame, because the Cerb is a great looking car.
It does include depreciation (although not much as bought privately and quite old), and all other costs including tax, insurance, oil, wax polish etc.
I have never spent so much on a car before and probably never will again !
But justifying to myslef the way I do, let alone the other half, is the only way I can sleep at night!
>> Edited by oliverkelly on Monday 4th March 17:31
I have never spent so much on a car before and probably never will again !
But justifying to myslef the way I do, let alone the other half, is the only way I can sleep at night!
>> Edited by oliverkelly on Monday 4th March 17:31
I had a Griff 500 last year, and when I totalled up everything inc things going wrong (every week), depreciation, insurance, servicing etc it came to £16,000. After badgering my other half to buy one for *years*, I felt disappointed and very stupid!
No great surprise that I sold it then.
Good luck to all TVR owners, I still support the marque, but I'll never have one again based on this experience.
No great surprise that I sold it then.
Good luck to all TVR owners, I still support the marque, but I'll never have one again based on this experience.
Bandit,
This is what made me get rid of my Cerbera Speed Six and get the 996 (over the moon with it by the way) TVR are and always will be close to my heart and I have even been looking at the Tuscan S recently, however I can't see myself going down the Tuscan S route until I am sure that they are fully sorted.
This is what made me get rid of my Cerbera Speed Six and get the 996 (over the moon with it by the way) TVR are and always will be close to my heart and I have even been looking at the Tuscan S recently, however I can't see myself going down the Tuscan S route until I am sure that they are fully sorted.
My experience...
cerb 1 - P504 P** 96/4.2(bought at 3.5k mls sold at 11k miles)
Depreciation £6.5K
Tyres £650
Paint (peeling) £450
Exploded Cat £400
New shock x 2 £420
Re-trim (water ingress) damage £300
Replacement Alarm system £450
New Disks x 4 £650
Contribution to engine rebuild / clutch £1200
Servicing £920
Thats a total of £11,970 or £1.60 per mile, excluding RFL, insurance & petrol
Cerby 2 (S284 s**) 98/S - Owned 5 months / 3,600 miles
Depreciation £2600
New Shocksx2 £420
Servicing £1200
Tyres £800
Oil Probs £180
New Diff £1650
Total of £6850 or £1.96 per mile.
Porsche 996 (99/S reg)- covered 8k miles
Buy price £42k / Current value £40k ish = £2K depreciation
Tyres £450
Service £220
Thats £2670 or 33p a mile - i am saying nothing else.
Bennno
cerb 1 - P504 P** 96/4.2(bought at 3.5k mls sold at 11k miles)
Depreciation £6.5K
Tyres £650
Paint (peeling) £450
Exploded Cat £400
New shock x 2 £420
Re-trim (water ingress) damage £300
Replacement Alarm system £450
New Disks x 4 £650
Contribution to engine rebuild / clutch £1200
Servicing £920
Thats a total of £11,970 or £1.60 per mile, excluding RFL, insurance & petrol
Cerby 2 (S284 s**) 98/S - Owned 5 months / 3,600 miles
Depreciation £2600
New Shocksx2 £420
Servicing £1200
Tyres £800
Oil Probs £180
New Diff £1650
Total of £6850 or £1.96 per mile.
Porsche 996 (99/S reg)- covered 8k miles
Buy price £42k / Current value £40k ish = £2K depreciation
Tyres £450
Service £220
Thats £2670 or 33p a mile - i am saying nothing else.
Bennno
benno
While I know this is all true, how much did you actually pay?? A lot of this was done on the warranty so I don't think it's a fair total.
However,without your knowledge of TVR's( and the fact that Cerbera's especially need a warranty!) you may well have purchased it privately and then you would have kopped the lot!!
I had my Cerbera 6 months and it cost:
£26,000
depreciation= £1500
new clutch, flywheel, bellhousing-everything!!=£1500 (done on the warranty)
new alternator= £485 (done on the warranty)
total= £3485 for six months or in reality £1500 depreciation.
If I'd had to pay for the work= 90p a mile
If I hadn't 37.5p a mile
My argument is that Cerbera parts are an absolute rip off.But it's still the quickest car I have owned and if I hadn't lost my job last year I'd probably still have it.
While I know this is all true, how much did you actually pay?? A lot of this was done on the warranty so I don't think it's a fair total.
However,without your knowledge of TVR's( and the fact that Cerbera's especially need a warranty!) you may well have purchased it privately and then you would have kopped the lot!!
I had my Cerbera 6 months and it cost:
£26,000
depreciation= £1500
new clutch, flywheel, bellhousing-everything!!=£1500 (done on the warranty)
new alternator= £485 (done on the warranty)
total= £3485 for six months or in reality £1500 depreciation.
If I'd had to pay for the work= 90p a mile
If I hadn't 37.5p a mile
My argument is that Cerbera parts are an absolute rip off.But it's still the quickest car I have owned and if I hadn't lost my job last year I'd probably still have it.
below is not including warranty work, the first cerb also had 2 new speedo's £180x2, 2 additional shocks £400, 1 front suspension arm ??, new door locking unit £200 in addition- but all under warranty.
second cerb, did eventually get the warranty co to pay for the diff, and left off the shattered hubs which i had to pay for (£500) and the other 2 shocks (£400) as they also got paid for under the warranty. Also left off the new oil guage (£300) and central locking unit (£200) as they were not my costs in the end.
