[Challenger Man]

I am very possibly buying this car or a Ss Camaro 1le this year and I am trying to get a honest picture of what maintenance cost will be with the widebody:

- I am trying to get an insurance quote from my current company
- I know that premium fuel needs to be factored in
- I will have to shop for tires to see what they will cost me
- what do oil changes cost? What about other fluid changes?
- labor and parts for rotors and pads when they need to be changed?
- labor and parts for shock replacements?
- any other maintenance costs I am missing?

Thanks.

 

[Rockster]

I am very possibly buying this car or a Ss Camaro 1le this year and I am trying to get a honest picture of what maintenance cost will be with the widebody:

- I am trying to get an insurance quote from my current company
- I know that premium fuel needs to be factored in
- I will have to shop for tires to see what they will cost me
- what do oil changes cost? What about other fluid changes?
- labor and parts for rotors and pads when they need to be changed?
- labor and parts for shock replacements?
- any other maintenance costs I am missing?

Thanks.

Get the insurance quote. But God help you if you get a ticket or two or worse.

Due to a flat tire, just replaced two rear tires on my Hellcat. $600. If you want more precise numbers you'll have to get the tire info from a representative car and search online for the tire and how much it costs (and know that tire prices can and will go up over time) and what a dealer (or tire store which I very very seldom use unless absolutely necessary) will charge you to mount/balance the tire. You have to factor in the possibility a flat tire can require you replace both tires on the axle because of the too large a difference in the new tire's diameter vs. the worn tire.

While I don't recall seeing anything in my HC manual regarding this another car maker stated a 30% difference in tread depth between tires on the same axle required both tires be replaced. When I had the car in the SA advised me both tires should be replaced. If there wasn't a 30% difference in tread depth it was going to be close. And with 707hp on tap no way I want to compromise on tires. So I agreed.

And in one case I had a flat tire on a car, my Porsche Turbo, and while a dealer had tires the replacement tire would not be the same tire brand on the car. Porsche does not support mixing tires so I had all 4 tires replaced at a cost of (probably) $1250. I will probably follow this mixing tires thing with my Hellcat.

Oil/filter services for my Hellcat have ranged from free to nearly $140. I suspect going forward the $140 number will be closer to what I pay. And this can only go up.

I have not had any other fluids replaced. With previous cars for one particular car the cost to replace the 5-speed manual transmission/diff fluid was the least expensive service. The labor was just 0.3 hours. The fluid cost around $40/quart and required just over 2 quarts but once in a while the dealer would give me a discount on the fluid. One time when the dealer had some fluid left over from warranty work I got the fluid for $5/quart!

With my Hellcat I have not come across any reports of what it cost to get a fluid service with the A8 transmission. Diff fluid changes have been discussed but I don't recall the price.

While I have the brake fluid flushed/bled every once in a while with my other cars, and I can't recall the cost, I have not had this done yet with my HC. I don't think it will be that much. Maybe 1 to 1.5 hours labor and fluid.

With other cars, my Porsche cars, brakes ran around $1000/axle. Just had the rear brakes done on my Mini JCW. Nearly $500 for new pads, new sensors, some other hardware, but *not* rotors and no brake fluid flush/bleed. With new rotors and a brake fluid flush/bleed the cost would be $1000 or pretty darn close. I don't know about the Scat Pack brakes but the front brakes of the Hellcat alone I believe run in the $2000 area. There may be suitable/acceptable and less expensive aftermarket brake hardware but I have not had any reason to look into this yet.

Have driven from 28K miles to 317K miles on the shocks the cars came with and never had to replace any shocks/struts. But with one car I had to have the CV boots replaced when these developed cracks due to age/exposure. At around 260K miles. Tech removed the shafts, cleaned the bearings and inspected them. They were ok so a repack and new boots and back into the car they went. The cost I'm sure was over $1000 but new half shafts cost $900/each plus labor.

Earlier this same car had a rear wheel bearing go bad (at around 80K miles). $300+ to replace. The other 3 bearings and the replacement bearing were fine when I sold the car at 317K miles.

If you drive the car enough, keep it long enough, budget for not only oil and oil filter, but engine air filter, cabin air filter, possibly fuel filter. Plugs will need to be replaced at some point.

O2 sensors will at some point be needed. I have managed anywhere from 90K miles to 130K miles on O2 sensors. Never had to replace coils -- due to any engine issues -- but on a whim I replaced coils on one engine at around 140K miles and the engine ran better afterwards.

I like to replace the coolant every 4 years which helps prolong water pump life and hose life. While I have had to replace a water pump or two over the years never had a radiator hose need replacement.

Depending upon your circumstances you can (possibly) do some if not all of the above. I could but I have not the place or the time to work on my cars. But in the past I have done oil/filter services, brakes, brake flushes. The transmission/diff fluid service I let the dealer handle. Manual transmission fluid is stinky/nasty stuff. But I have done water pumps, plugs, even (years ago) a clutch (actually a clutch in conjunction with an engine rebuild), fuel pump. Coolant drains/refills. Wheel bearings. All filters. No starters. Alternators. No heating/AC issues. No drive train issues.


Doing the work yourself -- provided you can do it right and if you don't think you can you shouldn't attempt the work -- can cut the cost of the services/repairs mentioned above by roughly half. 'course, there is your time. The time you spend working on the car is time you can't spend on other things, time you can't spend with the family. And I have found it really helps to have a 2nd/back up vehicle to use while my primary vehicle is down. Sometimes a problem can arise that can't be taken care of in a hour or two after work or on a weekend.

