Van substitute and storage

[phil d]

The reason i got A new van was because i couldnt afford to be off work due to a brake down.

My T4 had a clutch pedal bracket brake. The chaos it caused to me for 10 days from the day it happened, to getting it back cost me a few days wages.

The cost of my van is something i factor into my expenses, it also ensures i am able to get there. I have had my T5 for 5 years and it has only needed to be serviced.

If you look after stuff it will last, the trouble these days is so many people treat the mot like it's some kind of annual service and rant on about how it cost £500 to get it through the test, because amongst other things it needed new pads and discs! Well perhaps if they'd taken a wheel off and checked the pads they'd wouldn't have needed new discs as well. there's a guy over the road from me, found a small hole in the chassis on his van, filled it with paper and bodyfiller because it was a bit of a faff to weld it, now he's moaning because the holes gone bigger and needs welding for the mot.

 

[pewter]

I am the person who puts my vehicle in and asks for everything to be done. I buy proper tyres, i dont scrimp on any vehicle parts ever.

When my clutch pedal braket went it was a part that should not ever need replacing.  I didnt just let it get welded up, i researched it, found someone who made custom extra support brakets for them, i masde sure it would never go again.

A van 11 years old with over 100,000 miles  on original clutch, shocks and everything else was due to have things start going wrong. I either started to replace everythign before it did or await more breakdowns. My choice was a new vehicle as the stress of a breakdown was greater then the stress of getting a new vehicle.

Financially it worked for me, i dont have any breakdown worries and I can concentrate on been an electrician.

Its just my story....... which did all start with a car .... then a mk3 escort with the seats down..... mk3 escort estate/van...mk4 escort Van's .....

 

[phil d]

I am the person who puts my vehicle in and asks for everything to be done. I buy proper tyres, i dont scrimp on any vehicle parts ever.

When my clutch pedal braket went it was a part that should not ever need replacing.  I didnt just let it get welded up, i researched it, found someone who made custom extra support brakets for them, i masde sure it would never go again.

A van 11 years old with over 100,000 miles  on original clutch, shocks and everything else was due to have things start going wrong. I either started to replace everythign before it did or await more breakdowns. My choice was a new vehicle as the stress of a breakdown was greater then the stress of getting a new vehicle.

Financially it worked for me, i dont have any breakdown worries and I can concentrate on been an electrician.

Its just my story....... which did all start with a car .... then a mk3 escort with the seats down..... mk3 escort estate/van...mk4 escort Van's .....

Exactly, because you looked after it, I've always had older vehicles, I won't waste money on a new one every few years, yet it always amazes me that I can have a 15 year old vehicle that's perfectly reliable, yet I hear of people with the same one having trouble after 4 or 5 years, it's down to maintenance, pure and simple, ok, as in your case with the pedal, certain vehicles have known issues, Renaults, for example, are well known for dodgy electrics.

However no matter how much you spend on a vehicle, you cannot expect it to run reliably for any length of time if you don't maintain it, and this is what people forget, either that or they don't do research into maintenance costs before they buy it.  A mate of mine bought a BMW, all singing all dancing, it even had 'run flat' tyres, When a tyre did get damaged and it was nearly £400 for a new one he was moaning how expensive it was to maintain, well that's just how it is, people need to remember that you can't have the performance and luxury of a Maserati, and expect the maintenance costs to be those of a Ford Fiesta. lol 

 

[Sharpend]

And the reality is most aspects of vehicle maintenance is just nuts and bolts. 

Most items that wear are rubber bushed joints other than regular consumables.  So many people shy away from vehicle maintenance when really they could probably do 90% of it themselves. ?? 

 

[phil d]

And the reality is most aspects of vehicle maintenance is just nuts and bolts. 

Most items that wear are rubber bushed joints other than regular consumables.  So many people shy away from vehicle maintenance when really they could probably do 90% of it themselves. ?? 

Yes very true, car maintenance has been the cause of many arguments on the forums though over the years hasn't it? lol

How many times have we had the old one, 'well you don't advise a diyer to change a consumer unit (or whatever) but you'd be quite happy for him to change the brake pads on his car'.

