I have been toying with the idea of getting a Zed, insurance is fine and I don't use a car for work so it will just be for social use. The thing is lots of cars are expensive to run and unreliable if badly maintaned, but it seems all you owners have to spend fortunes on you zed's. Are they generally unreliable or is it just the cost of parts that make them expensive toys. i really want one but I am not going to be buying a car that is gauranteed to break down and cost a fortune.

with most cars coming up to 15 years old there is always going to be some expense keeping one of the road,

I have been toying with the idea of getting a Zed, insurance is fine and I don't use a car for work so it will just be for social use. The thing is lots of cars are expensive to run and unreliable if badly maintaned, but it seems all you owners have to spend fortunes on you zed's. Are they generally unreliable or is it just the cost of parts that make them expensive toys. i really want one but I am not going to be buying a car that is gauranteed to break down and cost a fortune.

 

 

What you have to remember is all you will see on an owners club is the problems as we dont post up threads saying my car is working fine just to let you all know. lol, personally i have owned my car for over a year now its my daily driver and apart from the normal services its been fantastic, just make sure if you are looking at buying one you pay the right price and buy one thats been looked after. there are plenty of good cars in the forsale section.

 

mine included lol

Buy a shed and it will cost no matter what the car, I know of people spending well over £1500 on a 2000 model Omega, a guy I work with has just spent the last 12 months and over 5K on a Cosworth Escort the same age as mine.

 

Initial costs may be high, meaning buying the car and piece of mind jobs like cam belts, but once you have the car you want and know its maintained then it shouldn't cost a huge amount more than any other fast car.

They are not unreliable, and they do not cost a fortune to own.

 

They will cost more than your average car, its still a £35k Sports car no matter what price they can be picked up for now.

 

Both my TT and NA have cost barely anything in Maintenance or repair over the past 2 years, both daily drivers. (except for the TT's head gasket failure, due to a unnoticed leaking water pipe and innaccurate temp gauge).

 

The cars themselves are well built, reliable...and japanese. Neglect maintenance on a 300bhp 15yr old car and it will bite back though!

 

Its worth noting that there a LOT of neglected rough examples out there !

The reason the cost of Zed ownership is high, is due to

the age of the thing, and you need to remember

that performance cars are not cheep. The Zed was around

£30,000 new. A good stock zed should not cost you too

much, the oil filter is only around £5.00 no more than

a Ford Escort

Had mine now for over 3 1/2 years, its never every broke down, just needed a recon caliper. In the first two years did quite a bit of mileage. The rest Ive spent have been doing the car up to my taste.

 

Barry

I havent had any real problems with mine. Maybe I am lucky. But it boils down to the fact you get what you pay for. If you tune a car to its full potential then you have got to expect some problems. A lot of members/owners on here spend a lot keeping their cars up to a very high spec. If you buy a cheap one you will more than likely get a pig? shop carefully and you should do OK.

 

HTH.

I've had lots of probs and spent lots on my Z's, but then others havnt.

I just seem to have no luck at all with them, lol.

But I keep soldiering on....

ive had mine 6 months or so now and its a daily drive and has never let me down. its an n/a though and i think there generally more reliable anyway.

Just buy a well looked after exapmly like mine which is for sale and you'll be fine!

As everyone above says, they are not unreliable or particularly expensive to run if you buy a well looked after example and take care of it properly once you own it.

 

I've had my UK spec TT auto for almost 4 years now, at one point I was driving 50+ miles a day in it (for around 4 months). It is a second car now but I still use it for holidays, wherein I can cover 1500 miles in a week. It has not let me down in that time.

 

Parts can be expensive if something goes wrong plus these cars are so well built that even a minor repair can involve removing half the engine/trim/etc ;)

 

The only regular expensive bit is the appetite for fuel and rear tyres.....

 

Richard :)

All modded and sports cars are expensive to run whether they go wrong or not. I had the car that rodders has now and never had a problem other than a £100 Maf going. It still cost several thousand pounds to keep over the year I had it.

 

£1200ish for two sets of tyres

£1500 for the skyline brake calipers, discs and pads (didn't need to do this mind)

plus £35 a time for oil changes

 

For me the car was perfect, now Rodders has it and he's had a nightmare and hasn't really drove it.

 

The Zed I had before that for 4k was over boosting and blew 3 pistons, rebuilding the engine myself cost probably £1500. It blew again 3mths later and I sold it on ebay for around a grand.

 

I now have a mazda Rx7 which is very highly tuned, and a massive overdraft and loan!

 

My recommendation is don't go near these type of cars unless you have access to at least £1000 for repairs and also expect to lose several thousand pounds as they are a useless investment and you'll end up skint unless you earn plenty.

 

That didn't stop me though haha and I don't regret it, but wish my bank account looked better.

its like anything in life.....

 

you pay for gat you get.

 

i paid top whack for a low milage uk and apart from ptu problem and brakes it has been no trouble in my 2yrs of ownership

Im hoping that when I get mine it will be like my old 95 reg celica GT, that thing didnt cost me anything, untill somone wrote it off.

