I posted this elsewhere and thought it would be interesting here. I'm a DIY girl on EVERYTHING, so this is often purely parts, with exceptions being labor on alignments:



I've owned my 2000 Jaguar XKR for 4.5 years and 25.5k miles. I just totaled it up. $2,631 for this time. Insurance has been about $600 per year (dropped to comp for about 3 months per year), and gas mileage is about 15-17mpg on premium. Tag is $305 per year in Michigan.

I don't include things where I had parts already, like the fact I buy several 1L bottles of Valvoline Synthetic Brake Fluid at one time (i dont leave them out and opened, but I buy several bottles at once). I don't include grease gun grease, etc. This also doesn't include things like cleaning expenses (detailing materials, leather dye [only $30 anyway], and incidentals like that).

 

Good to see I'm not the only costs documenting fanatic!

I've found buyers are a lot more impressed with this kind of detail than they are by the stamps in the Service Record book.

Graham

 

Imagine if these were dealer repairs! Good job of documenting everything.

 

My only question is: Do you trust your local Firestone store with your alignments? Our local Firestone stores are notorious for hiring rookie service techs and I simply don't trust them to have anyone on staff who has the art/skill required to complete a proper alignment....

I keep the same level of documentation as you do and as Graham pointed out, that is what sells my vehicles for me when the time comes for them to exit our stable....

 

Do you drive your convertible all year, or just on nicer days? Do you drive your XKR in the snow, or only on dry days? Lastly, do you use your car to go shopping, and leave it in a lot, or is it strictly a pleasure driver? This company also doesn't put a cap on your mileage, or when you drive the car, except if it is your only car, and used as a daily driver. I have driven my 928S to Florida twice, and to the Rocky Mountains once. The XK8 and I are making a trip to my friend's house in South Carolina, in October. I have both my 83 928S, and my 99 XK8 convertible insured through Grundy Classic car insurance. It is an agreed value insurance, so if you total the car, there is no depreciation, and you get what your agreed value is. I have the Porsche insured for $14,000, and my XK8 convertible insured for $14,000. Both cars are locked in a secure garage. The company pays for claims fast, and is actually part of Philadelphia Insurance Company. For both cars combined, I pay $500 a year. I have had Grundy for years, and have not had a bad experience with any of my parade of classics, hot rods, and just plain priceless cars. Try them, or Haggerty Classic Car insurance, and I am sure you could at least chop that insurance bill in half. As for the rest of the stuff, you have replaced all the trouble area parts, and normal maintenance stuff. You should be smooth sailing now, just doing maintenance, especially to the trans. I have put 2 Mercedes transmissions into my daughter's SLS, so they do go out also, but she is in sales, and drives the wheels off her car. Over all, my wife spent more money on her last Chrysler 300 AWD. I wish I had a DIY daughter. It might be easier on me changing out her transmissions, and timing chain tensioners too......Great work....Mike

 

I actually know the tech at our local firestone from when I owned a Corvette. He really does do things right and cares and I'd follow him between shops. When I go though, I absolutely insist Jim does the work.

Some "techs" there I wouldn't trust to change blinker fluid.

I save the receipts, pieces of the boxes (easy to fake receipts) and on many more complex jobs, I have pictures of me doing it. It really helped sell my Corvette. I have looked at and seen older Ferraris that were dealer serviced that look like Joe Shadetree had his way with them; but the books were on the up and up!

I drive it all the time, rain or shine, except when snow or salt is on the road. I had Haggerty on my Corvette for 5 years and they dropped me after a speeding ticket (1-5mph over). I have no tickets or anything now, and I really like daily driving it most of the time. My Corvette I babied and it looked immaculate but I always worried. I drive where I want, get door dings occasionally (I know a great ding guy) and once in a great while need some paintwork. I'm really enjoying using my car now!

