Car decision

[livingdeb]

When is it time to replace a car?

Most people think it's time to get rid of an old car before it's old enough for me to be in the market to buy it! But I do have standards.

Here are some answers I like:

* when the cost of current repairs needed adds up to more than the price of a replacement car

* when someone else crashes into my car, their insurance totals it and pays me enough for a replacement car

Of course, those things never happen, not even with me who pays far below average for a replacement car. So here are two other answers I have used:

* when a repair is going to clean out my bank account for the fourth time, so I decide I cannot afford to own a car after all (I got rid of the car but did not replace it for four years.)

* when someone else crashed into my car, the damage probably bent the frame, their insurance paid a lot of money, and my car was 20 years old. I never even checked how much it would have cost to repair my car, even though I really liked it.

And now it's time to make that decision again.

Previous plan - Give car to sister, buy replacement for self. (By "give" I mean sell it to her for the price she gets when she gets rid of it--so it's free for now.)

Reality - Car blows head gasket and warps head. (This is even though the temperature did not go into the red zone before I had the radiator replaced.) Mechanic estimates $1200 to fix that or $1800 to replace the engine with another used one. Some guy offered him $300 for it for parts. Sister started thinking she didn't want the car after all when I replaced the radiator and keeps imagining the car breaking down with her and the baby in it.

Other facts - This car has always annoyed me. It's getting old enough that it might need replacing soon (19 years) though the mileage isn't that crazy (170,000) and I've been driving it gently for many years. It's a reliable model (Honda Civic), though I feel like this particular car is a below average instance. I hate shopping for cars.

Feel free to comment.

Comments

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Well, I just finally made that decision, but it was easy. My 14-year-old Honda Civic hatchback with 151K on it had a badly rusted frame with a pretty big hole in it, needed brakes AND struts all round, bushings, had an oil pan leak, and some other stuff I'm forgetting. I went in to get the suspension looked at with an "I'll pay no more than $1500 to fix it" idea, and when they said $4000 I easily decided no, even tho the engine was fine and could probably go another 100k miles.

I decided to go fairly new with my replacement car, though, so we probably wouldn't agree there. (I think you saw it on FB, but in case: 2007 Mazda 3 hatchback with 60K miles on it.) I have to confess: after my 14-year-old bare-bones car, it's like a revelation! I drive it and I smile the whole time. No more fighting with non-power steering. No little annoyances like the speedometer working only most of the time, or the strange dried moldy stuff in the spare tire well, or that my seat sometimes slightly slipped out of the locked position on the tracks, or that the sun visor never stayed completely up and would occasionally sink, or the tiny chip in the windshield right in my eyeline that I was waiting to get the second chip before I'd repair (and never got another chip!), or that I didn't have an AUX IN for my ipod so I had to listen thru the radio signal and it buzzed all the time, etc.

Eliminate the minor and suddenly it's just so stress-free! Plus I have six air bags and my seat belts are more comfortable so I'm safer. Even though the car is a lot heavier, the gas mileage is similar, so there's not a lot of loss there. And it's peppy! I have no regrets.

Thoughts on your new one: Get a slightly newer car than you plan to. Instead of something from the 90s, go with the new century. I know you're a master of frugality, and I know you don't drive a lot. Obviously you don't need tons of bells and whistles. But you sound like you know that it's time to get something newer. Don't wait til it dies like mine did. Do it now! And you might do well selling your car to someone. There are a ton of Civic enthusiasts who are looking for parts cars. I donated mine to charity because I just couldn't deal with the whole thing and I had no time, but why not sell? If your sister doesn't want it anyway, maybe you can take the proceeds and find something more to her liking.

You always do tons of research and dig in to projects, so why not this? I LOATHE shopping for any big-ticket item. I freaked out and couldn't sleep the night before I did the paperwork on the new car. I was certain I was doing the wrong thing, that I'd found the car I wanted too easily, etc. But there's an ad on tv now for some luxury car that asks "If you could drive any car at all, would you pick yours?" and I have to say, my answer now is yes. And this is the first time in years I could say that.

tl;dr version: It's time!

(My $0.02!)

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Wow, way more than two cents, I'd say!

Fortunately, cars do not rust in my part of the country. No salt! (On rare occasions of freezing rain, we use sand. To help with traction, I assume.)

And I don't have too many annoyances other than design flaws (such as how the driver door locks).

You'll be glad to know I have been thinking of getting a newer car that usual: 8 years old instead of 10. Oy, but every time I get another car it costs twice as much as the last one (except for my first one).

Briefly I thought about getting a scooter instead of a car. But then I remembered that virtually all my driving includes highway driving, scooters have low visibility, accidents are more dangerous, and my mom would kill me.

I've also thought about getting a much newer car (3-4 years old) since I really can't be owning a used car without having a good mechanic. My old good mechanic is no more. My new "above average mechanic" either "fixed" my overheating problem in some way that allowed the car to overheat again enough to warp the head, or happily charged me for a new radiator without realizing there were already head problems. So, above average just isn't good enough. But then my sister told me she knows a really good mechanic.

I feel like I already have waited until it died to look for another one.

I like doing research. The icky part is asking people for favors, namely asking them to hang around to let an inspector look at their car for me.

[madspark.livejournal.com]

I sold my truck when I had a repair that exceeded the value of the truck -- yeah I coulda made it last longer, but I no longer wanted to.

CarMax, however, has been good to me in terms of finding good vehicles with low stress.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

I don't like that standard of selling when the repair exceeds the value of the vehicle, even if it's the post-repair value. The selling value is usually pretty low on my cars, lower than the value to me.

CarMax cars are too new! Love their search engine, though.

[texpenguin.livejournal.com]

If the car has lots of problems (sun damaged paint/upholstery, broken gauges, all those little things that break that you don't bother fixing, like automatic locks and windows, door handles, mirrors, etc) then we move on when the major repairs cost more than the car would truly sell for as is. We sold our last car for parts for $500, I think. We could have spent $1000+ to get the engine in running order again, but with all the other little things wrong, it still would have only been worth maybe $800. And we would have maybe gotten another 6 months of no A/C, broken windows, etc etc before something else major went wrong. Or we may have gotten 2 weeks. You just never know with old cars. We're trying to psych ourselves up to brave the dealerships to get our first ever new car. Should be an adventure...

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine trained me to fix all those little things that break as they break, just so you keep liking your own car.

But I've already fixed the A/C three times (two mechanics) and it's back to barely working again.

New car--definitely an adventure. I remember how disappointed I was to find out that even when you get a new car, you can't necessarily get what you want. If no one has what you want on their lot, you either don't get exactly what you want or you pay a lot extra. You can't just say, "Hey, next time you get another shipment, make sure the car I want is on there--I don't mind waiting a few months." Not for the same price anyway.

I've heard of people getting good results on new cars by sending faxes to dealers, telling them what they want. When they get replies, they play them off each other to talk the price down more.

Also, First Texas Honda on Koenig doesn't haggle anymore--what you see is what you get. They claim the prices are low, of course. I don't know if any other dealerships do this (Saturn is no more).

Good luck!

[alethiography.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Playing that "fax" game is much easier by email these days.