We haven’t been keeping up with updates on our 2007 Honda S2000 because we didn’t drive it much over the past 12 months (apparently less than 700 km as per the RTA inspection). But it had some major work done last year anyway, so the armchair accountants among you will surely be throwing the “cost per km” number at us as if it’s a taxi cab.
Hard to believe, but our 2008 Jaguar XK is a decade old now. I’d say we’ve kept it cleaner than most, even though we simply park it outside all the time and service it once a year. Real premium cars (not the rebadged stuff from mainstream carmakers) are generally built with better materials, so they last longer in terms of trim and leather (but not always mechanically). However, our Jag needed a bit of care to keep it looking fresh.
A few months ago, our Nissan Patrol LE went in for its mandatory bi-annual service. Yet again, we pointed out that the fuel gauge was showing wrong readings half the time. If you’ve read our past long-term updates, you’ll know this is an ongoing problem since we bought the car (although curiously, no other post-facelift Patrol owner seems to have this issue). This time, the service advisor blamed it on a low battery. Okay, we’ll play along and see what happens.
If you roam around enthusiast circles, you will consistently hear just one thing — “It’s much cheaper to buy car parts online than at the dealer!” And for the most part, it’s true. But is it universally true though? We find out with our aging Jaguar XK, which had a minor issue recently.
Our Chrysler 300 SRT, which we bought a couple of months ago, had actually gone for its first service just before we bought it, while it was still under the previous owner’s name. We paid for it ourselves, so here are some of the costs associated with owning an SRT.
Our Toyota FJ Cruiser is running trouble-free, as we expected it to do. We even took it off-road, where it did phenomenally well (despite the confused thumb gestures by our offroad monkey Vivek “Payero” Menon in the photo above). But it’s currently facing a minor (or major, depending on how you look at it) concerning the exterior trim.
Our Patrol LE has been chugging along perfectly fine, but it’s not had much use ever since we bought the Chrysler 300 SRT a few months ago. While we were still getting over the euphoria of buying Mopar muscle, our Patrol went in for service in May.
Hello, Toyota 86 fans. Yes, it has been almost a year since I’ve wrote an update on my 86, mainly due to being busy with the work-life routine. It has also been a year since I’ve had the 86. I’m glad to report that it has been a smooth experience when it comes to fun little sports cars that’s also economically lean on the pocket.
It’s hard to believe we’ve had the Honda S2000 for five years now. It’s harder to believe how little we’ve driven it due to lack of time. However, despite what some people believe, a sitting car also requires maintenance. And the tyres on the S2000 have expired by now, as per the RTA.
There are a few obvious things you should know about owning a luxury car. One is dealer maintenance and repair can be ridiculously expensive. The other is that most non-dealer garages don’t know how to maintain or repair a modern luxury car beyond the mechanical basics. So you can save money by going to non-dealer garages, but certain tasks can only be performed by the dealer. The tricky part is figuring out which is which without losing a ton of money on experimentation. We did exactly that with our Jaguar XK.