McLaren MP4-12C - almost affordable servicing
With the McLaren MP4-12C now in the wild, and some of the first cars getting towards their first service, we thought we ought to have a look at what the new McLaren will cost to maintain.
For a variety of reasons, today has been about chatting to a number of McLaren MP4-12C owners (more on that another day) and one chap who’s bought a 458 Italia instead of McLaren because the servicing is free.
Yes, in case you didn’t know, Ferrari now throw in free, unlimited mileage servicing for 7 years on the 458 (and all new Ferraris), and it’s transferable to subsequent owners too. This particular chap said he didn’t even consider the MP4-12C because the McLaren F1 cost so much to maintain he wasn’t willing to go the McLaren route.
And he was right, certainly as far as the F1 goes, as a standard service will cost you in the region of £30k – and that’s every 9 months if you do as McLaren wants – and when you need a big service with fuel tanks replacing (which happens every four years) you can easily end up spending £100k.
We don’t think our 458 owner thought the 12C would come close to that, but he had decided McLaren would be trying to make a killing on the maintenance costs on the 12C, so he steered clear. But was he right?
It turns out that the MP4-12C needs a service once a year – or 10,000 miles – and McLaren charge around £1000 for the whole thing. Which, by any standards, is not excessive. True, it’s a chunk more than the free servicing Ferrari offers, but hardly enough to dismiss the MP4-12C because of it.
And it’s certainly a lot more affordable than a service on the McLaren F1.
McLaren MP4-12C Photo Gallery
(51 photos – click any thumbnail for full gallery)