Car maintenance isn't difficult if approached logically, granted you may need a few more tools these days, I remember it was only about 4 years ago that I had to buy a wind back tool to do the brakes on a relatives car, but for me the convenience of having it done at a time to suit me, and knowing that it's done properly far outweighs the cost of a few tools, plus I'm saving on the labour anyway by doing it myself.

I remember my daughter-in-law, took her car for mot at a garage they'd used for ages, she got an advisory on the front pads, 'they won't last more than a couple of weeks love' the bloke told her. Instead of having them do them, I said I'd sort them out, she got the pads and I took the wheel off, there was a good half a pad left on the old ones! I changed them 6 months later and there was still another good few miles left on them then. That's why I like doing my own repairs, I  know what's being done and I'm not being ripped off.

 

[Sharpend]

This is exactly my point, I remember our local village garage, the old boy who owned it sold out to this other bloke. Now the old boy couldn’t do enough for you and quite often he’d advise against having something done until it needed it. However this new guy well, wife’s car goes in for a service - I just didn’t have any time doing 7 days a week at the time - so she comes to collect the car and the £90 had gone up by another £50 or so, reason being he thought the pads needed changing so changed them, I politely told him he ought not interfere with that which he has not been instructed to do and please remove said new pads and replace with old ones, ‘ah but that’d be a waste of my guys time’ shame you had too learn the hard way then I replied. 

Anyhow after many excuses he gave us the new pads for nothing as the old ones were greased up and no longer any good. Mind he never made the same mistake again! 

 

[phil d]

This is exactly my point, I remember our local village garage, the old boy who owned it sold out to this other bloke. Now the old boy couldn’t do enough for you and quite often he’d advise against having something done until it needed it. However this new guy well, wife’s car goes in for a service - I just didn’t have any time doing 7 days a week at the time - so she comes to collect the car and the £90 had gone up by another £50 or so, reason being he thought the pads needed changing so changed them, I politely told him he ought not interfere with that which he has not been instructed to do and please remove said new pads and replace with old ones, ‘ah but that’d be a waste of my guys time’ shame you had too learn the hard way then I replied. 

Anyhow after many excuses he gave us the new pads for nothing as the old ones were greased up and no longer any good. Mind he never made the same mistake again! 

My mother used to holiday in Scotland, I always went to her house and serviced the car before the holidays, but this year wasn't able to, anyway they went away and while they were on holiday the pads went. The local mechanic in the village went out of his way to get her new pads and fitted them, all he charged her in the end was the price of the parts, because she was in Scotland that often they treated her like a local. The old school mechanics used to do what was needed and no more, now you get these specialist 'service centres' ,that seem to go out of their way to rip you off. 

I remember having a go at one of them, I needed a back box on the exhaust and went in, the guy started to find all sorts of other 'problems' with the vehicle, despite only being asked to replace a back box! In the end when he realised that I wasn't going to just hand over a load of cash and let him do what he wanted, he started trying to infer that he could prevent me removing the vehicle from the garage as it was in such a 'dangerous condition', a well known scam was to spray oil around the rear shocks, then show the customer that they were 'leaking' and needed replacement.

 

[OnOff]

Last day of the Eurocarparts sale today if anyone's interested.

 

[Blue Duck]

Last day of the Eurocarparts sale today if anyone's interested.

Every day is a euro car parts sale day!

:slap

 

[OnOff]

Every day is a euro car parts sale day!

:slap

Some days it's only 35% off though!

I wouldn't go near them at full price. Just stuck Eicher discs and pads all round on the GTI. Hardly genuine VW...time will tell!

 

[Andy™]

Every day is a euro car parts sale day!

:slap

is that like the DFS sale?

 

[OnOff]

is that like the DFS sale?

Wasn't it DFS who got told off for advertising using small models on extra large sofas made solely for the ads?

 

[phil d]

Some days it's only 35% off though!

I wouldn't go near them at full price. Just stuck Eicher discs and pads all round on the GTI. Hardly genuine VW...time will tell!

