Sell or hold on to this old car

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Don't worry about the mileage being put on your car for road trips. If most of your driving is in-town, those trips are the nicest miles your car ever sees.

City miles are harder on a car than highway miles.

Yes, that's what I meant to say. Looking back now at what I wrote, I can see that's not entirely clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another vote to hold onto it, not that it is your decision to make.

Your husband is saving a lot of money driving an old beater. He probably only has liability insurance on it, which saves hundreds per year. Even his liability will be a little lower. If he actually has the car insured, you should talk about that because there's no reason it should be. It doesn't sound like you have any transportation needs that are not being met.

And he doesn't have a car payment. And, the longer he keeps this car, the later he'll start making payments and putting wear and tear on his next vehicle. And he doesn't have to worry too much about dents and dings on the vehicle, which are probably already tarnishing your new one.

And you aren't currently looking at a large repair bill. The situation would be different if you were asking whether to spend $1000 on a repair on this vehicle.

Don't worry about the mileage being put on your car for road trips. If most of your driving is in-town, those trips are the nicest miles your car ever sees.

OP. Thanks to all PPs. Yes it’s not my decision to make. I asked DH what would be the max repair cost he would be OK to incur and he said $2-3k. That’s a little extreme imo but he listed what I am and will be paying for my new car in expenses by year end. He truly believes his car will last another 2-4 yrs at 15k miles a year. I don’t have to ever use it or even sit in it but kids do so daily so was really hoping for a newer car with safety features etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another vote to hold onto it, not that it is your decision to make.

Your husband is saving a lot of money driving an old beater. He probably only has liability insurance on it, which saves hundreds per year. Even his liability will be a little lower. If he actually has the car insured, you should talk about that because there's no reason it should be. It doesn't sound like you have any transportation needs that are not being met.

And he doesn't have a car payment. And, the longer he keeps this car, the later he'll start making payments and putting wear and tear on his next vehicle. And he doesn't have to worry too much about dents and dings on the vehicle, which are probably already tarnishing your new one.

And you aren't currently looking at a large repair bill. The situation would be different if you were asking whether to spend $1000 on a repair on this vehicle.

Don't worry about the mileage being put on your car for road trips. If most of your driving is in-town, those trips are the nicest miles your car ever sees.

OP. Thanks to all PPs. Yes it’s not my decision to make. I asked DH what would be the max repair cost he would be OK to incur and he said $2-3k. That’s a little extreme imo but he listed what I am and will be paying for my new car in expenses by year end. He truly believes his car will last another 2-4 yrs at 15k miles a year. I don’t have to ever use it or even sit in it but kids do so daily so was really hoping for a newer car with safety features etc.

In other words, he doesn’t want to get rid of it no matter what. For 3k you can rebuild the engine.

[Anonymous]

Keep it. I budget about $1500/yr in expenses for my old car (nearly 20 year old Subaru Forester with 208K miles). It needs to be in the repair shop about 1.5 times per year to deal with preventive maintenance issues.

I won't take it on any road trips, however. We just use it for city errands.

I told DW we can get her a new car when we have our first baby. I'll keep the beater and pay $1500/yr for repairs. Even a new Subaru Forester will be $500/month in car payments. We are saving a ton of money by not having that monthly expense.

[Anonymous]

Keep. You already have an expensive new sedan that you use for road trips. Is it financed?

It just sounds like you want another new car... and your DH does not want more car payments.

[Anonymous]

I'm the recent poster whose car was side swiped last week. I am the female counterpart to your husband. I purchased my car brand new in college and swore I would keep it through at least my first kid. 250k miles later and two kids (4 and almost 2). My go no go cutoff for repairs was about $2k a year as well at this point, however I did rebuild the transmission in 2014 as we had just had our first and I didn't want a car payment. We actually live in the city so on a daily basis I only drive it locally, however we do take our car on long road trips without hesitation. I know my car very well and know exactly all the repairs that have gone into it and feel pretty comfortable and confident driving it outside the city.

I am not a car person so for me putting that money into some of our investment properties was how we chose to spend that money. I was truly hoping to reach 20 years with my car but one year shy of that I now have to figure out next steps since someone side swiped me. I get it though. It can be embarrassing driving an old clunker. For me i didn't care. everyone I went to college with are driving really nice cars and I show up in my clunker. Different strokes for different folks.

[Anonymous]

Hold. It's not costing you anything for what's still reliable transportation. When something goes wrong and you get a repair bill, *then* you can think about how long that repair will keep the car going and weigh your options.

We've been doing this for a while with our second car, which isn't that high in mileage - but is high in years (2002, 90K miles). We only use to drive kids to school about 2 miles a day. We've had to replace a few annoying things, about one a year- a power window motor, an AC compressor, a wheel that got damaged . Each of those was about $300-600. In each of those cases, it was well worth continuing keeping the crappy car since the repair only amounted to only a month or so's worth of car payments for a new vehicle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another vote to hold onto it, not that it is your decision to make.

Your husband is saving a lot of money driving an old beater. He probably only has liability insurance on it, which saves hundreds per year. Even his liability will be a little lower. If he actually has the car insured, you should talk about that because there's no reason it should be. It doesn't sound like you have any transportation needs that are not being met.

