Bmw 840i

lomb

been a passanger in one unkel, thats about it (740i 4.4). im sure your sports suspension adds to the handeling but im sure it slightly takes away from ride quality.
also tyres arent cheap when someone upgrades the wheels.

so these guys with sl55s what age are they and can i ask roughly what sort of insurance do they pay. im amazed the number of cabrios out there like even say peugeot and renaults. do insurance companies not load these heavily?every website i have checked say the quotes dont apply to sports cars, cabrios and any car above 5000 cc or 75 grand value.

thats probably why cars like s430, 740i, xj8 are reasonable money to insure?

hawkmoon269

lomb wrote:

true running costs are high but if u can minimise the depreciation then u truely can drive a millionaires car for the running costs of a new avensis...

Point taken regarding the depreciation issue, but running costs of the likes of an 840i the equivalent to those for an Avensis? I don't think so, unless you're including depreciation in your definition of running costs. Let's say 15 mpg - 18 mpg petrol consumption for one of these cars with petrol at €1.05 per litre (or to put in another way, €4.80 per gallon), €2,000 for insurance (say) compared to €300 for your average 1.3L boring mobile, €1,200 in motor tax and it's not surprising that Joe Public usually goes for the cheaper option. Not that I'd buy a new Avensis myself, or any other new car for that matter.

Do just 6,000 miles a year and your petrol bill alone could be €1,000 more driving a flash car compared to a boring one. Unless you never exceed 2,000 on the rev counter, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of buying a car like this. Add in the additional insurance and motor tax, that's an excess of say€4,000 per year. Close to €400 per month - some people pay less on their mortgages (well, if they were lucy enough to have bought their houses 10 years ago, that is). And that's not even including the routine servicing costs. Edit: Whoops just noticed you have made all these points yourself in a later post, ok never mind.

If course if you're driving in the UK at least your motor tax and insurance will be less, though balance that against the more expensive petrol, but overall I imagine it would work out a lot cheaper there.

Someone mentioned the Porsche 928 in this thread, they are among my favourite cars of all time, but just getting a 928 serviced by someone who knows what they are doing will set you back a fair whack, never mind if something goes wrong (and sooner or later, they will).

In short, I think there is a good reason why these cars are so deceptively cheap to buy.

The likes of yourself, or me, or any of us car nuts on here, will live with the extra running costs just to drive something interesting, but for Joe or Josephine Public who are just interesting in getting from A to B, there's a different kind of assessment involved.

hawkmoon269

lomb wrote:

thats probably why cars like s430, 740i, xj8 are reasonable money to insure?

Insurance companies do indeed load convertibles in this country, I was paying around €1,300 on an MX-5 with a mere 1.6L a few years ago for just TPFT and though I didn't quite have a full NCB at the time I wasn't far off it.

unkel

lomb wrote:

so these guys with sl55s what age are they and can i ask roughly what sort of insurance do they pay

Both in their late 50s or early 60s. I have no idea what they pay for insurance, but probably peanuts. Sure enough I'm in my 30s and got a quote of just over a grand for a brand new Porsche GT2 fully comp

Mind you don't stand a chance of a good quote like that unless you, like myself, have full (and I don't mean just 5 years, but 10 years) no claims bonus and having had a full license for approaching 20 years

Also on a new supercar, they will always demand a tracker fitted

hawkmoon269 wrote:

Do just 6,000 miles a year and your petrol bill alone could be €1,000 more driving a flash car compared to a boring one

Your spreadsheet got corrupted there mate

My E62 3.5V8 has done 21mpg since I bought it, the vast majority city traffic. Compare to say a Toyota Avensis 1.6 which under the same circumstances would do about 30mpg in mainly city traffic, the difference based on 6k miles per annum and €1.05 per liter is just €30 per month

Seth Brundle

unkel wrote:

My E62 3.5V8 ...

did you get another car?

Gatster

Bit of a left field suggestion and a bit of a tank in many respects, but very solid...

This is a 420 for £9k

lomb

Gatster wrote:

but very solid...

This is a 420 for £9k

http://langlovagok.hu/kepek2004/dernei/040220_dukamercedes.shtml
not solid enough in this case, 3 people died in this 600 coupe, 2 instantly and the driver on his way to hospital...was overtaking a truck when another truck hit him, was an italian driver, that says it all...

v nice car though

dahamsta

Mercedes: Not Solid Enough To Survive A Collision With Two Trucks

(Sorry, it just seemed a silly thing to throw into the discussion. How many cars would be solid enough for a collision with two trucks? Boring car though.)

adam

lomb

dahamsta wrote:

(Sorry, it just seemed a silly thing to throw into the discussion. How many cars would be solid enough for a collision with two trucks? Boring car though.)

adam

gives me the shivers looking at that so i dont think i would touch it, too big and bulbous for a GT anyway, even if its powerful

unkel

kbannon wrote:

did you get another car?

Doh, no. As you are very well aware indeed yourself, I got my E's and M's mixed up

LOL @ adam was gonna post something less funny but equally interested what the hell a wrecked MB CL had got to do with personal preferences



I much prefer the look of that myself compared to the SL

Cyrus

lol 1 grand extra for 6000 miles, better get the calc back out