My car quite a lot of time, a couple hours a week fusing with stuff or tinkering.

Now with my truck...hmm spent an hour changing the T state and wheels a couple of weeks ago...thats about it.

I just sub hard stuff out now, like the transmission fluid change. Screw that I don't want to take a bath. I just dropped it off at the shop, and went to work.

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

The Audi got about 12 hours for the timing belt, 8 for the clutch. Other than that, maybe 15 total hours of repairs/maintenance including tires and suspension work that I had someone do, oil and brakes that I did, and various modificatory/HP improvement.

The CE is a separate hobby all by itself. But before all the swappage, mostly routine stuff, suspension rebuild was a killer but I didn't do it. 16 hours, or so, for the front. Never quite did all the rear. Transmission rebuild was like 12 hours, years ago.

The Supra is a nightmare that I can't wake up from...

I do.

You have more patience than me.

I probably don't.........that's why a 30 hour job takes me 18 months.

Your solution is the better one.

I've decided to limit myself to the top side of the car as much as possible, with the exception of the old oil change move (one knee and one shoulder on the ground).

I tried to figure out the maintenance ratio on my 240D a while ago. I decided it would be too much work. I did notice from my little record book that the car has been worked on over 50 times (mostly by me) since I bought it 17,000 miles ago.

Due to the amount of time it's been down, I think my 250 has more hours of maintenance into it than hours of operation since I bought it.

The 300D is considerably better in that respect.

They are all way ahead of aircraft. I saw in a documentary that the F14 took about 12 man hours of maintenance for each hour of flight. Its replacement the F/A-18 has that down to about 5.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 401,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 26,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.
99 Mazda Miata 183,xxx miles.

I've been getting faster and faster at working on them since I do it so often....just in the past week I changed out a timing chain tensioning rail, upper guide, tensioner, water pump, coolant flush, bearing adjustment, oil cooler lines, did a valve adjustment, two oil changes......

Slowly but steadily it is getting to the point where there is very little I have not done to these cars. I'm just about there, all I have left is to rebuild a suspension and rebuild an entire engine.....pretty much everything else I've done at least once!

If I had a lift, more shop space, and a better set of (specifically all the special MB) tools.....I'd be a full fledged MB shop!

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-diesel is not just a fuel, its a way of life-
'15 GLK250 Bluetec 118k - mine - (OC-123,800)
'17 Metris(VITO!) - 37k - wifes (OC-41k)
'09 Sprinter 3500 Winnebago View - 62k (OC - 67k)
'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
'01 SL500 - 103k(km) - dad's (OC-110,000km)
'16 E400 4matic Sedan - 148k - Brothers (OC-155k)

I value my free time at an amount at least as great as what I bill my clients. No indy or dealer shop hourly rate comes close. Ergo, I do not do much "dirty work". Change a bulb is about it. Inspect under the hood every couple of weeks. Pay attention to the garage floor for tell tale signs.

I wash it every couple of weeks. Interior cleaning when needed. Detailed professionally once a year. (I guarantee you I would ruin the finish.) My car has always been garaged, so the maroon paint for a 21 yr old car still looks good and the car has no rust.

I also don't have a lot of free time to devote to car work, even if I had the skills, tools and desire. Time is, after all, the great limiting factor.
....and I don't play golf!

So, maybe 4 hours a month of my time.

I have a lift and many of the special tools needed to service these cars. All work is done by me at my garage, the only time I use the dealer is if I have an issue that requires the SDS system. Over the last decade I've been to the dealer once and I'd call myself a fairly advanced DIY'er on the skill level scale. My time levels should fall on the lower end of the time scale.

For the last year I added up the time for repairs/maintenance on 3 of the cars I'm responsible for.

1) W124.128 - total time 12.5 hours
2) W210.025 - total time 9 hours
3) W202.024 - total time 10.6 hours

I didn't have too many issued over the last year, the biggest job (from a time perspective) I had to do was an A/C condenser replacement on the W210.025 and IIRC that job took around 4-5 hours to complete. These figures could really go up if major work was be required.

These times do not include washing/waxing but my cars only get waxed maybe once a year and I'd guess I might wash them 4-5 times per year so maybe add 12-15 hours total if you wanted to include cosmetics.

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98 Dodge-Cummins pickup (137K)
13 GLK250 (157k)
06 E320CDI (341K)
16 C300 (89K)
82 300GD Gelaendewagen (54K)

I am spending about 35-45 hours a week restoring my 280SE.