Cars suck

[riverc0il]

I will jump on the cars suck band wagon. Inspection time did me in for a new muffler and various emissions work. Starter just went last week. Toss in a new battery and some front brakes that passed inspection but won't last the winter and I am in business. Car is over 160k and I was planning on getting a new car next year. Should have just scraped this one instead of inspecting and fixing. I was okay with the price tag until the jury rigged emissions work failed and then the starter went. Ouch. Now I am in the hole too much to cut my loses.

Talking to a coworker at work. His MO is to trade up and buy every three years. My MO has always been to pay off and drive into the ground. My year cost of ownership for my current car is less than $1000 per year averaging out the price I paid up front. But add in total cost of ownership and repairs, and I have to wonder if having never ending monthly payments but never facing major repairs isn't the way to go.

One thing you don't get with newer cars is an insurance bill that only costs $328 for the entire year.

 

[andrec10]

I will jump on the cars suck band wagon. Inspection time did me in for a new muffler and various emissions work. Starter just went last week. Toss in a new battery and some front brakes that passed inspection but won't last the winter and I am in business. Car is over 160k and I was planning on getting a new car next year. Should have just scraped this one instead of inspecting and fixing. I was okay with the price tag until the jury rigged emissions work failed and then the starter went. Ouch. Now I am in the hole too much to cut my loses.

Talking to a coworker at work. His MO is to trade up and buy every three years. My MO has always been to pay off and drive into the ground. My year cost of ownership for my current car is less than $1000 per year averaging out the price I paid up front. But add in total cost of ownership and repairs, and I have to wonder if having never ending monthly payments but never facing major repairs isn't the way to go.

One thing you don't get with newer cars is an insurance bill that only costs $328 for the entire year.

I'm in the camp of staying with a newer car with a warranty. Got burned once like you and did the math. To me and my wife, its worth not to have to lay out tons of money on a depreciating assett! IMO

 

[riverc0il]

I'm in the camp of staying with a newer car with a warranty. Got burned once like you and did the math. To me and my wife, its worth not to have to lay out tons of money on a depreciating assett! IMO

I don't care about laying out tons of money on a depreciating asset. If you have the mind to drive a car until it dies, it has depreciated no more on its last day than it did no its first day. I committed myself to getting junk value back for this car. And it doesn't matter if I drive it another one year or five years, I would still get the same trade in value.

However, that was buying an $8000 car. I can't imagine stetting up to buying a brand new car and trying to get my monies worth. It would take 20 years of driving to get a $20k down to my < $1000/year price tag. In a brand new car situation that you one day plan to trade, then the depreciation factor enters into the equation. Staying with the new car is even more valuable, I think, if you can buy the car outright and never be paying loans and interest.

But even beyond the financial aspect, I think if both options were equally expensive or staying with newer cars was even slightly more expensive, it might still be worth while from the emotional side of things. Paying an auto shop $1500 to keep a POS car on the road is demoralizing.

 

[campgottagopee]

I will jump on the cars suck band wagon. Inspection time did me in for a new muffler and various emissions work. Starter just went last week. Toss in a new battery and some front brakes that passed inspection but won't last the winter and I am in business. Car is over 160k and I was planning on getting a new car next year. Should have just scraped this one instead of inspecting and fixing. I was okay with the price tag until the jury rigged emissions work failed and then the starter went. Ouch. Now I am in the hole too much to cut my loses.

Talking to a coworker at work. His MO is to trade up and buy every three years. My MO has always been to pay off and drive into the ground. My year cost of ownership for my current car is less than $1000 per year averaging out the price I paid up front. But add in total cost of ownership and repairs, and I have to wonder if having never ending monthly payments but never facing major repairs isn't the way to go.

One thing you don't get with newer cars is an insurance bill that only costs $328 for the entire year.

Thus leasing was developed....truly a good way to go if one can stay within the mileage limitations. If I had to "buy" a car I would lease it for sure.

 

[deadheadskier]

I'm in the camp of staying with a newer car with a warranty. Got burned once like you and did the math. To me and my wife, its worth not to have to lay out tons of money on a depreciating assett! IMO

That depends on how much you drive.

Due to a traveling sales position and hobbies such as skiing that require significant travel, I put 40K miles a year on a car. That means even with the best warranties, I've passed the limit in two and a half years.

Most cars with 100K miles on them, even if only 2.5 years old have depreciated by a ton and there's a good possibility you'll be upside down on the loan.

So, in my situation I think it's best I keep my cars as long as possible. Even prior to my current employment situation I kept two of my three previous cars to 200K miles. The excpetion was an Audi that I dumped at 120K because I found it ridiculously expensive to fix.

My only regret in my current situation is that I bought my car new. I think considering how fast my lifestyle depraciate a cars value, I'd be better off buying a 2 year old car with low mileage thats already taken a significant depreciation hit.

