Tyler H said:
If I'm doing it right, I might spend 40-60 hours a year actually performing modifications, repairs, and maintenance, including prep for HPDEs or races. Reliability is key for me.
I think it depends on whether your core hobby is driving or building where you focus your limited resources.
I have all of the constraints that (most) of us do: time, work demands, family, rest, money. If I had unlimited time and money, I'd probably invest a little more, but not thousands of hours. We all do a balancing act of figuring out where a hobby fits in the spectrum of limited resources. To each their own!
That's exactly it. It's a balancing act.
I'm blessed in that when I want something I figure out how to get it.
A big part of my hobby was working on others cars to pay for my hobby.
Typically the cars I worked on were well worn trash. Boogered up by hacks who didn't know the proper repair or didn't care. Many cases I took the car completely apart and made a tool room copy. ( without the hack jobs and boogers. ) often I made molds after I straightened out the body so the fiberglass was done right.
Didn't have an extra 50 pounds of bondo and 5 layers of Matt holding everything together.
Other than nut and bolting it , you should be able to race a full season without issues. Chassis, suspension, drivetrain. Everything.
I did that level of work on my Black Jack, the Demar mk 2, on the chassis of a lotus 11 LeMans, ( and drivetrain) One of the Echidna's, MY Jaguar XKE roadster V12 ( all vintage race cars ) the usual MGT SERIES restorations a few Jaguar XKE restorations plus the typical Ferrari 330, clutch job, tube up, etc. various other repairs etc.
bobzilla said:
So we're just making E36 M3 up now. Cool. Well I'll stand by my 10,000 hour a year then.
I'm at least 15000. It took me ten hours to fill up today. I got up at 6:00, drove a half hour to this big building full of cubicles and killed nine hours there until it was time to get gas, then a half hour home. That all counts.
gearheadmb said:
bobzilla said:
So we're just making E36 M3 up now. Cool. Well I'll stand by my 10,000 hour a year then.
I'm at least 15000. It took me ten hours to fill up today. I got up at 6:00, drove a half hour to this big building full of cubicles and killed nine hours there until it was time to get gas, then a half hour home. That all counts.
Impressive. I think if I forgo eating and use the Time Machine a little more I can squeak out maybe 16k hours this year. I'm prepping all the cars for the new rahal letterman team down the road at night in my off hours now so yeah.
I don't work on my DD cars any more I pay people to do that. I budget 2400-2500 a year for car maintenance. That equates to a 3+/- hours of my billable time per month after tax's. This includes all regular maintenance and insurance costs. Big one off expenses are not part of this but I guess could be. Last year I had 4 oil changes a set of tires and rear shocks and brakes (pads and rotors) and a air suspension valve block replaced. I was close to 5k in the car but the previous two or three years I only had oil changes and a pair of a arms. I don't look at a given year but instead look at the last 2-4 years and average the yearly cost. This year I am already in for 1k due to a front air strut and an oil change but unless I have a catastrophic failure of something all the known weak points have been addressed and I should be good for a couple years. Oil changes are $500 a year. Partially because I change it every 4K or so and it uses 10 quarts of mobile 1 but that is cheep insurance against sludge issues with the VVT and or the chain tensioners or the turbos that I am willing to spend to not have issues with those components.
Vigorous preventive maintenance obviously costs more but it is always cheeper than what ends up needing repair if you don't do it. Belts and holders are another thing. I change them every two years along with any idler pulley. I also replace the coolant at the same time. This seems to make water pumps last a long time. Trans fluid gets replaced every 30k. I do the dif and transfer case oils at the same time the trans is done no matter what the service manual says. That ends up being about every two years.
Generally speaking if you want to drive a performance luxury car you have to pay to play if you want it to last and be reliable. Lots of these cars get the reputation of being unreliable. It is because they get purchased by people that reached further than they should to purchase it and then can not afford to maintain it. I hear stories of people being put in the poor house by there (insert German car brand here) but in reality they put them self in the poor house by purchasing a car that was out of there budget to maintain.
Another thing people seem to think is that as an expensive care depreciates so should the repair costs. That $200 oil change when it is new and the car cost 100k should some how cost $50 when the car is 5 years old and is only worth 30k. Same for all the others repairs and maintenance. I don't understand this thought process and that somehow what you pay for a car should affect the service costs. I watched a friend go through this when he got a S4. I warned him. (I kind of wish I had purchased it from him). But he traded it in on a Lexus I think it was a IS250.
Creepers have I rambled on here. Lol.
In reply to bobzilla :
If you want to make fun of the time you devote to cars. That's really up to you. In the past we all had to do it but now there is another choice.
I'm very aware because my job has me timed to the minute. Since the district sets the schedule ( they are the ones paying for my time) if there was a faster way they would figure it out.
My hobby time is mine. I'm proud of all I've achieved in that area. And that's why I spend so much time at it.
When you've achieved what I have in that area, then I'll give you some credence
AND now the condescension starts.