I've found that just maintaining the crap out of my stuff seems to give me what many consider excellent reliability. These cars are more needy than a Honda Civic, but parts are cheap and the work really isn't that hard! My dad has owned the gamut of different cars; 1963 Corvette SW, 1968 Corvette L88 Convertible, 1963 E Type OTS, 1974 E Type OTS, 1960 Mercedes 190SL, and has worked on stuff from rare prewar Euro stuff to run of the mill Ford Tauruses (he's a machinist but a long time ago did work on exotic and antique specialty cars) to V12 Italians. He made me do work, and my first car was a 5yo Dodge Neon w/ 61k miles for $400. It needed a headgasket but was cosmetically perfect (for a Neon Coupe, at least it was a 5sp!). He said either make a ton to pay other people, drive uninteresting stuff, or do your own maintenance and repairs.

 

I write down all repairs and maintenance, plus keep receipts for repairs.

After reading this thread, I started totaling it up. Was a little surprised, but once I divided by time owned it was not too bad. About $1500 per year all in. That includes repairs, normal maintenance (oil changes, etc.) and wearables (tires).

Well worth it and still cheaper than a car payment.

 

I find with most any car that I buy used, including purchase price and costs over 5 years is cheaper then on a monthly basis than a new car over the same 5 years on a monthly car payment basis.

 

I totally get it, great record keeping there....

I do the same, FASH on my Audi here for the first 3 - 4 years, then self service, all receipts kept for everything , every nut, bolt and washer, every part ever bought and every service and or warranty item ( I have a separate excel spreadsheet for this )





The files are listed by listed, from day 1 up to and including last week or so on this Audi, the file is now probably 2" thick or more.

I have similar details on my Jaguar of course


Personally, I'd much rather buy a car off an owner with this type of info that full service history, which isn't always all its cracked up to be

 

I've owned my 04 A8 since 2011 and I wish my stack of receipts was that small!

In 25k miles I've put at least 4k into it in just parts. Not to mention buying VCDS HEX+CAN for $350, or the Bentley manual in DVD form (no book option, prefer those) for $100. The A6 is much more economical to run, and the A4s I've owned have cost a pittance to run.

 

It's been awhile since I've run my wife's 2006 XK8 numbers so I may as well take a look at how my cost/benefit algorithm is holding up for this particular car. At some point it will warn me that it's time to unload the car but I hope that time is still years away. We'll see....

Since we took ownership on February 3, 2012 all parts, maintenance, repairs, and consumables have cost me $3,884.50. Divided by 3.5 years of ownership, that's about $1,110 per year to properly run this car. Not bad at all for a tempermental daily-driver Jaguar with just over 96,000 miles on the clock. The "keep it or unload it" algorithm indicator remains safely in the green for now....

But the value of my time is not accounted for in any of my calculations. And I must say that our two Jaguars have required much more of my time than any previous vehicles I've ever owned (and I've been driving since 1969)....

 

$2631.80 over 4.5 years? I'd say that is damn good for a car that the rest of the world thinks is unreliable and very expensive to repair. Certainly, doing your own labor saves $$, but even if you paid a garage for what you needed, you're still doing pretty good.

 

Nicely done, 80sRule, and not just the record-keeping but the DIY maintenance! I suspect the tally for a lot of us is quite a bit higher because of labor costs. In any case, as my dad used to say (& he knew whereof he spoke as a 31-year veteran mechanic w. Delta Air Lines), "Take care of your car & it will take care of you."

 

Gosh, I think those prices are really reasonable.

 

Great systems. I use an excel spreadsheet backed up by a 3-ring binder of all the receipts. It really does help when it comes to selling. 80sRule's total looks a lot like mine, lol.

 

Absolutely. I don't "trust" anything that isn't backed up with reasonable evidence. I have my 3 ring binder and I actually save identifying pieces of boxes and put them in their with the receipts and job summaries I write. I've seen falsified receipts and I want the buyer of any of my cars to really know that I've done what I've said. I take pictures and print them out and put them in there on bigger jobs.