 

[bigbog]

........I'll also need new AC compressor come springtime (it blew up, had them just cut off the belt for now) .

Same here...~$900(Xterra):roll:. AC is so nice on those damp/wet thawing or late winter days where temps are right at that level where fog wants to happen. Bought myself one of those ~6" DC clip-on fans and put together bunch of 2x4s(with a little tweaking) to clamp onto and lie in seat(front/back) pointing towards the front... Combined with rear windows cracked = has been survivable since last winter. Just don't need the AC up here in summer, thus it gets placed @end of brain-queue.

 

[Geoff]

That depends on how much you drive.

Definitely!

Due to a traveling sales position and hobbies such as skiing that require significant travel, I put 40K miles a year on a car. That means even with the best warranties, I've passed the limit in two and a half years.

Most cars with 100K miles on them, even if only 2.5 years old have depreciated by a ton and there's a good possibility you'll be upside down on the loan.

So, in my situation I think it's best I keep my cars as long as possible. Even prior to my current employment situation I kept two of my three previous cars to 200K miles. The excpetion was an Audi that I dumped at 120K because I found it ridiculously expensive to fix.

My only regret in my current situation is that I bought my car new. I think considering how fast my lifestyle depraciate a cars value, I'd be better off buying a 2 year old car with low mileage thats already taken a significant depreciation hit.

I used to have years where I did 35-40K miles per year between commuting, skiing every weekend in the winter, and driving to salt water on weekends in the summer. I always bought new and kept it for 150K miles so I knew that I wasn't driving a car that had been beat on or had poor maintanence. Spread out over 4 years and all those miles, the depreciation hit isn't that bad. I've always bought leftover cars at a steep discount so I'm driving a zero mile car that has had that first year of depreciation already factored out. My current VW GTI was $3K off of invoice. My last one was $1K off of invoice. My last three SUVs had huge rebates on top of being invoice deals.

Right now, I'm running two cars. My SUV serves as "winter beater" since I don't want to subject my VW with a turbo to those daily cold starts and 2 mile drive to the ski area parking lot. I really should collapse things down to one car.

 

[severine]

Same here...~$900(Xterra):roll:. AC is so nice on those damp/wet thawing or late winter days where temps are right at that level where fog wants to happen. Bought myself one of those ~6" DC clip-on fans and put together bunch of 2x4s to clamp onto and lie in seat(front/back) pointing towards the front... Combined with rear windows cracked = has been survivable since last winter. Just don't need the AC up here in summer, thus it gets placed @end of brain-queue.

A/C? I haven't had that for 2 summers now... or is that 3? It's a little inconvenient when the windshield fogs up sometimes but I've made do. Truck is paid off and I'd like to stretch it until I'm employed again, so I put up with a lot of crap from it.

 

[marcski]

However, that was buying an $8000 car. I can't imagine stetting up to buying a brand new car and trying to get my monies worth. It would take 20 years of driving to get a $20k down to my < $1000/year price tag.

You're also not factoring in any residual value, Steve. If you follow your buddy's routine, you'll resell and get a new one in another 3 years. The 20k car will still have a value which you will just roll into the new one.

 

[drjeff]

I will jump on the cars suck band wagon. Inspection time did me in for a new muffler and various emissions work. Starter just went last week. Toss in a new battery and some front brakes that passed inspection but won't last the winter and I am in business. Car is over 160k and I was planning on getting a new car next year. Should have just scraped this one instead of inspecting and fixing. I was okay with the price tag until the jury rigged emissions work failed and then the starter went. Ouch. Now I am in the hole too much to cut my loses.

Talking to a coworker at work. His MO is to trade up and buy every three years. My MO has always been to pay off and drive into the ground. My year cost of ownership for my current car is less than $1000 per year averaging out the price I paid up front. But add in total cost of ownership and repairs, and I have to wonder if having never ending monthly payments but never facing major repairs isn't the way to go.

One thing you don't get with newer cars is an insurance bill that only costs $328 for the entire year.

My theory has been that once the car is paid off, if I go through a cycle where for 2 out of 3 months my repair bills are equal to or greater than what my monthly payment used to be (and the reality is I'll be seeing more months of repair bills coming up), the old car is gone and there's some new wheels in the garage ASAP. And even when I have a car paid off and it's running fine, I'm still mentally(if not actually in the form of putting that $$ in the saving account) making that car payment every month, because all too often once a car is paid off, they'll still be a bunch of months where you'll be paying a bunch on it anyway.

 

[deadheadskier]

. And even when I have a car paid off and it's running fine, I'm still mentally(if not actually in the form of putting that $$ in the saving account) making that car payment every month, because all too often once a car is paid off, they'll still be a bunch of months where you'll be paying a bunch on it anyway.

