I have an 11 year old Prius that we street park. It has duct tape holding the bumper together. Car runs great.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, you are better off with a car that looks used.

Yeah, that's what I figure. An old used car. Less likely to get carjacked or have the wheels stolen. In DC anyway.

Thank you for your insights.

-- OP

in my neighborhood it’s the old cars that get stolen all the time, usually Hondas and Subarus. As long as your car can be readily stolen, nothing else matters.

I have a fairly nice car-almost always have but do not care what it looks like on the outside. If someone else was at fault in a fender bender I’d be persnickety in its repair but if it got dinged in parking lot whatever to me-as long as it didn’t effect the operation of the car-I just don’t care. My DH same.

We lived in Atlanta for a couple of years and were actually shocked that a neighbor knocked on our door and asked my DH to put his (older) car in garage as he didn’t like looking at it. This wasn’t because it was impeding traffic as more often than not I left my Tahoe out in the street as I was in & out all day long (and if I had an early meeting I’d leave out overnight as my then baby had supernatural hearing and would wake up if he heard garage opener.)

I like driving a nice car but to me-its just a way to get around and as long as it works, has nice features and the power I want I do not care about dents and scratches

Leave it. Dent repair costs are EXORBITANT compared to the benefit it confers in my opinion, given that dents do not affect function or reliability.

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, you are better off with a car that looks used.

Yeah, that's what I figure. An old used car. Less likely to get carjacked or have the wheels stolen. In DC anyway.

Thank you for your insights.

-- OP

On a newer car, yes.

On my 10YO car with 120K miles on it? No.

Seriously, you are better off with a car that looks used.

I quit caring about the looks of my car when I became a parent. Nobody cares what my car looks like.

We lived in the city, with street parking, for 7 years. The car was already old, but after that it has a TON of cosmetic issues. It's 16 years old and runs great, but looks a bit banged up. I sometimes feel a tiny bit embarrassed at preschool pick up/drop off. If I'm being totally honest. We'll get a new car, but probably not for another year or 2 since this one runs really well and costs us very little. So the minor embarrassment isn't worth the money it would cost me to either fix or get a new car.

I stopped making cosmetic repairs to my bender after a while of parking on the street in DC. I used the car to get from point A to point B. A couple of scratches or dents - as soon as you fix them, more appear.

Every car in DC has a ding, dent, or scrape. Do these people live in DC? Maybe they live in Fantasyland.

Anonymous wrote:I think you know the answer -- silly question.

I do think I know but the odd reaction I get causes me to ask. Thank you.

I think you know the answer -- silly question.

see=seem

We live in DC and have an old car that is parked on the street. It runs well and looks good except for a dented front fender from a recent accident. It is pushed in about an inch over about a one-square-foot area -- a small percentage of the entire fender area. That's after my pulling it out the best I can on my own. I say let it go. We don't use the car a lot, it's parked on the street, something else may happen to the body, eventually we'll get another car. Some family members are giving me the stink eye when in the vicinity of the fender, suggesting it be repaired or we accelerate the purchase of a new car. They see embarrassed. I'm like, OK, I'll contribute half the cost -- would the other family members care to contribute the other half of the cost? The answer is no, but I still get the stink eye. Thank you for your comments.