[bluevolt]

Originally Posted by T Y A G I

Hi Team,

I am currently having WagonR VXI K series (Jan 2011) and completed 95k Kms this month. I have done below mentioned repairs/changes to my ride this month.

After all this stuff, I feel that my ride is good for another 50 K or two years. After that I am surely going to take a decision on whether to keep or change it to Ford Aspire or Maruti Ciaz.

Regards,
Lalit Mohan Tyagi

I have a WagonR Lxi 2007 with odo nearing 60,000 KMs mark. Similar to you I have spent lots of money to keep the car in good shape including all new tyres, radiator, a/c overhaul, music system etc. It is 9 year old and good enough to roll into its usable registration life of 15 years. May be at least 3-4 years more down the line. I have almost booked Ciaz VDi a couple of months back but backed off due to the practicality my WagonR offers along with the expenditure I have done to keep it maintained, I always keep on deferring on my upgrade decision. May be I have another bigger car at home (City i-VTEC), that's why having a smaller car also makes up for a balanced garage.

In my opinion, if your WagonR is not giving you hard time in terms of excessive poor mileage or frequent breakdowns etc, then keep it with for some more time like you said say 2 years or more.

In next 3-4 years, we will surely have a whole new generation of cars hitting the market including all new City, Verna, Swift, May be next gen WagonR, S-Cross/Baleno.

I am saving my money for that most eligible car after my WagonR and no car in the market as of now is contemplating me to replace it.

[V.Narayan]

Dear Team BHP,

Need your expert advice. Our Skoda Superb is almost 6 years old, has run over 110,000 kms and has had one major repair job of replacing the clutch. It is a petrol-maunal and has given us no trouble really. The body work has got a bit dented and scratched - nothing we can't live with just that I like keeping my cars in top trim.

We have two choices in front of us - (A) get the denting-painting work done at Skoda's authorized workshop. Giriraj Motors, Gurgaon say they do about two paint jobs a week. With this the car will look smart and new and I suspect will continue with us for another 2 or 3 years.(B) Option B is to let matters be and then in 2017 go for a new sedan. The Volvo S.90 is on the list.

Please could you shed light on the pros and cons of getting a car repainted in the same colour part of the way through its life. Is the durability of the repaint at least 85% of that of the original factory finish? Many folks tell me it is not advisable to repaint. Look forward to your thoughts.

Thank you in advance for your inputs,

Narayan

[phoenix7]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Dear Team BHP,

Need your expert advice. Our Skoda Superb is almost 6 years old, has run over 110,000 kms and has had one major repair job of replacing the clutch. It is a petrol-maunal and has given us no trouble really. The body work has got a bit dented and scratched - nothing we can't live with just that I like keeping my cars in top trim.

We have two choices in front of us - (A) get the denting-painting work done at Skoda's authorized workshop. Giriraj Motors, Gurgaon say they do about two paint jobs a week. With this the car will look smart and new and I suspect will continue with us for another 2 or 3 years.

I am sailing in the same boat as you, mine is an automatic petrol and has run 90,000 kms and confused whether I should switch to new one and stay with my car as the comfort of the superb remains unbeaten.

Moreover for the paint thing I would say stay away from Giriraj! I recently had a really bad experience with these guys. There are many good Garages catering to these cars and are really good at it too. You might end up saving some money or atleast have a much better experience and output.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by phoenix7

Moreover for the paint thing I would say stay away from Giriraj! I recently had a really bad experience with these guys. There are many good Garages catering to these cars and are really good at it too.

Thank you for your advice. Could you share more on your experience with Giriraj Motors. And second would you have any names of these other paint shops you mention. Best wishes, Narayan

[phoenix7]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Thank you for your advice. Could you share more on your experience with Giriraj Motors. And second would you have any names of these other paint shops you mention. Best wishes, Narayan

Well sir my issue was not related to body work but they guided me in a very wrong direction.
My cars AC was tripping when Idling or in bumper to bumper traffic, the service advisor called me up saying that there is an issue with a valve of the compressor and i'll have to replace the whole unit costing about 95,000, which he said will cost me in the range of 45,000 because of certain ongoing discount. I felt something fishy as the compressor was cooling normally otherwise.(and also the discount) So i went to another garage, they connected the Scanner, voila , overheating error! The AC was tripping beacuse of the fan not working leading to car overheating. The car is working fine since then its been a bout a week.(touch wood)

Had I got the AC work done at Giriraj, I would be back to square one without the issue sorted, a waste of 1 lakh of hard earned money and frustration to top it all just because of a fan.
However I cant comment about their bodyshop, as this was my first and last experience with them. This was just my personal experience, not sure whether one bad experience or its the way the work.

[V.Narayan]

I posed my question (post 797) to the 4 young adults (ages 19 to 25) in our family - should we invest in a new luxury sedan or should we repaint the Skoda Superb and keep it going for another 18 to 24 months. Their considered response is that our next buy should only be a high end all electric or at least a hybrid. As the market does not have a high end hybrid other than the Camry it would be better to wait for a year or two and see what the market offers, how the new models perform in real life, does our fluctuating grid supply cause a problem (in case of plug-ins) and hence for the interim paint and spruce up the Skoda Superb and keep it in commission till 2018. So that's what we'll do. Skoda have quoted Rs 95,000 to Rs 100,000 as the total cost of denting/painting. Happy to see young folks thinking green.

