How Expensive was it to own a VW Phaeton W12 for 4 Years? Total Cost of Ownership [TCO]

and all in all it cost me but that cannot be right in this video I will go through all the costs have had with owning a VW Phaeton w12 over the period of four years you heard that right [Music] I've previously done videos about how much it cost me to own a Mercedes SL 55 AMG and a Porsche 911 Turbo so this is a third video in this series and in this one I tackle the most expensive car I've ever owned a 2005 VW Phaeton w12 I'm not just saying this is the most expensive car I ever owned because it was expensive to buy it wasn't really but because I have a spreadsheet and over 30 pages of service records for the car I've owned the car for four years I've driven 70,000 kilometers in it and this is the result of all of it so let's not lose too much time and go right into it I bought the car on the 30th of October 2010 and at the 6th of November I had the winter wheels put on there was 89 francs at the 8th of December I had a large service done it was 3525 Swiss francs by the way one Swiss franc is about one u.s. dollar if you're wondering that big service also included brakes meaning pads and rotors in the front and those alone were 2,000 francs of that 3500 25 francs at the 4th of March 2011 I got a new number plate holder that was 76 Swiss francs at the 9th of April 2011 I had the summer wheels put back on there was another 95 francs then in May of 2011 one of the mechanisms to wind the rear windows broke so I had to replace that and also replaced a trim piece that had a little speaker on it because the speaker was blown it was making noise all in all that was 1142 francs about a month later I bought the tension gateway 300 which is basically an mp3 player that you can connect to the car's infotainment system that one I bought used at a very good price it cost me 58 francs and I installed it myself in October 2011 I had an automatic transmission service because I reckoned the car never had one it had a hundred and thirty thousand kilometers so it felt right and I also had the Shannons replaced because they were flickering and this it was riding me insane obviously with the Phaeton if you want to replace the same bulbs you have to remove the bumper and remove the headlights so that was pretty expensive also in the dedication I had all the the little plastic tubing replaced that that had to do with the water crankcase ventilation and because the platy were made out of plastic they were becoming brittle they were breaking and the car was getting was getting air it wasn't supposed to get so I had that done because the car was due for a vehicle inspection so I wanted to have a tip top ready also put the winter wheels back on that was four thousand three hundred and sixty-three Swiss francs yeah the car did not pass the inspection because the upper control arms the bushings were worn out so I had then about a week later replaced all the upper control arms in the front for 1478 Swiss francs in January 2012 the car was due for another service I also had two rear brake pads replaced all in all it cost me 1746 Swiss francs then in March I bought new summer tyres they were one top 1224 francs fitted in May of 2012 I had the ballasts for the xenon lights changed because even though we changed the bolts they were still flickering it was still driving mad these were some balance I bought off a specialist in the UK it cost me 200 francs to have them fitted and they didn't work but the factory tester wasn't possible to program them and you need to program them in order to adjust the height of the light in this case because Sun electronically so they didn't work so in July I replaced accent on ballast with OEM ones I mean really with the VW part number not just Vallejo written on top of them they were a thousand six hundred francs and at the same time I also had the windscreen wiper assemblies replaced because my windscreen wipers had failed meaning that one windscreen wiper would have would not move anymore and the other one would Nash into it because the Phaeton of course it has two separate windscreen wiper motors I had to replace them both because they were rusted and they were 500 francs I also had to replace a height sensor for the air ride all in all that service costs 3125 swiss francs in August of 2012 I had the a/c refilled which was really funny because I was on my way to Italy and about halfway DAC stopped working so I didn't Italy it was relatively cheap compared to Switzerland the only cost me 65 Swiss francs and I needed to do it because it was the height of summer and it was incredibly warm and no way see is a no-go in November 2012 I had another wheel change it was 95 francs not much then in February of 2013 I had another service and at that service I also had the coupling rods for the stabilizer bar replaced and a joint for a driving shaft also I had the examine buds replaced once more because we found the service note from VW that said if you have problems with flickering do not author embarks put in Philips pubs so we replace the author arms with the Philips and it never flicker again anyway that service altogether cost me two thousand four hundred and forty four francs I also want to point out that this whole lights flickering story in total with all the work that has been done to the parts I bought in case back has cost me about three thousand francs so yeah maybe if your life flickers just ignore it deal with it get rid of the car in April of 2013 I had the summer wheels put back on and I also had a bleeding screw for the brakes replaced because it was leaking and leaking brakes are no good because at some point they will not break anymore then in June of 2013 I had another automatic transmission service done even though it was just twenty five thousand kilometres ago that I did the last one the automatic transmission pan was leaking and at that point if you have to take the pan off I just had it serviced anyway that was 753 Swiss francs in October of 2013 I had new winter tires fitted in this case it was no key on WR a3 altogether it cost me 937 Swiss francs by the way not great tires in February of 2014 I had to replace the brake rotors and the pads again this time I bought the at least a brake pad from a company called EB C they cost about half as much as the OEMs cost and they worked great and the the the rotors I had to buy them original because only VW makes them in that