Mr2 Turbo running costs

[Harold]

Hello chaps, longtime lurker here. Have been reading this forum for quite a while just trying to absorb some knowledge. I'll get to the point, I love the mr2 mk2 looks and would dearly love one as my next car, however how expensive are they to actually run?
Ignoring fuel + insurance costs as i know they are juicy but i hardly do any miles, 2000-4000 per year.

I know the mk2 is meant to be a reliable car, but i'm not fooling myself, an early rev 3 is going to be 17 years old now and things are going to break. Consumables look pretty cheap as far as i can see on camskill, but what are the main things to worry about? I don't mind spending money on cars, but i'm not willing to do so if it's going to cost me every month to keep in good fettle.

A yearly service seems to be:
Dizzy cap
Rotor arm
Plugs
Oil + filter
Air filter
Which seems pretty reasonable from camskill.

How much would you say you spend in an average year to keep the car running and in good condition?
I would like to do as much work myself as possible, to learn and keep costs down, is the mk2 a particularly easy car to work on? (Haven't worked on a car properly yet, but have a big halfords pro set).

Thanks for any advice chaps.

[sms14]

Hi, i run a rev3 turbo as my daily drive so hopefully can give you some decent advice.

As far as buying one the most common thing your are going to find is worn suspention parts, as you say there getting on abit now so its the sort of thing you expect too be worn, so when you are looking too buy make sure you check....

Bushes - worn out
Shocks - are not to bouncy and recoil properly
Top mounts - are not knocking
Drop links - very common issue it seems, again they will knock if there worn.

And just check the usual things like rust etc, and make sure the cambelt and tensioners have been done recently.

As for running i change the plugs in mine every 5k, oil and filter around every 3k and leads, dizzy cap and rotor arm every 10k and thats really all ive had too do and its ran sweet ever since ive had it around 2 years now.

I do all the work on mine myself, theres some very usefull guides on here for most jobs, if not theres always someone friendly with decent advice.

Parts are very easy too source aswell and usually pretty cheap through places like camskill.

Hope that helps abit

[Harold]

Thanks for your reply bud, just had a look at prices for replacement shocks on camskill, all I can say is blimey! They are rather pricey, a full set isn't far off the price of a full set of tein coilovers, no wonder so many people have them. Also, another question if I wanted to test drive a car how do I go about getting insured? No day insure companies that I can find will touch modified mr2 turbos.

[dantheman]

then theres no quick fix. if you have another policy which covers you 3rd party then you are already covered. if not you can ask the seller if they will put you on their insurance for 1 day and you will pay the cost of doing so.

if they wont do that tell them a test drive is important to keep your interest. maybe ask them to take you for a test drive in it. or ask if you can find somewhere secluded or a fairly empty car park.

[Blue_5]

With regards to insurance, how old are you? Are you planning to seriously modify it?

Working on the car, most things are easy to do at home. Last 3 jobs I have done were removal of front hub/balljoints for bearing/joint replacements, replacing a front caliper, and replacing a suspension strut assembly. Everything was done at home with standard tools, apart from the wheel bearing which was changed by a friendly local garage for a drink). I had the clutch changed by Luke at Pacific Works on Monday and helped a little bit (well, made the tea!) and the only bit of kit he used that I dont have was a alignment tool for the clutch plate. Parts are quite cheap in the great scheme of things (better than Porsche prices), and still easy to find (Toyota have been able to order any part i have asked for, and the local motor factors are cheaper still).

Even for ham-fisted bodge monkeys like me, its not too hard!

[Steve-O 2007]

Running costs - Probably the same as any other old car usually everything is quite cheap.

Fuel - You will be visiting your local Shell garage for VPOWER quite regulary lol, these cars use alot of fuel especially if driving around town at rush hour times. £40 of Vpower gets me 130miles (90% of this is town use), Motorway use gives alot better fuel economey.

[malcster]

I wouldn't limit yourself to a Rev3 I'd take a clean rev2 over a rusty rev3 any day (in fact that's what I ended up doing).
There's nothing worse than getting under a car to work on it and its just rusty siezed bolts everywhere.

As far as running costs yeah, if you're only doing minimal miles you'll not be hurt with the fuel economy too much.
As said above, always use V-Power, maybe Tesco 99 as an alternative if there's no shell garage nearby.

Also have to agree with the abive, if the standard dampers have seen more than 70 - 80k miles they'll have seen their best, and they're not cheap. But then again it is a performance car, so you are buying performance dampers. They are designed specifically for thse MR2 by Bilstien.

One other thing - DO NOT scrimp on tyres.

[Harold]

With regards to insurance, how old are you? Are you planning to seriously modify it?

I'm 25 in july, which is when i'm planning on seriously looking for one. I'm not planning on any big mods, i'd probably look for one with ss exhaust, decat, induction kit, boost controller and coilovers and might uprate brakes and put some braided lines on. Nothing too extreme, as insurance will be expensive for only these limited mods, this would be my first rwd car and a big power increase so no point chasing bhp.

One other thing - DO NOT scrimp on tyres.

Don't worry bud i know how tyre sensitive the mr2 is, besides tyres are the most important thing you can spend money on.

[Signori]

Put your location up,
Someone on here will take you for a spin in theres and talk you through what it costs them ect

[Bobby (aka Shaggar)]

Well mate, puit it this way. I just brought up my spreadshet which details every single service item whether it be oil, a filter of some kind, a sheered screw, a bulb, everything from my last MR2 over eight year. It cost me (purely for servicing, the mods haeva seperate column and a lot more!!) £5110. Thats £637.5 a year. Like I said, that an avergae over eight years and I DIDNT change the shocks or bushes either so bare that in mind. Thats also with ME doing most of the jobs. I've alwasy advised that worst case, if you can afford £2.5k a year, that will cover you for pretty much anything. Adding hourly labour charges onto this will demolish that figure and take it a lot higher indeedy.

These car offer near supercar performance but wont cost as much to run, however, despite haev a Toyota badge on them, they are way more expansive to run than your 'bread and butter' model.

Also, with the age of these cars now, many are cracking the 80k-100k marker. At this point I would recommend keeping a couple of grand in the bank. There are exceptions but I dont think I'm being extreme in thinking that most engines will start needing a freshen up/opening up/ rebuild around these mileages. Yes, if you'd have had it since day one and religiously looked after it, that different, but these engines do not appreciate being neglected and you dont know it full past in many cases.


HTH

Bobby