[HIGHNOON]

A eight yr old post . Still so relevant. Buying a good used car and maintaining an old car is infinitely more wise than constantly buying new car in a 3/4 yr cycle. Superb thread. Top stuff GTO. In fact I find it so relevant that every time I get the itch to go try a new car , it just doesn't seem value anymore .

[McLaren Rulez]

Originally Posted by GTO

Thus, if you retain your existing sedan for the next 5 years, you will incur a total ownership cost of Rs. 4,10,000 OR Rs. 82,000 p.a.
.
.
Thus, if you upgrade from a C-segment sedan to a C+ segmenter, you will spend a total of Rs. 11,55,000 over the next 5 years. OR 2,31,000 per year.

The differential of around seven lakhs is comprised of two things - nearly four lakhs paid as interest on the loan and the cost of the upgrade itself.

Originally Posted by GTO

But that’s not the entire picture, is it? What we have not calculated yet is the opportunity cost of the Rs. 20,000 per month that you are blowing away toward the new car’s EMI. If you don’t upgrade, that money can instead be invested. Even if reasonably invested, the saved Rs. 20,000 per month will become a whopping 15 lakh rupees at the end of 2013!

Yes, but this is double counting, isn't it? 12 of those 15 lakhs were already taken into account in the previous calculation. The opportunity cost is therefore around 3 lakh - a conservative figure for investment returns.

Originally Posted by automobilophile

This is a good insight GTO. This triggered me to do some calculations and to be fair we need to compare a person keeping a car for 5 yrs to a person keeping a car for 10 yrs.

So net savings is 1.77 lakhs at the end of 10 yrs with Case 2 vs Case 1

This is more realistic and while it is nice to hold on to a car for longer, it isn't quite as big a financial penalty as one might think if you go for an upgrade after all.

The rate of progress in the automotive industry is such that you can get a significantly better car at the same price point after five years and IMO this makes the decision to upgrade a rather close one.

[sathya_j2084]

Hello,

Im having a 9 year old Getz Petrol which has completed 30000kms. Car is still in excellent condition except that tyres need to be changed and recently AC was serviced & AC gas was re-filled.

Please advise if i can continue for few more years (2-3) considering the tyres replacement cost + decreasing re-sale value + comparatively poor mileage + periodic maintenance. For a new car I will be only looking at hatchbacks (tiago/ignis/celerio) as my these are cars will be sufficient for my requirements.

thanks

[nvldvr]

I dont think there would be too much difference in the resale value of your now as compared to 3 years later. In both cases it would be quite low considering getz was never a popular car and now its not even in production. So ignore factors like low mileage or the cost of tyres/maintenance. Make maximum use of this car for as long as it serves you confortably.

[shrionsong]

Originally Posted by HIGHNOON

A eight yr old post . Still so relevant. Buying a good used car and maintaining an old car is infinitely more wise than constantly buying new car in a 3/4 yr cycle. Superb thread. Top stuff GTO. In fact I find it so relevant that every time I get the itch to go try a new car , it just doesn't seem value anymore .

Team BHP is the ultimate. Have read this thread many times while continuing with my 6 year old Petrol Alto. A quick question - Am thinking of retaining it for the next 2-3 years till the maintenance bill get more. But, will adding a sticker in the theme of sports (liverpool FC) lower the resale value down the line?

[PatienceWins]

Originally Posted by sathya_j2084

Hello,

Im having a 9 year old Getz Petrol which has completed 30000kms. Car is still in excellent condition except that tyres need to be changed and recently AC was serviced & AC gas was re-filled.

Please advise if i can continue for few more years (2-3) considering the tyres replacement cost + decreasing re-sale value + comparatively poor mileage + periodic maintenance. For a new car I will be only looking at hatchbacks (tiago/ignis/celerio) as my these are cars will be sufficient for my requirements.

thanks

I am also using a 9.5 year old Getz Petrol, which has run 80000 kms. The only issue I am worried about is parts availability - regular service is fine. It is not much of an issue as they usually get the spare part in a couple of weeks.
Getz is a very reliable vehicle, it is mechanically simple compared to the new vehicles and chance of something going wrong is less. It would not be an upgrage as such for you as you are looking for another hatchback. Also, considering your mileage, I would recommend you to keep the car for a couple of years.

[samaspire]

Originally Posted by shrionsong

Team BHP is the ultimate. Have read this thread many times while continuing with my 6 year old Petrol Alto. A quick question - Am thinking of retaining it for the next 2-3 years till the maintenance bill get more. But, will adding a sticker in the theme of sports (liverpool FC) lower the resale value down the line?

C'mon dude, the sticker can be removed later if needed. As long as it's your car enjoy it the way you want it

[shrionsong]

Originally Posted by samaspire

C'mon dude, the sticker can be removed later if needed. As long as it's your car enjoy it the way you want it

Thanks buddy. Thanks a lot. This sure helps

[torquing_points]

Originally Posted by shrionsong

Team BHP is the ultimate. Have read this thread many times while continuing with my 6 year old Petrol Alto. A quick question - Am thinking of retaining it for the next 2-3 years till the maintenance bill get more. But, will adding a sticker in the theme of sports (liverpool FC) lower the resale value down the line?

Hi -- the sticker may not lower the resale value, as it is removable. But the fact that the club you support is Liverpool FC will probably reduce the resale value.

On a serious note, the Alto is a warhorse. It will last longer than you'd like. Don't worry about maintenance bills -- on a proven car like Alto, they will cost less than a new car. The typical reason to change an Alto is when you WANT a new car. It's not one of those cars which gives up easily.