[MacD]

I'd disagree with both of you on this one and a Continental has 2 doors, not 5 so no use to me anyway and a Spur is definitely too big. The R8 would only ever be a consideration if I then bought another family car for the family so I've already put that one aside. Having researched running costs they are not that much higher than for the '3 bar the increase in oil capacity / price and what Audi try to charge for diagnostics. Brake consumables roughly the same, plugs slightly more expensive because 8 instead of 5 but finding the right '6 or 7' and some are on service plans so no real costs for a while. Plus next year if I were to look at an RS3 if they bring one out you'd be hit with the new excise duty which will be a lot more than road tax on a '6 or '7. Insurance is also cheaper believe it or not, so it is well worth looking at 50K (perhaps not £60k as the OP stipulated) on a used version as opposed to 50K on a brand new RS3. Budget another 20% on running costs and I'm back at RS4 running costs. for the type and mileage I do with stronger residuals as further down its depreciation curve, greater exclusivity in the case of the '7 and a set of brakes that appear to work given how many 8V owners are complaining already!

 

 

I know but I'm not talking about running costs i'm talking about living with the car, They're all built for different purposes.

 

So to direct compare by someone saying they'd not buy an RS6/RS7 because it's crap through the bends compared to the RS3 is like saying my washing machine doesn't clean my pots and pans as well as the dishwasher..... If you see what i'm saying?

 

You look at what suits your needs and go from there surely?  Hence we've both ruled out an R8. 

[booker]

You've hit the nail on the head Steve ,it makes me laugh all this comparing they might aswell throw a Used Bentley Continental in the mix aswell ,used examples are the same as a basic spec RS 3 . It's alright people saying about buying these used high performance 100k new cars they're forgetting to factor in the running costs ,there's lots of threads about people moaning about the cost of servicing an RS3 they're talking about cars that'll cost 3 times as much to run .

 

The biggest element of car running costs by far - and the most frequently overlooked - is depreciation. Because the used cars mentioned have already incurred a large slug of depreciation to reduce their second hand values to around 40 - 60% of new price, it is reasonable to assume that annual depreciation from that point on will be lower than a new 8V, or indeed any other new £50k car.

 

However, as T800 pointed out in either this thread or another, the vast majority of us clearly love our 8P/8V so the running costs tend to pale  into insignificance when compared to the overall satisfaction obtained from owning and driving the car