Gotta pay to play but OUCH

[HomerS]

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/bugatti-veyron-oil-change/

[Brizio]

If you can afford that car, what is $21K for a oil change? 

[Miatatom]

More money than brains or at the least, money with no conscience.

[webestang]

So Jiffy Lube is out of the question. 

[Richard Bartrop]

According to Ken Purdy's accounts,  servicing the original Bugattis was just as insane.  The tradition continues.

[NYLIBUD]

Personally,I think the new Bugattti is an ugly egg shaped car,supercar,or whatever you want to call it.Even if I had the cash to purchase it,I wouldn't even think about getting one.

[Rob Hall]

The Veyron is the older one, the new one is the Chiron...similar styling.

 

[Miatatom]

1 hour ago, NYLIBUD said:

Personally,I think the new Bugattti is an ugly egg shaped car,supercar,or whatever you want to call it.Even if I had the cash to purchase it,I wouldn't even think about getting one.

Same here. The McLaren models are much more beautifully designed. One of those, I'd buy if one of these lottery tickets comes through.

[NYLIBUD]

1 hour ago, Miatatom said:

Same here. The McLaren models are much more beautifully designed. One of those, I'd buy if one of these lottery tickets comes through.

Exactly.

[Oldcarfan27]

4 hours ago, Rob Hall said:

 

Where's the lemon it's trying to suck?

Nobody ever said stupidly rich people were smart.

[PARTSMARTY]

Not my kind of car !!!

[disabled modeler]

2 hours ago, PARTSMARTY said:

Not my kind of car !!!

Xs 2...!   I love the long classy bodystyles of the 60s to mid 70s vehicles....big long and mean.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Did any of you actually read WHY it costs so much to change the oil on the thing?

The excuse is that it has a dry-sump oiling system, and you have to remove all kinds of stuff to get to the drain plugs.  

MORONIC DESIGN. Pure and simple.

My Porsche 911 has a dry-sump system, as do many of the race cars I've built and crewed on over the years.

You remove TWO plugs...TWO...one from the sump, one from the tank...and they're BOTH ACCESSIBLE without taking the cars apart.

The $20k oil-change looks like another case of clean-hands "engineer" dwerbs who rarely seem to realize MACHINES NEED TO BE WORKED ON OCCASIONALLY.

AND...the oft-repeated comment from the peanut gallery that goes something like "controlling development and production costs needs to be paramount over any other criteria, in order to bring the product to market at a competitive price" or some such drivel make NO sense in THIS particular instance. A few extra hours spent by the design staff THINKING THROUGH how you'd change the oil would have impacted the price of this vehicle by exactly 0.000%.

By the way...real Bugattis (from the original company), and I've had my hands on a few, are indeed different from most of the vehicles manufactured at the same time in history (and demand rather more expertise and finesse to work on). But I don't recall anything that was just plain stupid about any of them.

Edited July 20, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[Daddyfink]

[Deano]

1 hour ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Did any of you actually read WHY it costs so much to change the oil on the thing?

The excuse is that it has a dry-sump oiling system, and you have to remove all kinds of stuff to get to the drain plugs.  

MORONIC DESIGN. Pure and simple.

My Porsche 911 has a dry-sump system, as do many of the race cars I've built and crewed on over the years.

You remove TWO plugs...TWO...one from the sump, one from the tank...and they're BOTH ACCESSIBLE without taking the cars apart.

The $20k oil-change looks like another case of clean-hands "engineer" dwerbs who rarely seem to realize MACHINES NEED TO BE WORKED ON OCCASIONALLY.

AND...the oft-repeated comment from the peanut gallery that goes something like "controlling development and production costs needs to be paramount over any other criteria, in order to bring the product to market at a competitive price" or some such drivel make NO sense in THIS particular instance. A few extra hours spent by the design staff THINKING THROUGH how you'd change the oil would have impacted the price of this vehicle by exactly 0.000%.

By the way...real Bugattis (from the original company), and I've had my hands on a few, are indeed different from most of the vehicles manufactured at the same time in history (and demand rather more expertise and finesse to work on). But I don't recall anything that was just plain stupid about any of them.

Stupid design is a given but I think the real reason they charge 21K for an oil change is because they can!

[Ace-Garageguy]

22 minutes ago, Deano said:

... I think the real reason they charge 21K for an oil change is because they can!

Which is a testament to the stupidity of anyone who'd pay that...

How does anyone that far removed from rationality make enough money to afford the car in the first place, let alone the oil-change?

Edited July 20, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[CapSat 6]

I read an article in Car and Driver some time ago that said similar things about the cost & process of changing tires on these cars. I seem to remember things like the facts that everything is engineered towards getting these cars to their performance goals (250+ MPH), so tire mounting, materials, processes are that much trickier. These cars are designed with no compromises in regards to attaining their performance. Cost and complexity be damned! 

I'm sure Bugatti is a little wary about liability if an improperly mounted tire comes apart at 220 MPH, or if an engine disintegrates at speed because something wasn't put back together properly.

On the other hand, some of this is probably a cachet thing- buy a car like this, and the buyer would expect a shockingly exorbitant amount for service. You first might think that people with these kinds of resources wouldn't buy into this so easily, but personally, I have seen this kind of thinking in action. 

My (limited) understanding of the Ferrari World, for instance, is that service records are key to a used Ferrari's value- show that it's been serviced "properly" (as in - factory authorized or recommended) and it impacts the value greatly.          

Of course, I wish I had R.P.P. (Rich People's Problems)! Not my cup of tea in any case. With that much money, I might play with getting a Ferrari (but much more likely your top shelf Mopars!) but this kind of thing is just out of the realm of common sense for me.  

