The other day I saw the new Seat advert, which is an early candidate for most annoying advert of the year.  I can’t remember all the details, but it made the M&S food adverts seem down-to-earth and unpretentious.

It was something about how when you buy a car you are buying something of yourself but outside yourself, and having a responsibility to care for it and a desire to keep it clean. Some such cobblers anyway.

It was doubly annoying for me, because I have a Seat.  It was my Dad’s car and just about every time I spoke to him in the last couple of years he was always telling me how cheap it is to run.  He loved to hear how much our 2-litre estate cost to insure, tax and fill up compared to his 1-litre, insurance group 2, hatchback.

Last week I realised that the MOT had expired and there was an annual service due, so  put it in the garage.  It came back two days later with a bill just over £500!  ((ouch!)) No wonder he found it cheap to run – it looks like he hadn’t replaced anything in all the time he had it.  One tyre failed, the other three were getting close, the brakes were on the way out and two of the shoes were actually cracked, and every filter in the thing needed replacing.  The only relief is that the MOT doesn’t test for electric windows working or I would have had more expense to get them fixed.

Looking at how much mileage I actually do, I reckon that repairs bill is more than I will spend in fuel for the year.