Quote:
Originally Posted by Xist
How much does it cost to properly maintain a German car overall? Is the oil change indicative?
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To just do the schedule maintenance it isn't much different. The oil is expensive but the change interval is 10K miles. A comparison for the last two cars I've owned for an extended period of time:
2003 VW Jetta TDI 0 - 120K $2,751
2005 Toyota Prius 0 - 120K = $1,572
The big difference there is that I paid a mechanic to do the timing belt change on the TDI @ 100K miles which cost $1232. The Prius has a timing chain and I did all the work myself.
The problem is that plenty of people just won't pay the extra $30 to use the proper oil in the VW.
Then there are the people that are loyal to a brand of oil. "I've used Castrol GTX 10W-30 for 30 years on all my cars ....." You see this even with fleets that are running thousands of vehicle. The vast majority of US trucking fleets still run their semis on 15W-50 CK-4 oil instead of the 10W-30 FA-4 oil recommended by the manufacturer.