A car? Yes or no?

[Anonymous]

A car? Does anybody consider this a must have. Our daughter has to get to the barn every day and it’s 20 minutes from campus. She is an agricultural student and they have to work with the sheep and cows at the barn. The college is in a rural area. She is also going to college over 1000 miles from where we are. She is responsible. She has an old Subaru with 101,000 miles on it. In order to send it off this fall it probably needs about $2000 worth of work. Would you trade in this car for a new car or would you keep this car or would you say no car. I’m rather confused she’s a freshman and she is allowed to have a car the agriculture department encourages them to. The bus doesn’t go to the barn and it would mean that she had to get rides with other students. Thanks for any insight. My hesitancy has to do with the freedom a car brings. and safety issues.

[Anonymous]

I would not let my daughter drive 1000 miles in an old car. I’d get her a newer one.

[Anonymous]

I had a car in college 40 years ago. My parents didn't want me to be dependent on other kids for rides.

In this market I would fix up her car.

[Anonymous]

I would send a car in that case and I do not think 100K is a ton of miles on a Subaru. Get her a AAA just in case.

While safety concerns are valid, her own car might be safer than being at the mercy of random other people.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a car would make her life a lot easier. I would fix her car….Subarus are quite reliable and this is not the market to buy a car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A car? Does anybody consider this a must have. Our daughter has to get to the barn every day and it’s 20 minutes from campus. She is an agricultural student and they have to work with the sheep and cows at the barn. The college is in a rural area. She is also going to college over 1000 miles from where we are. She is responsible. She has an old Subaru with 101,000 miles on it. In order to send it off this fall it probably needs about $2000 worth of work. Would you trade in this car for a new car or would you keep this car or would you say no car. I’m rather confused she’s a freshman and she is allowed to have a car the agriculture department encourages them to. The bus doesn’t go to the barn and it would mean that she had to get rides with other students. Thanks for any insight. My hesitancy has to do with the freedom a car brings. and safety issues.

You don't say.

[Anonymous]

My daughter is on the riding team at her college and not allowed to have cars as a freshman. She found it to be quite a pain relying on others for rides and once got stuck at the barn ALL day because she had to wait for someone to finish (this was a weekend day) so she put in a request with the school to get a car and it was granted.

Now we are not 1000 miles away so that is different, but she is happy to have the car there. Where she goes, she is parked a 15 minute walk away, so she does not use it much, just going to the barn and maybe once a week she goes to the food store with friends.

I'm honestly not sure what I'd do with a 1000 mile drive. My kids do have AAA but thats very long.

[Anonymous]

My son needed a car in vet school (UK). He was required to arrive in several different locations across the countryside, and tried for 6 months to get by with the university’s transportation options. However, he was so tired with studying that the travel time (waiting for people, having to wait for a shuttle or bus or shared car to arrive) was eating into the little time he had available to rest. We were shocked by how tired he looked when he came home for Christmas and got him a reliable used car of his own after that. I think a vet student needs a car, yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a car would make her life a lot easier. I would fix her car….Subarus are quite reliable and this is not the market to buy a car.

+++

No brainer here. 101,000 miles is nothing. Spend the 2K and send her with the car.

[Anonymous]

It’s great she is going into ag. If it were my kid I would let them keep their current car. Just make sure your kid has AAA and gets regular service on the car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son needed a car in vet school (UK). He was required to arrive in several different locations across the countryside, and tried for 6 months to get by with the university’s transportation options. However, he was so tired with studying that the travel time (waiting for people, having to wait for a shuttle or bus or shared car to arrive) was eating into the little time he had available to rest. We were shocked by how tired he looked when he came home for Christmas and got him a reliable used car of his own after that. I think a vet student needs a car, yes.

She is a vet student. It applies. Thanks

[Anonymous]

I drove that same car to college, bought it from my cousin, and frequently had to stop to pour water into the radiator. Get her a newer used car. Maybe a pick up truck.

[Anonymous]

I'd probably sell the current car and put its proceeds + the 2K in non-repairs towards a newer used car, but the need for it under these circumstances sounds totally justified.

You could also potentially plan the move to school to last a little longer, drive the existing car out there in order to see how it performed, and then either get repairs done or trade it in for something else when you arrived at the school destination, but that would mean having the time to go out early and negotiate the whole thing out there. It would be an experiment but also potentially a headache.

I think that one additional step I might plan at this stage is purposely doing some more (potentially lots more) rural driving with DC prior to the move to school. I grew up in the suburbs, and my spouse grew up in a small town surrounded by farmland. Driving behaviors in Small Town are necessarily very different (passing in the oncoming traffic, for example, which is totally legal; watching for cars popping out of zero-visibility side roads that lead straight into fields and look too small to be real streets). Some rural areas also have many more blind curves, deep-ditch dropoffs that are designed to prevent off-road spinouts, hills, and the like. The weather could also present new, additional challenges. Make sure DC is ready for the very different kind of driving that the landscape around the college might present, because although the car may be designated for the ag barn commute, that is surely not the only place DC and the car will ever go.

Congrats to DC, and best wishes for a great college career!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A car? Does anybody consider this a must have. Our daughter has to get to the barn every day and it’s 20 minutes from campus. She is an agricultural student and they have to work with the sheep and cows at the barn. The college is in a rural area. She is also going to college over 1000 miles from where we are. She is responsible. She has an old Subaru with 101,000 miles on it. In order to send it off this fall it probably needs about $2000 worth of work. Would you trade in this car for a new car or would you keep this car or would you say no car. I’m rather confused she’s a freshman and she is allowed to have a car the agriculture department encourages them to. The bus doesn’t go to the barn and it would mean that she had to get rides with other students. Thanks for any insight. My hesitancy has to do with the freedom a car brings. and safety issues.

You don't say.

This sentence is needed…UMDCP has barns but is in a city.

[Anonymous]

I would say yes to car, spend the money on repairs to the current car, and have you or her other parent drive out with her and then fly back.