Car maintenance is an annoying obligation. Car maintenance is expensive, inconvenient and, for many, baffling. It’s generally an unwanted job that can put a significant dent in a household’s finances, even if the car only requires a modest amount of work. Combine that with the impracticality of taking a car to a dealer during the week, followed by a mechanic informing you that your indicator fluid needs to be replaced, and it’s no wonder that about 25 percent of drivers report delaying or even skipping maintenance work. store to save money. .
But at the other end of the vehicle spectrum, where money is no object, car maintenance takes on a very different form. Recent news stories about Aston Martin’s maintenance package for its Valkyrie hypercar, which cost £355,000 over three years, certainly raised more than a few eyebrows.
While the real-life Nissan Qashqai might be worth £10,000, a particularly desirable supercar could be worth a thousand times that – and unlike most normal cars, its value can rise rather than fall as it ages. But that return on investment is to some extent dependent on keeping the car in good condition, and that’s where some of the most exclusive service networks in the world ply their trade.
One of these outfits is McLaren Special Operations. As well as producing souped-up versions of the already quite souped-up McLaren road and track cars, MSO is responsible for the maintenance of the legendary F1 – perhaps the most famous model to bear the badge. Built in small numbers from 1992 to 1998, the McLaren F1 was probably my favorite car when I was a little boy, who would have loved to be one of the hundred or so people around the world who sent their cars back to Woking for an annual service. .
“Cars come to us from far and wide,” explains Pani Tsouris, senior F1 technician at MSO. “The cars we currently have in the workshop come from Great Britain, the US and Hong Kong. It is not uncommon for a customer to deliver his car to us himself.
These owners won’t leave their car in for an oil change and maybe a new tire. The McLaren F1 is a complex machine and MSO engineers are familiar with the limited number of cars that most mechanics will never experience. They apply this expertise during an extremely thorough inspection.
“We carry out a car arrival check, including a detailed paint, interior and underbody inspection. If the car arrives dirty, it will be washed before we start work. An electrical fault check is performed. The car is then left on a slope for about eight hours and is meticulously checked,” says Tsouris.
“We will then make agreements with Millbrook [motor industry proving ground] and make sure we have good weather as we only ride in dry conditions. The car will then be transported to Millbrook.”
Millbrook Proving Ground is a huge automotive testing center that includes a huge circular track for high-speed driving. It was here that some of the McLaren F1’s first test drives took place, but now MSO engineers use this and the other areas of the facility to fully test the cars they service: the gearbox, the engine, the steering system, the electrical systems and the various interior components. functions are all subject to a strict set of procedures. The car is then transported back to the MSO workshop before a job sheet is created and sent to the owner for approval.
“Once the mechanical work is completed, a second shakedown is performed,” Tsouris explains. “If there is a problem and further work is required, we will conduct a third road test. After the final shakedown, another inspection of the engine compartment is carried out. The car will only be signed off when I am completely satisfied.”
McLaren’s is not a ‘while you wait’ service; the process can take months or even years depending on the level of attention the car needs. Instead of hanging around in a run-down waiting room, drinking bad coffee and reading decade-old car magazines, McLaren F1 owners receive regular updates on the work needed on their cars – which often amounts to a small annual restoration, whether mechanical as well as decorative.
The company’s engineers explain some of the minor improvements and tweaks available for the F1. The car’s fuel tank was originally quite fragile; MSO has developed a better version that does not need to be replaced every five years and that can withstand modern fuel. MSO engineers tell me that some of the substances used in the original car are now banned, so alternatives have been developed. All of these developments, largely behind the scenes, add up to a huge, never-ending job for the engineers who keep these outdated machines on the road.
When you consider the sheer volume of work – plus the phenomenal cost of F1’s valuable parts and the repeated trips to Millbrook – the five-figure price tag on basic maintenance at MSO seems like pretty good value. Supercars are refined, delicate machines that require just as much care. It’s no surprise that this care in itself is worth a small fortune.
The most expensive cars to maintain
Aston Martin Valkyrie
Aston Martin’s flagship hypercar is one of the coolest vehicles ever built by a British manufacturer – and one of the most expensive. Costing around £2.4 million to buy a new one, it’s not the kind of purchase you take on lightly, so buyers have probably done the math and can reasonably expect to be able to afford the maintenance too. But the three-year package (which costs around £560 for a Nissan Leaf) will set new owners back around £350,000.
McLaren F1
No millennial room was complete without at least one poster of the timeless F1 on the wall, but nowadays some of those millennials have enough money to buy such a car. Costing a relatively affordable £540,000 new, these classics now change hands for several million pounds and require as much investment and attention as a small business. The expensive maintenance of the car, which is essential to keep these on-road investments as valuable as possible, is a small price to pay.
Pagani huayra
For a company that makes Ferrari look like Fiat, Pagani’s annual service for its ultra-expensive Huayra hypercar seems quite affordable at less than £10,000. But that’s just the beginning of what this hand-built Italian machine can cost: add a zero or two to what you think new parts and tires cost.
Bugatti Veyron
The Veyron was the ultimate hypercar of the 2000s, an ultra-high-performance oddity that emerged in an obscure corner of the Volkswagen Group. But you can’t really take a Veyron to your local VW dealer like you would a Passat, even though it shares some parts with more modest models like the Golf hatchback. The cost of these parts may be reasonable, but getting them installed is a whole different four-figure story; some parts such as the exhaust and even the wheels (which need to be replaced every now and then) cost tens of thousands.
Mercedes AMG One
It’s one of the most advanced hypercars of recent years, but the AMG One – with an engine derived from that of an F1 car – is quite a tense beast. As such, in addition to the normal maintenance required every 3,000 miles, the One will require an engine overhaul every 30,000 miles – at a cost of many hundreds of thousands of pounds. Buyers of the 1,000bhp beast will have paid a whopping £2.4m for the car in the first place, but owners who drive more than a handful of miles a year could end up paying the same amount of money for maintenance.