260 as a daily driver, guide to costs?

I am very close to taking the plunge and going V8. The most practical way of funding and maintaining the car would be to sell off my Alfa 155, 2001 Saab Convertible, and my rusty MGB GT. This would raise something around 40% of the cost of a 260.
Our main family car is a VW TDi so no probs there, we also have a petrol T4 camper. I only do about 3000 miles a year I my own car, so the petrol is not a big issue, nor tyres, nor insurance. I just wondered what the annual servicing and maintenance costs might be?
I am attached to all of my cars but time, space, age and timing make it ripe for fleet reduction! The 155 is a low mileage, recently belted 96 Sportpack 2.0 16V, but now out of mot, only through lack of time, the Saab is low mileage too, a blast and very nice to have, and I'm even now looking at an £85 remap for +70bhp! The MGB GT is a '75 Rubber, but sadly probably a brave restoration now, but with a1 mechanicals, a perfect Britax vinyl sunroof...
Mad or what?

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Originally Posted by Highspeed125

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I just wondered what the annual servicing and maintenance costs might be?
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Fluids/filters/plugs/CoPs as in any other car.
Brakes, Pads/shoes/front disc same as ZT 190?.
Rear discs (bespoke) about £400?
Tires, can last but don't (for me :o)

Depends what quality of used 260 you buy to start with and what hidden stuff lurks.

You mentioned being handy with servicing yourself in another post so you should be able to do most jobs but there are a few independents around the country and everyone has an opinion re who is better than who and it might suit people to travel and drop the car off for a week or so to their fave indy repairer, so take your pic from other posts/topics for locations and opinions. Austin Garages in Burton is excellent, currently £45 an hour, with a major service around £350, without extras - repairs, bits & bobs. Oil change is every 5000.

Petrol 14-16 around town, maybe 22-25 on a run, again people will offer their views.

Tyres maybe 7-10k on rears; whereas fronts ... depends on outer edge wear (see other posts)

And like I mentioned elsewhere, do make sure this is the V8 sound & car feel you want. It really is different to the Rover V8 based cars.

If you do get one good service history is vital and go through it and check what has been fixed. A car that has been garaged is probably better than one that has been left to the elements. With mine its kept outside and suffered when it only had minimal weekend use. However now that i use it daily to and from work it has been superb. Fuel use around town around 170 miles on a tank full, on a good run at motorway speeds i get 290 miles on a tank full. Some spares are becoming very hard to get like front shocks. Rear discs are unique and only available from the superb twosixties . If you want something a little different that is becoming very rare and puts hairs up on the back of your neck every time you get in it then get one. Smiles per mile is endless...

I just wonder how many are out there that aren't known within the forums? The 155s are getting thin on the ground but the odd stranger crops up. I never bought an Alfa without provenance so I hope to do the same if I get a 260. I didn't know the discs were such a high cost so it's a good job I started here! Mind you, when I had a 190 I went for a new screen, and the guy at Autoglass said Rover windows were getting hard to source - and that was 5/6 years ago...

Unfortunately the rear discs are advertised by nearly all motor parts outlets as being available but this is not true. The 260 rear discs are larger than the fronts. Because the 260 is a very rare car not many people understand that this is different to the other models and wrongly assume that the discs front and rear are the same as the 190. (Fronts are the same). I replaced my rear discs last year and suspect it still had original discs in place so they may last for another 10 years, my car has only covered 57k miles...

Until the middle of last year I had run a 260 then a 385 as daily drivers for more than 6 years and a combined c.190,000 miles (On LPG thankfully). I did most of my own basic servicing and unless you get a car with a particular issue to deal with it shouldn't prove to be too expensive to run. The big issue is that they are now all at least 10 years old and some parts are getting harder to get a hold of. The upside to that is this club which have a number of resourceful members who put a huge amount of effort to sourcing (and in some cases arranging the fabrication) of replacements.

I only stopped using mine daily for a combination of it being too nice a car too keep banging the miles onto and my work commitments was preventing me spending the necessary time on maintaining it as I would like. But it's such a satisfying car to drive and the membership on here are a fantastic bunch who will be able to help you with just about any issues that arise.