 

With the one im getting being an N/A with only 63k on the clock im hoping it will be ok.

I have been toying with the idea of getting a Zed, insurance is fine and I don't use a car for work so it will just be for social use. The thing is lots of cars are expensive to run and unreliable if badly maintaned, but it seems all you owners have to spend fortunes on you zed's. Are they generally unreliable or is it just the cost of parts that make them expensive toys. i really want one but I am not going to be buying a car that is gauranteed to break down and cost a fortune.

 

 

You only hear about the people spending lots of money. People dont tend to post up that their car is going fine and not costing anything.

One thing that does keep down costs is by doing as much of the work as possible yourself. The engines are complex and require more time than say a Toyota Corolla to get things done - those labor costs really can eat into your budget. So if you are willing to put in the time (and as others have said - buy a car that's been well maintained) you shouldn't find things too bad....

 

FYI -- Bought my Z 3 years ago and it was in decent shape. Needed to do the timing belt servicing along with crank and cam seals and the heater core. This winter the plenum is getting pulled since my injectors are starting to fail. My car seems to be somewhat typical of what you'll find in a 15 year old car....

i spent a year on my sliktop, doing as much as i could, and doing a lot of preventative work/ by the end of that it was fine with no problems and sailed through her mot.

 

i now have the lotus you see in my sig pic... i have just had the head worked on and the guides upgraded to bronze oil catch guides, new seats etc, i have new pipework throughout and new clamps etc. more preventative work.. necessary.. nope but if you think the zeds gonna be expensive try owning one of these things!!

It is supposed to do around 180 mph. Many of them on the forum are at least over 10 years old. Things go wrong with any car of that age. You could go out and get a good one that runs fine for years or you could go and get a brand new super car that is a piece of rubbish. The brand new super car will cost you at least 10 times the amount might not look as good and if it goes wrong will cost you an arm and a leg for a bulb.

 

There aren't many cars out there that you can buy for under 5 grand that will beat you off the lights.

 

Treat it as a 10 year plus old car and it will be as reliable as most out there.

 

Just don't expect to be able to see in the dark however because they are the worst lights in the world.

 

Darrell

I bought a uk TT manual with very high milage but it's almost stock. It's a day runner for me and the previous 2 owners. I've not had any problems with it but I did a lot of research first and have learnt plenty about the Zed first.

 

The only expense as such I've had was due to me wanting to upgrade my brakes. I could have saved some money buy only replacing the back brakes with standard but went one better all round.

 

 

Buy a good example and look after it. You don't have to spend the earth on these cars if you don't mod them highly and buy a good example to start with.

 

Learn to work on the car itself that will also keep down the costs. If I can do it then any one can.

 

As I had no real knowledge of engines before I started my research into the Zed.

 

All the best with your hunt

 

Eileen

Hi Eileen,

 

What brake upgrade did you do alround and do you find it now stops like it should do,and finaly what was the cost.

 

Regards

 

Chris.

I've just done an all round upgrade, £390 from smithy, that includes 3G grooved disk's that use bembo blanks and portfield pads, a unbelivable improvement on stock, did it my self too, hardest thing was getting the front calipers off as the fixings were soooooooooo tight, rears were a dodlde

 

HTH

 

Neil

I bought Mine in April and its my daily Driver and had no problems at all

I have spent on it but that was some paint and new wheels other than that

I have put petrol in it and smiled like a looney

:cool:

Hi Neil,

I have slotted and grooved discs alround together with hard road pads, but the car just will not stop like it should do.

 

It has the standard calipers,do you think they need a refurb or an upgrade.

 

Cheers

 

Chris.

bit of a thread hijack (maybe stick it in the other section?) Artztogo, but have you bled your brakes as that makes a huge difference. You may have air/water in the tubes.

Sorry for my absensce, this thread is great and has re-kindled my enthusiasm for getting one. Just a bit of backgorund about me, I own a cavalier GSi and the old man was a self employed mechanic for 30 years and before that he was an MOT tester. Needless to say the cav has only ever gone to a garage for MOT's and a bit of welding, before that I did an engine transplant on a calibra and various other jobs, so self mantaining the Zed will not be a problem. The reason I was so put off the Zeds is all the posts of things like "have a few grand in the bank because when it breaks you will need it". I understand what goes wrong with 10-15yr old cars but it always sounded like the zed was particularly bad. I am not worried about the thrist as I ride/walk to work so it doesn't get used much. I intend getting a std UK TT and keeping it std, the only mods I perform will be to fit a some form of turbo timer and safety gauges such as air/fuel meter just so I can see how the car is doing at all times and hopefully not break it. Other then the usual cambelt, water pump, turbos are there any other major components that often fail on them e.g gearbox, differential, electrics? One thing that has scared me though is the comment about the lights, I really hate bad headlights has anyone found a solution for it? HID conversion, different lenses?