Given the reputation of secondary tensioners, I actually have the ones I removed from both of my cars in a plastic bag if the second buyer wants them. The 67k mile ones from my XKR were badly cracked, and the 84k mile ones from my XJR looked brand new (still changed them!).

 

Updated!




This does NOT include a full repaint (mostly courtesy insurance due to damage incurred on driver's door and rear quarter while parked; I paid diff between blend and full redo, about $2k diff).

I am buying new tires in the next 3 weeks, so that's going to be about $600-800. So about $3400 for 6 years and 34k miles.

 

Wow! I didn’t realize how many other forum members keep such meticulous records for their Jags. I try to record every penny that I spend on all my vehicles, whether Jaguars or not.

I found a program - Automotive Wolf - that more than accommodates my obsessive recordkeeping nature. BTW, I have absolutely no interest with the company other than as a satisfied customer. The program helps me keep track of every aspect of owning a vehicle, whether repairs, maintenance, operating costs, scheduling, reminders, etc.

To me, one small but important statistic it provides is gasoline consumption. I have recorded every gasoline fillup for every vehicle I have owned since 2006. (I told you I was obsessive!) Both my wife and I save our receipts to enter the info into the Automotive Wolf database. It then gives me as much statistical information as I could ever need concerning fuel consumption. My wife thinks I’m crazy to do this, but she goes along with most of my harmless requests.

For example, I bought my 2000 XKR in October, 2015. Since then, the program shows me that I have filled the tank 19 times with a minimum of 17.5 MPG on a tankful, a maximum of 21.02 and an overall average of 19.23 MPG.

More useful, however, is a graph it provides of MPG over time. So far, it has stayed fairly flat for the months that I’ve owned the XKR, but I know from watching the graphs of my other vehicles that it’s time for some maintenance when the horizontal line begins to fall. The program does much more than what I’ve just described.

There may be other - possibly better - programs available to manage auto maintenance and track expenses. I’d be interested in knowing what other forum members have found.

Vince

 

I keep the same meticulous records on all of our vehicles and have been doing so since the mid-70s. But rather than rely on computers and programs, a good ol' manila folder for each vehicle works best for me. The receipts and records are stored there, and sitting in front of them is an itemized list in chronological order of what I did, when I did it, and how much I spent. I simply add one line to the list each time I do any maintenance or repairs to the vehicle. Remarkably easy, no cost other than pen & paper, and it is right there on top whenever I open the folder....

When it comes time for me to sell a vehicle, my records sell that vehicle for me more than the actual vehicle does....

 

MPG is good to track over time as it can be an indicator of the car's overall health. My mom has always done this, even on cars with horrific gas mileage (63 SW Corvette outputting over 500rwhp w/ 4.11 rear; 68 Olds 442 Convertible BB with similar power but more conservative gearing; both sub 10mpg). I even do it on my motorcycles and the GSXR w/ 161rwhp (tiny bit different than stock lol) that gets sub 30 most of the time.

With this and the binder, I know when I have a warranty on a part, whether the supplier of a wear part without one just makes junk, etc. Plus when you go to sell it, people like actual proof you took care of it. Especially when you don't have shop paperwork showing you paid out the nose.

I've worked on one of my dad's friends' cars plenty of times; a Lamborghini Diablo VT. Beautiful car and he does DIY too. In the Italian car world, that's almost considered a sin lol. It's got close to 100k so for a V12 Lambo it is definitely high miles; but it's had a lot redone. His piles of receipts and box pieces are what I've copied over the years. If he ever goes nuts and sells it (not likely) I know some buyer is getting a great car that he has been impeccable on maintenance since he bought it new over 20 years ago. I think his wife would cringe if she knew what he spent on it though! I'm betting between depreciation and repairs, he's spent $2 a mile since new. I'm at a tenth of that.