size and yeah anyway all together that cost me 1431 Swiss francs in April of 2014 I had another service performed that was relatively cheap relatively speaking for a face on its 1134 Swiss francs two weeks after that service it was still April 2014 I had to have the air conditioning refilled again because it didn't work anymore this time it was 184 francs in July of 2014 it finally happened a shock from the air suspension failed and when I bought the car I knew that my car was the last year that used the old system of air suspension which was not compatible with the later systems and I knew there were no replacement parts for it so if a shock failed you had to replace all four shocks and the control unit meaning it will cost around 16,000 Swiss francs in parts alone so when the shock failed I was sure I would junk the car but then my mechanic told me no no they are actually starting to reproduce the shocks for this generation of cars so I was able to buy just one shop which was 2122 Swiss francs and it was also especially expensive because at the VW dealer they spent six and a half hours diagnosing why they couldn't initialize the new shock that diagnosing time alone cost me 1161 francs so all in all this replacement of one shock cost me four thousand five hundred and twenty-four Swiss francs and fortunately that was the last expense I've had with that car because I sold it pretty soon after that so in total that twenty eight thousand eight hundred and twenty three francs for maintenance and upgrades I also spent nineteen thousand eight hundred seventy-one francs on fuel I drove the car about 70 thousand kilometres the average was sixteen point five liters on 100 kilometres it consumed eleven thousand two hundred and forty seven liter the fuel and for you environmentalists out there it produced twenty six thousand two hundred and five kilograms of co2 insurance was seven thousand two hundred francs was roughly about eighteen hundred francs per year taxes were three thousand six hundred and sixty three Swiss francs it was about eight hundred francs where I used to live and then I moved to the canton of Zurich where it was about a thousand three hundred francs so all in all three thousand six hundred and sixty-three francs over the period of four years I originally bought the car for twenty one thousand Swiss francs and I sold it for years later for nine thousand Swiss francs this means I've incurred about twelve thousand francs of depreciation all in all that makes four total cost of ownership of seventy one thousand five hundred and fifty seven francs which is seventeen thousand eight hundred and eighty nine francs per year or one franc and two cents per kilometer so this was a massively expensive car and was it worth it well in hindsight no before I bought the car I knew it was going to be expensive to run I knew I would have repairs on it I knew I would have to spend a lot of money on fuel but the cost of the repairs is one thing the cost of servicing is one thing but what bubbling me for bothered me most was all the times the car was in the workshop because what I don't have in here is for example the two times I had a recall on the ignition calls and I had to bring in the car twice because the first time after they put back in the intake manifold they didn't put a new gasket on it so the car wasn't running right so they had to take it off again and put a new gasket on it yeah but the car spend a lot of time at the dealership in fact I mean I even have pictures of the car on the lift because it happened so frequently but all in all it was of course a nice car and I liked it very much I mean it looked nice at this understated look my car was fitted with some some really cool bands like wheels that the previous owner had put on it was in a passionate a blue Helio chrome which was a at that time a fourteen thousand Frank option that collar alone it was just beautiful then had it had the super nice interior with a super soft sensitive leather it was comfortable it had the best seats of any car of ever driven I mean it even had two rollers for the seat belts one at the top and one at the bottom you didn't feel them at all the seat seats what massage shoe the car was powerful it was comfortable it was a really nice car to drive but given how much it cost me I don't think it was worth it and I mean there is a reason why this car which costs two hundred and twenty thousand Swiss francs new I bought it five years old for 21,000 Swiss franc so the car had back basically depreciated by two hundred thousand Swiss francs and even then it was still very expensive to own I still had some depreciation on it it was an expensive car and I still have emotional scars and financial scars from it because that car made sure I didn't have money for anything else and it did it in quite a sneaky fashion because it wasn't like here's a ten thousand Frank bill but it was not as like a thousand here mm here now you've done major service and and work on the car it's four grand like okay but then it's again a thousand here a thousand ten thousand three thousand there and in the end you spend twenty eight thousand eight hundred and twenty three francs on servicing so yeah this is my experience with the VW Phaeton it's a car I liked I really did like it otherwise I would not have spend so much money on it but boy was it expensive to own so thank you for watching the total cost of ownership breakdown of my 2005 VW Phaeton w-well and let me know do you have or did you have such a nightmare car a car that would have you constantly worried about something breaking or that would drain your bank account like the best gold digger ever could please leave a comment down below if this video was interesting to you please leave a like consider subscribing to my channel Hey and so long thanks for watching me w faithful VW facing Satan hey VW fateful VW we don't

Channel: Swiss Car Guy

Views: 170,603

Rating: 4.7423315 out of 5

Keywords: cost of ownership, tco, total cost of ownership, ownership experience, running costs, porsche insurance cost, maintenance cost, cheap phaeton, how expensive is a Phaeton W12, fuel consumption, Money pit, should i buy a phaeton, cost of phaeton, phaeton ownership, vw reliability, VW Phaeton W12, VW W12, 12 cylinder, Luxury car, Phaeton, Volkswagen, V12 Luxury car, W12 engine

Id: QzImp-p0QPc

Length: 17min 7sec (1027 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 01 2020