Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure you’ll be aware that multi-million-dollar cars require eye-watering amounts of money just for simple maintenance and servicing, especially if it’s a Bugatti. Over the years, we’ve had many Bugatti owners tell us how insanely expensive it is to own a hypercar. While a 27-year-old recently claimed that his $4 million Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport Carbon goes a mere 62 miles on a full tank of fuel, renowned entrepreneur and influencer Manny Khoshbin has given a detailed account of the ownership cost of his Veyron in the past. He claimed that all fluids have to be changed each year, and that costs a whopping $25,000.
Yet, you won’t expect the replacement of some of the smallest and simplest components to be crazy expensive. A British businessman got the shock of his life when Bugatti asked for £9,500 (roughly $12,000) to replace a simple toggle switch that controls door mirrors.
Carl Hartley is a renowned London-based supercar dealer and an internet personality. In a podcast, he shared his ownership experience of a Bugatti Veyron, claiming that an owner would be lucky if the cost of maintenance came under £100,000 (about $127,000).
The Brit also shared a small portion of the podcast on his Instagram with a caption that reads: “Exposing Bugatti’s DIRTIEST Car Scam.” He claims in the video that Bugatti forces owners to service their hypercars from their official service centers while there are certain “well-respected” garages that can do the same job for a fraction of the cost. During the conversation, Hartley narrates the story of how he noticed a small play in the toggle switch for the door mirrors and pointed it out during a regular service visit. Bugatti emailed him with a quote of $12,000 for a relatively minor job.
Apparently, the Bugatti service center justified the hefty cost by saying that the job would also require replacing the door card, the mirror, and the motor, in addition to the switch. Instead of coughing up the money, Hartley decided to visit a friend who specializes in such exotic machines. The supercar dealer was thoroughly surprised when he went three days later to pick up his Veyron. Expecting to pay at least a few thousand dollars, the supercar specialist said all he owed was a pint of beer, which barely costs a dollar. Imagine saving $11,999 on a $12,000 job; anyone would jump in the air out of sheer joy.
If you’re wondering how a supercar specialist managed to fix the Bugatti for almost nothing, you see, VW used to own Bugatti, and its multi-million-dollar hypercars share many components with VW’s economical cars. This includes the Veyron’s toggle switch for the door mirrors, which is common with the Volkswagen Transporter van.
A set of five switches had to be ordered, which cost 0.89 pence (about a dollar) while replacing the faulty component took less than 25 minutes. Well, this is not the first time we’ve come across a similar story. Last year, we shared a story of how a Rolls-Royce owner was asked to pay $2500 to replace a faulty clockspring by the official service center, while a garage managed to fix it for just $160 by using a shared part with BMW.