Fingers crossed for the Tamora proving relaible then i may get one! In the meantime i am saving up all of the money i am not spending on repairs.
Bennno
>> Edited by bennno on Monday 4th March 23:32
I've got to say that my costs that I indicated were only the ones NOT covered by the warranty, there were many other problems that got paid for via Warranty Holdings, (radiator, oil sensor, suspension work, engine mountings etc).
Flasher, you did well to get the clutch on warranty, surely thats got to be a "wear and tear" part??
It's a real shame that the Cerbera's have so many problems, I really want mine to settle down and be OK so I can keep it. At the moment, every time I get in it I think it's not going to get me where I'm going, when I should be enjoying driving one of the best looking, fastest cars in the world.
Flasher, you did well to get the clutch on warranty, surely thats got to be a "wear and tear" part??
It's a real shame that the Cerbera's have so many problems, I really want mine to settle down and be OK so I can keep it. At the moment, every time I get in it I think it's not going to get me where I'm going, when I should be enjoying driving one of the best looking, fastest cars in the world.
16k on my Griff, yes this was within 1 year. It goes soemthing like this (haven't got the receipts here 'cos I'm at work..damn!)
Depreciation £6,300
Insurance £3000
3 services £2900
Complete engine rebuild £1500 (TVR paid for parts)
Front o/s suspension rebuild £900
Respray of front nose cone, boot £500 (can't remember)
Air con failure £200
Brings me up to £15300.
I'm sure there was more, just don't have the docs here...
This doesn't include a whole host of items that were replaced under warranty, i.e. radiator, starter motor etc etc.. the list was endless.
Depreciation £6,300
Insurance £3000
3 services £2900
Complete engine rebuild £1500 (TVR paid for parts)
Front o/s suspension rebuild £900
Respray of front nose cone, boot £500 (can't remember)
Air con failure £200
Brings me up to £15300.
I'm sure there was more, just don't have the docs here...
This doesn't include a whole host of items that were replaced under warranty, i.e. radiator, starter motor etc etc.. the list was endless.
At least the Cerbera is understood by most owners and most dealers to be a 'special' car that will cost a lot to own. But as they are within reach then most of us worry about the running costs. They really are for people with very deep pockets.
Its the Tuscan and maybe also Tamora owners that must find this harder to swallow ? They are buying cars that are more easily comparable with SLKs, Boxsters, S2000s etc but in reality will be closer to Cerberas to run and own (I guess).
Its the Tuscan and maybe also Tamora owners that must find this harder to swallow ? They are buying cars that are more easily comparable with SLKs, Boxsters, S2000s etc but in reality will be closer to Cerberas to run and own (I guess).
Guys, All cars depreciate, TVR seem to be in line with other comparible cars on this front. If you appear to have excessive depreciation than you probably paid too much in the first place. New cars will lose a lot in the first two years, this does not only apply to TVRs. For cost calculation I always ignore depreciation and usually insurance. PPM for insurance is totally dependent on mileage, overall insurance cost is dependent on age, record and location. Exclude these items and your £16K goes down to about £6K, still expensive but how much is the 'grin factor' worth?
Granted, I think we all knew about the depreciation... but do most other comparable cars have to go back to the garage 19 times in a year or spend 3 1/2 months off the road?
The grin factor is worth a lot... but how much, is the question I was asking. As I said, I want to love the car but it's making it very difficult for me.
The grin factor is worth a lot... but how much, is the question I was asking. As I said, I want to love the car but it's making it very difficult for me.
Surely one of the reasons the Cerb depreciates the way it does is due to the very high running costs. People are having to sell them for £17-18k precisely because potential buyers factor in what it may cost them to a) put it right and b) keep it right.
I think it is fair to include depreciation as this is generally the most costly part of car ownership. Nearly all cars depreciate, but some at a faster rate than others, hence it is relevant to your overall car costs. I accept that depreciation costs are only crystallised when you sell the car though.
>> Edited by griff2be on Tuesday 5th March 14:12
I think it is fair to include depreciation as this is generally the most costly part of car ownership. Nearly all cars depreciate, but some at a faster rate than others, hence it is relevant to your overall car costs. I accept that depreciation costs are only crystallised when you sell the car though.
>> Edited by griff2be on Tuesday 5th March 14:12
The Cerbera is a racing car that has been tweaked for road use. As has been said in another thread the AJP8 was initially designed as a Formula One engine FFS!!!
They are going to cost a lot to run. Thats just the facts I am afraid.
If racing cars were cheap, then there would be no glamour and if there was no glamour there would be no scantily clad pit lane girls, so its a good thing (granted in a highly suspect and roundabout way) that Cerbera's cost a lot to run!
Matt.
They are going to cost a lot to run. Thats just the facts I am afraid.
If racing cars were cheap, then there would be no glamour and if there was no glamour there would be no scantily clad pit lane girls, so its a good thing (granted in a highly suspect and roundabout way) that Cerbera's cost a lot to run!
Matt.
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