And he doesn't have a car payment. And, the longer he keeps this car, the later he'll start making payments and putting wear and tear on his next vehicle. And he doesn't have to worry too much about dents and dings on the vehicle, which are probably already tarnishing your new one.

And you aren't currently looking at a large repair bill. The situation would be different if you were asking whether to spend $1000 on a repair on this vehicle.

Don't worry about the mileage being put on your car for road trips. If most of your driving is in-town, those trips are the nicest miles your car ever sees.

OP. Thanks to all PPs. Yes it’s not my decision to make. I asked DH what would be the max repair cost he would be OK to incur and he said $2-3k. That’s a little extreme imo but he listed what I am and will be paying for my new car in expenses by year end. He truly believes his car will last another 2-4 yrs at 15k miles a year. I don’t have to ever use it or even sit in it but kids do so daily so was really hoping for a newer car with safety features etc.

There really aren't new safety features that will impact your kids significantly. Lane change warning? C'mon. DH is right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another vote to hold onto it, not that it is your decision to make.

Your husband is saving a lot of money driving an old beater. He probably only has liability insurance on it, which saves hundreds per year. Even his liability will be a little lower. If he actually has the car insured, you should talk about that because there's no reason it should be. It doesn't sound like you have any transportation needs that are not being met.

And he doesn't have a car payment. And, the longer he keeps this car, the later he'll start making payments and putting wear and tear on his next vehicle. And he doesn't have to worry too much about dents and dings on the vehicle, which are probably already tarnishing your new one.

And you aren't currently looking at a large repair bill. The situation would be different if you were asking whether to spend $1000 on a repair on this vehicle.

Don't worry about the mileage being put on your car for road trips. If most of your driving is in-town, those trips are the nicest miles your car ever sees.

OP. Thanks to all PPs. Yes it’s not my decision to make. I asked DH what would be the max repair cost he would be OK to incur and he said $2-3k. That’s a little extreme imo but he listed what I am and will be paying for my new car in expenses by year end. He truly believes his car will last another 2-4 yrs at 15k miles a year. I don’t have to ever use it or even sit in it but kids do so daily so was really hoping for a newer car with safety features etc.

There really aren't new safety features that will impact your kids significantly. Lane change warning? C'mon. DH is right.

Side curtain air bags.

[Anonymous]

We kept our 2001 Honda Accord with 220,000 miles on it. Dh won’t let me drive it with or without the kids (originally it was mine purchased in law school), and he’s afraid to drive it beyond work. We just got our routine oil change and tire rotation in August. Well, the lug nuts broke since then and the whole damn tire flew off while he was driving on the highway at 60 mph. Luckily, he wasn’t hurt. Lots of damage to our beloved car and USAA was like yeah we’re not fixing that old ass car! So, I would advise not to put too much money on repairs on a car that’s old and super high mileage and know if something major happens it’s gone. At least, Dh wasn’t hurt and no one killed. This wasn’t even noted as an issue with our oil change either so it’s not like we weren’t keeping up with maintenance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We kept our 2001 Honda Accord with 220,000 miles on it. Dh won’t let me drive it with or without the kids (originally it was mine purchased in law school), and he’s afraid to drive it beyond work. We just got our routine oil change and tire rotation in August. Well, the lug nuts broke since then and the whole damn tire flew off while he was driving on the highway at 60 mph. Luckily, he wasn’t hurt. Lots of damage to our beloved car and USAA was like yeah we’re not fixing that old ass car! So, I would advise not to put too much money on repairs on a car that’s old and super high mileage and know if something major happens it’s gone. At least, Dh wasn’t hurt and no one killed. This wasn’t even noted as an issue with our oil change either so it’s not like we weren’t keeping up with maintenance.

Wow. Glad he was ok. Is there a chance the mechanic didn't put the lug nuts on properly when they rotated your tires?

[Anonymous]

Newer cars have so many more safety features that, if I were you, I'd get a new car for my kids' sake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We kept our 2001 Honda Accord with 220,000 miles on it. Dh won’t let me drive it with or without the kids (originally it was mine purchased in law school), and he’s afraid to drive it beyond work. We just got our routine oil change and tire rotation in August. Well, the lug nuts broke since then and the whole damn tire flew off while he was driving on the highway at 60 mph. Luckily, he wasn’t hurt. Lots of damage to our beloved car and USAA was like yeah we’re not fixing that old ass car! So, I would advise not to put too much money on repairs on a car that’s old and super high mileage and know if something major happens it’s gone. At least, Dh wasn’t hurt and no one killed. This wasn’t even noted as an issue with our oil change either so it’s not like we weren’t keeping up with maintenance.

Wow. Glad he was ok. Is there a chance the mechanic didn't put the lug nuts on properly when they rotated your tires?

Yep, there’s always a chance. According to the collision center, (and we also had it looked at by another mechanic who said the same thing), the problem is its hard to tell whether it’s overtorqued or undertorqued due to the technician, or if it’s because the car is so old and it broke. Of course the Honda dealership we had the service done at is not taking responsibility. And the car is so old with so many miles that USAA doesn’t really care to investigate.