 

[Slidd]

Figure about $80-90 for an oil change at the dealer and one is required minimum every 6 months.

For the brakes just swap the pads over to the PowerStop Z23 or Z26 and doubt you will ever need to replace rotors unless you drive unusually hard. The stock pads are racing pads and unnecessary on the street and wear out the rotors.

Other than that, these cars are reliable. Three and a half years and over 20K miles on mine and not a single issue. Rock on!


Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[Rockster]

20K miles in over 3 years is hardly using a car. I averaged 21K miles per year in my Boxster. Bought it new in Jan. 2002 and by Feb. 2004 had over 80K miles on it. In that time just a rear main seal -- covered under warranty at around 25K miles -- and an air/oil separator (not under warranty) plus plugs (at 60K miles) were all that was needed. Can't recall the price of these things but can make a reasonable guess the AOS was at least $500 (probably closer to $750) and plugs were close to $500. Oh, wait can't forget the 16 oil changes (every 5K miles) at around $150 (on average) apiece. And toss in an engine and cabin air filter, too. Oh, and there was the unexpected, bad luck thing. In the dark I hit a tire carcass and had to pay out $1600 to get the car fixed. Roughly the car cost me nearly $5500 the 1st 80K miles 3 years of its service life.That's $1833/year not including gasoline, 4 sets of rear tires and 2 sets of front tires, an alignment, oh and brakes (which I did myself) but parts still cost around $250 and a brake flush/bleed which I also did myself, but I had to buy the fluid and a pressure bleeder gizmo. Which means I had to buy an air compressor and I sprung for a nice hydraulic floor jack, too. Plus I had set of a Rhino ramps.


'course, I have averaged not even 1K miles per month -- 12K miles per year -- with my Hellcat. 17 months old and just barely 15K miles.

Just depends upon how much one uses the car. And how lucky or unlucky one is. Say the OP drives 12K miles per year. That's 2 oil/filter services. 600 gallons of gasoline (assuming an average of 20mpg). (My HC averages around 15mpg!) Just paid $4.099/gallon for gasoline where I live. Gasoline alone then would cost $2459.40. per year or approx. $200/month. 'course, unless the OP lived someplace like CA chances are he would get the gasoline for around $1/gallon less. That still could be $1800/year. Or if he managed to average 25mpg. That still works out to nearly $1500 per year for gasoline.

With reasonable driving and maybe some tire rotation figure 24K miles, ok 30K miles, on tires. That's a set, nearly a set, of tires every 2 years. Or half a set every year. Two Hellcat tires cost $600 so figure setting aside around $600/year for tires.

Not sure how long Dodge brakes will last. Got roughly 50K miles from my Boxster brakes. My VW Golf still had its original brakes at 150K miles when I sold it. My GTO brakes were ok at 50K miles when I sold the car. My Turbo front brakes lasted around 140K miles. The rear brakes were ok -- but clearly worn -- at 161K miles.

The outlier is the JCW. Just had to have the Mini JCW rear pads replaced with barely 16K miles on the car. The JCW's problem is the stability control is set to a hair trigger. Now I'm paying attention I see the warning light flash quite often. I'm cooling my jets when I drive the JCW. So used to my Porsche cars that could take corners at just short ludicrous speed and never flash the stability control warning light but it is clear the JCW is not capable of anything close to the cornering performance of my Porsche cars. Heck the HC might even be better cornering than the JCW.

Hellcat brakes and probably Scat Pack brakes I suspect will not last as long. These are heavy cars.

For other services the cost doesn't pose any sort of a problem. As for repairs I don't anticipate premature issues with water pump, fuel pump, or any of the other countless things that can go wrong. But I can certainly take them in stride when if they show up.

Blah blah blah.

It would be nice to be able to say for a $40,000 (just a number) car one would be prudent to set aside, budget for some percentage of that $40,000 per year. But what percentage? 10% is way too much. 1%? That's just $400/year. That covers 2 oil/filter services but does not have one setting aside anything towards tires or other services that are sure to come. While one might not spend but $400 or less the 1st year or two at some point more expensive things will require replacement. Tires. Maybe brakes. So if one is on a tight budget it is better to set aside a bit extra early on to build up some cushion against the flat tire or early but out of warranty water pump failure. Maybe something like 2% or 2.5% a year? For a $40K car that works out to $800 to $1000 a year not including gasoline costs. One easily shows a surplus the 1st year or 2 maybe 3 but if he continues to use the car even $1000/year might not be enough some years. And the nice thing is if the car proves to be a problem free car one builds up a nice savings account that maybe can at some point be used towards another car. But then one books a loss on depreciation and that ain't pretty. That will make what one spent on servicing pale in comparison.

 

[Iamstubb]

Gas will be the biggest expense!

 

[theCarmaxShuffle]

'18 Scat Pack oil change, with Pennzoil Ultra Platinum and SRT filter (in writing), was $120 at Normandin Dodge in San Jose today. That was with the Mopar full-syn coupon (which reads $60 for normal cars). List was quoted at $140 to me, and perhaps an extra $5 for the SRT filter. Inspection and tire rotation was included.

Mine is a Dynamics Package, not Widebody. I've had it since March and have put about 4k on it. The 275/40-20 P Zero Neros were new at the time and estimated at 40% tread today. Ouch.