And my last two Chrysler products

I bought a '99 Honda Civic with 260,000 miles. It's generally in great condition, but the headlights are dim. I polished the headlight assemblies with great results, but figured I'd get some new bright bulbs too. After buying the bulbs online, I was presented with other items I may like to buy. New 3rd-party headlight assemblies came up.

Me, thinking to myself, "Nah, I don't need them, mine are fine."

Me, speaking to myself, "Wait, what?"

Me, shouting to myself, "$62!"

Me, shouting to the whole house, "For both!"

$62 for TWO replacement headlight assemblies for the Civic!

Upon further investigation, it seems that we Porsche owners pay a little more for parts than Honda owners.

16 years ago, I paid more for my litronic retrofit headlight assemblies than I just paid for the Civic.

My daughter drives a 2006 Civic that I bought used with 30,000 miles on it - roughly the same mileage that my Boxster had on it when I bought it. Your post caused me to look at my maintenance log and the differences in both frequence and cost of repairs is striking. Also, I have given into the temptation of upgrading my Boxster (litronic headlights, heated seats, Carrera gauge cluster, double din navigation unit, 04 top and frame.) While I did many of the upgrades with used parts, they have added to the overall cost of ownership and the time I spend working on the car.

However, it just isn't quite as much fun to jump into the Civic and take it for a spin. (Fortunately, the Civic has a manual transmission so it is somewhat engaging to drive.)

By the way, I noticed that the headlights on my daughter's Civc were starting to get cloudy. I was planning to polish them in a few months, but it sounds like new ones aren't quite as expensive as I thought they might be. Where did you see your $62 deal?

lots of them around that price on amaz....

That is crazy when you think about it. I've only owned my first Porsche for a few weeks and it's been a costly experience so far. Mine's a 99 and the quality of the interior doesn't seem any better than your average car, in fact maybe worse with plastic things breaking or broke. Mine has floppy sun visors which is common with these cars that won't stay in place. I have a 63 Chrysler and the sun visors are original and work fine. I never owned a Porsche and I guess it was a bucket list thing for me, don't get me wrong I do like the car and it runs and drives very nice for a car with 111,500 miles on it. I guess you have to expect putting money into any older vehicle but the parts do seem a lot higher than your average car, hopefully I won't have to take it to a dealer for anything knock on wood! The car is a blast to drive, so I guess that makes up for it!

There is one obvious reason for the high cost of Porsche parts - compare the number sold each year to the number of Civics! Can you imagine the cost difference in keeping parts in stock? But then your 99 is likely a Porsche "classic", which means that Porsche will be making and/or maintaining parts for them for a long, long time. Oh, and the parts are generally well (if not over) engineered which equates to money. Welcome to your "entry level Porsche" world.

My experience with my 05 Boxster with 108,000 has been that most of the repairs came at first, and were covered by warranty. Most of my expenses have been in brakes, tires, plugs, oil and filters, and yes those are all more expensive for a Porsche.

one the transmission fell out while driving down the road...I could see bolts bouncing along the road out my rear view window. The other was on its third engine at 110k miles.

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mikefocke, '01S Sanford, NC
one the transmission fell out while driving down the road...I could see bolts bouncing along the road out my rear view window. The other was on its third engine at 110k miles.

That is FUNNY.

A while back I owned a Porsche Boxster and a Honda CRV and needed to replace an O2 sensor on each car within a month of each other. The Honda part cost almost $100 more than the Bosch part for the Porsche and the installation cost was more than double.

So it all depends on the part, location, timing, source, installer, etc.

Over 5 years of ownership, I put less money into the Boxster than the Honda and that even included more expensive than needed parts for the Boxster in the areas of battery (Optima) and tires (N-rated Michelins).

YMMV