[CapSat 6]

And another point- it would seem to me that few buyers of these cars would actually drive them daily, for instance, racking up 18,000 miles a year in their daily commute to work. They most likely have a nice Benz, Bentley or Range Rover for daily driving duties. They probably quickly realize that these cars are not exactly practical.

Seems to me that you could probably almost daily drive a nice Hellcat, though... 

   

[Ace-Garageguy]

34 minutes ago, CapSat 6 said:

I read an article in Car and Driver some time ago that said similar things about the cost & process of changing tires on these cars. I seem to remember things like the facts that everything is engineered towards getting these cars to their performance goals (250+ MPH), so tire mounting, materials, processes are that much trickier. These cars are designed with no compromises in regards to attaining their performance. Cost and complexity be damned! 

Maybe the Bugatti "engineers" should have had a look at the way Porsche (and others) managed it in 1969-'71. Designed to be quickly serviceable, too (and could withstand brutal flat-out racing for 24 hours straight).

(Of course, the 917 was only good for 240  )

                                                             

Edited July 20, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[Xingu]

There is a video showing a company changing the oil on their rental car. It is a bit ridiculous what has to come off the car to gain access to the engine compartment.

While I agree that the engineers didn't place owner serviceability high on the list of concerns (and they probably meant to do it that way), I would bet that every plug and bolt is on this car for a reason. The engine in this street car is designed to operate at full load for far longer than any of those Porsche race cars are. This thing has 4 turbos, which more than likely generate a lot of heat and I guess keeping things cool took precedence over if we could jack it up in our driveway and change 18 quarts of oil.

Since none of us were involved in the design and development of this car, how can any of us "weekend warriors" discount the engineering that went into this vehicle.

We can argue about why the world needs a street car that could run wide open, at over 200mph, until it ran out of gas.

If I could afford this car, I sure wouldn't want to work on it myself. I would be too busy buying islands and whatnot.

[Ace-Garageguy]

10 minutes ago, Xingu said:

Since none of us were involved in the design and development of this car, how can any of us "weekend warriors" discount the engineering that went into this vehicle.

Thing is, I'm hardly a "weekend warrior", and I resent the implication.

I AM an engineer, fabricator, machinist, and designer. I've been deeply involved hands-on in extremely high performance vehicle design (including aircraft), repair, modification, and restoration for my entire professional life...almost 50 years.

I AM in a position to criticize stupid design.

And the issue isn't whether an "owner" can do the oil change. Designing something that takes trained professionals apparently MANY hours to change the oil on is ludicrous.

I also seriously doubt this overpriced monument to insecurity and the need to show off could do 24 hours flat-out, like the cars I referenced above could.

[Richard Bartrop]

1 hour ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Which is a testament to the stupidity of anyone who'd pay that...

How does anyone that far removed from rationality make enough money to afford the car in the first place, let alone the oil-change?

If it was about what was rational, we'd all be driving minivans, and nobody would be building model cars for fun.  I'm sure a large chunk of it is being able to go, "Hey look!  I can blow this kind of money on a toy, and you can't!".   Of course, nothing makes people want something like telling them they can't have it.

[Ace-Garageguy]

3 minutes ago, Richard Bartrop said:

If it was about what was rational, we'd all be driving minivans, and nobody would be building model cars for fun.  I'm sure a large chunk of it is being able to go, "Hey look!  I can blow this kind of money on a toy, and you can't!".   Of course, nothing makes people want something like telling them they can't have it.

I don't fault anyone for BUYING a multi-million dollar vehicle. More power to 'em. It's people like that who support an industry that comes up with some incredibly beautiful machinery.

The ONLY gripe I have is poor serviceability. I see it EVERY DAY on grocery-getters and mommy-vans, but I'd like to think the guys who design the top-of-the-line stuff were a little better.

Extremely high performance and decent access to regular service items ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE GOALS.

[Richard Bartrop]

Ot think we can safely say that they weren't worried overly much about keeping costs down when they designed this thing.  As for range. apparently if you drove it flat out, you could drain the gas tank in 12 minutes.

[Xingu]

8 minutes ago, Richard Bartrop said:

Ot think we can safely say that they weren't worried overly much about keeping costs down when they designed this thing.  As for range. apparently if you drove it flat out, you could drain the gas tank in 12 minutes.

Yes, there are videos where you can watch the gauge drop, quickly.

45 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Thing is, I'm hardly a "weekend warrior", and I resent the implication.

I AM an engineer, fabricator, machinist, and designer. I've been deeply involved hands-on in extremely high performance vehicle design (including aircraft), repair, modification, and restoration for my entire professional life...almost 50 years.

I AM in a position to criticize stupid design.

And the issue isn't whether an "owner" can do the oil change. Designing something that takes trained professionals apparently MANY hours to change the oil on is ludicrous.

I also seriously doubt this overpriced monument to insecurity and the need to show off could do 24 hours flat-out, like the cars I referenced above could.

Are you a professional automotive/mechanical engineer? Have you or your team designed a vehicle of this caliber from scratch? Do you know any of the design parameters/goals set before the engineers on this vehicle? If not, you are in a position to have an opinion, not claim that the "engineers" are idiots. You can criticize if you like, but please do not make it out that you could have done better and that the ones that actually designed and built this car are not engineers.

The manufacturer does claim that it is designed to drive continuously under full load with all 4 turbos at max boost. I have no idea if it really can. The Porsche engines were designed to be rebuilt after every race, if they made it to the end. Which may be why they made sure to have somewhat easy access to the engine compartment. If removing the body can be considered easy.