I agree. there's no way i'd have spent £270 at a garage on a 16 yr old car for an MoT & service when the car is worth at best £300 afterwards. I'd have weighed it in, and bought something else. Or just had it MoT'd and not bothered with the service.

I also had a Primera and it passed it's MoT almost everytime without fail, and didn't go near a garage for a service. just change the oil a couple of times a year and slap a bit more antrifreeze in every 2 years, job done, tick. Shifted it on @ 10 yrs old when the alternator went as I took it as a sign that the ancillaries were on their way out. I'd had it 3.5 yrs and was bored of it anyway. Bought another Primera to replace it, of course.

To service my 5 yr old Mazda6 was £250 this year, plus £35 for the MoT. That's acceptable in my eyes as the car is worth about £3k.

Mind you, a mate used to have an L reg RSi and that was a real horror when it was 8/9 yrs old...oh look, it's gone wrong again has it....so you must have one of the good ones! For that and your perserverance I congratulate you !

O. K some of you say scrap the car and others side with me to keep it running. Let me explain the car is 16 years old but in my opinion still a perfectly good reliable car. I take the view why consign a car to the crusher when it costs less than £30 a month on repairs and service to keep it going. Also I belive in keeping the car serviced as its prevention rather than cure how many times do I read on this forum the value of regular servicing and so and so. Its my car my money so its my decision what to do with the car and as the previous posts state what could I buy sub £500 and be confident in the car. It may help you to know that I am the second owner of the car and the previous owner gave me all of the bills he had spent on the car and I have kept all my costs as well just out of interest.So I will stick to the devil I know

I agree with the OP - yes, it cost around £270 to get it serviced and have an MoT, but the fact that you know its history and have looked after it is worth far more. I run an 11 year old car but still make sure I get it serviced properly at the correct intervals. In the long run I'm sure it works out cheaper to keep an older car in good running order than to neglect maintenance or scrap it simply because it falls below a certain value. If I ran a car on the basis that I can't spend more money on it than it's worth, I'd have to get rid of it after filling up with 10 tanks of petrol!