We do this as well. Same amount of money gets set aside every month for car expenses. If we have payments it goes towards that. If we finish a payment, it goes towards saving for a new vehicle or repairs.

 

[Geoff]

My theory has been that once the car is paid off, if I go through a cycle where for 2 out of 3 months my repair bills are equal to or greater than what my monthly payment used to be (and the reality is I'll be seeing more months of repair bills coming up), the old car is gone and there's some new wheels in the garage ASAP. And even when I have a car paid off and it's running fine, I'm still mentally(if not actually in the form of putting that $$ in the saving account) making that car payment every month, because all too often once a car is paid off, they'll still be a bunch of months where you'll be paying a bunch on it anyway.

The problem with that strategy is that you implement the strategy 10 minutes after something really expensive goes wrong with the car. if you don't shell out the money to fix the problem, the car is worth doodly-squat. If you dump the car after it's fixed, you'd might as well run it for a few months to get your money's worth out of the repair.

I should probably just dump my cars as they go off the 100K extended warranty to avoid that problem but I usually try to sneak in the next 50K hoping nothing expensive happens. My first GTI cost me $1K+ worth of turbo plumbing repairs right after it went off warranty but then ran like a champ for another 40,000 miles. I might not be so lucky the next time.

 

[mlctvt]

We do this as well. Same amount of money gets set aside every month for car expenses. If we have payments it goes towards that. If we finish a payment, it goes towards saving for a new vehicle or repairs.

+1, We started doing this years ago. When we finished paying off our car after the 3-or 4 year car payments were up we kept making the payent to ourselves into our "car" account. After 4 more years we had enough money to pay cash for a new car or a slightly used 2-3 year old car with low miles. The last 5 cars we bought with cash. Once you have the savings it's easy, you just must keep making the payments to yourself and not use the money for anything else, it's just takes discipline.

I do all my own maintenace and car repair work though so that help keeps those costs low.

 

[drjeff]

The problem with that strategy is that you implement the strategy 10 minutes after something really expensive goes wrong with the car. if you don't shell out the money to fix the problem, the car is worth doodly-squat. If you dump the car after it's fixed, you'd might as well run it for a few months to get your money's worth out of the repair.

I should probably just dump my cars as they go off the 100K extended warranty to avoid that problem but I usually try to sneak in the next 50K hoping nothing expensive happens. My first GTI cost me $1K+ worth of turbo plumbing repairs right after it went off warranty but then ran like a champ for another 40,000 miles. I might not be so lucky the next time.

It's a bit of a context thing that I wasn't super clear on. About 18 months ago when I last did this, I had just had issues, on my almost 8 year old SUV that was almost at 150k, where I had in the previous few months had big bills relating to the alternator, the brakes, and the exhaust system and was looking at one of the "major" service visits and a new set of tires coming up (and who knows what else) Descision was easy for me to dump the old vehicle and get a new one

 

[hammer]

It's a bit of a context thing that I wasn't super clear on. About 18 months ago when I last did this, I had just had issues, on my almost 8 year old SUV that was almost at 150k, where I had in the previous few months had big bills relating to the alternator, the brakes, and the exhaust system and was looking at one of the "major" service visits and a new set of tires coming up (and who knows what else) Decision was easy for me to dump the old vehicle and get a new one

When determining car expenses, I separate out "repair" from "maintenance", where "maintenance" includes regular service visits, brakes, and tires. IMO a car is more expensive than it's worth if the "repair" expenses exceed a monthly payment for an extended period.

I look at brakes and tires as being normal wear items that I have to cover regardless of the car's age (my new car includes brake service during the initial warranty period but not all new cars do).

 

[gorgonzola]

$1002 for new tires, brakes, alignment for mrs snowbunski's ride...ugh

cars , houses....spouses..... oops just kidding on the last one!

 

[billski]

$1002 for new tires, brakes, alignment for mrs snowbunski's ride...ugh

cars , houses....spouses..... oops just kidding on the last one!

 

[riverc0il]

Thus leasing was developed....truly a good way to go if one can stay within the mileage limitations. If I had to "buy" a car I would lease it for sure.

Not really an option for skiers. I would lease for sure if not for skiing and owning a dog.

 

[Geoff]

My indy mechanic called about my Mountaineer with SERVICE ENGINE SOON flashing. Bad coil from sitting around so long. They're doing a major tune up to it and flushing the radiator. Plugs, coil boots & ignition wires, .... It's been 3 years since the car has seen anything but a yearly oil change so I can't complain.

 

[campgottagopee]

Not really an option for skiers. I would lease for sure if not for skiing and owning a dog.

Curious what skiing and dogs have to do with leasing. I lesae my wife a car---we have 2 dogs and we both ski.