Used the Eicher on several vehicles, no complaints so far, and 'dads auto repairs' has been running for several years now, recently the 'business' expanded and now provides a service to close friends of the daughter in law's, apparently, or that's what I was told when her mate rang up to book in an mot repair on her Nissan Micra. lol

 

[phil d]

Wasn't it DFS who got told off for advertising using small models on extra large sofas made solely for the ads?

Don't know about that one, there was however a house builder who got done for using 'special' furniture in their new houses. Apparently, they made their rooms smaller than a standard room and had smaller furniture made for their show homes, they got caught out after someone bought a new house and ordered new furniture to go in it, when it arrived it wouldn't fit. 

 

[r3dd3v1l]

If you look after stuff it will last, the trouble these days is so many people treat the mot like it's some kind of annual service and rant on about how it cost £500 to get it through the test, because amongst other things it needed new pads and discs! Well perhaps if they'd taken a wheel off and checked the pads they'd wouldn't have needed new discs as well. there's a guy over the road from me, found a small hole in the chassis on his van, filled it with paper and bodyfiller because it was a bit of a faff to weld it, now he's moaning because the holes gone bigger and needs welding for the mot.

i know too many people like this! "iv only ever serviced me car twice in five years, its a soldier of a car!" two months later the car is being scrapped due to blown engine lmao

I am the person who puts my vehicle in and asks for everything to be done. I buy proper tyres, i dont scrimp on any vehicle parts ever.

When my clutch pedal braket went it was a part that should not ever need replacing.  I didnt just let it get welded up, i researched it, found someone who made custom extra support brakets for them, i masde sure it would never go again.

A van 11 years old with over 100,000 miles  on original clutch, shocks and everything else was due to have things start going wrong. I either started to replace everythign before it did or await more breakdowns. My choice was a new vehicle as the stress of a breakdown was greater then the stress of getting a new vehicle.

Financially it worked for me, i dont have any breakdown worries and I can concentrate on been an electrician.

Its just my story....... which did all start with a car .... then a mk3 escort with the seats down..... mk3 escort estate/van...mk4 escort Van's .....

fair play, i see what you mean about the new vehicle movement, mate of mine went through four banger cars that kept breaking on him before he finally bit the bullet and leased a t5.

 

[Murdoch]

i know too many people like this! "iv only ever serviced me car twice in five years, its a soldier of a car!" two months later the car is being scrapped due to blown engine lmao

fair play, i see what you mean about the new vehicle movement, mate of mine went through four banger cars that kept breaking on him before he finally bit the bullet and leased a t5.

When you are running a business and need a vehicle, it needs to be reliable and your overheads need to cover the running costs .............. If your annual service and MOT cost £520, that's a mere £10 per week ......................... if you don't service it and it breaks down, not only does it cost to repair, but you also lose day(s) of paid work too................ not servicing your van / car is a false economy IMHO

 

[r3dd3v1l]

When you are running a business and need a vehicle, it needs to be reliable and your overheads need to cover the running costs .............. If your annual service and MOT cost £520, that's a mere £10 per week ......................... if you don't service it and it breaks down, not only does it cost to repair, but you also lose day(s) of paid work too................ not servicing your van / car is a false economy IMHO

its a no brainer but people will still insist on cutting corners,

 

[Doc Hudson]

When you are running a business and need a vehicle, it needs to be reliable and your overheads need to cover the running costs 

Absolutely!  If your business requires transport, but your financial budgets cannot cover it, then there is something seriously wrong with your business plan. Its about as daft as wanting to be a shopkeeper, but not being able to cover the costs of the shop premises. Too many tradesmen think they can run a business without considering all of the essential overheads. 

Doc H 

 

[pewter]

I have avoided London for the last few years, I was talking to my friend today...

His 4 year old caddy costs him to work in central London.....

£25 per day on congestion and LEZ

£9 per hour on parking  which is inflated for diesel, if he had a petrol it would be 50% less

He could save £40 a day if he got a new petrol vehicle instead of using his 4 year old van ..

I dont miss London even if you can charge £400 a day

 

[Sharpend]

my friend had exactly the same scenario and has had to go out and invest in two new vans to lower his everyday costs, which is a huge burden to a young company.