Who knows about cars?
My Volvo failed the NH state inspection yesterday. Apparently, I need new brakes, new brake lights, and much of a new exhaust system. (And the people that I went to are trustworthy.) So... they're telling me it will cost about $800 to get my car fixed up enough to pass inspection. But there there is the timing belt which is way overdue. And a few other problemss. I'm looking at about $2000.
Yikes.
My car is great, though. 10 years old, more than 190,000 miles on it. The mechanic says that if I'm thinking of getting a new car, I should just get a new car. But if I'm thinking about getting a car for about $5000, I should just fix the one I have. My car is better than what I could get for that price. Plus my insurance on this car is inexpensive. And he thinks my Volvo could go another hundred thousand miles or so.
So what's the advice? I DO love my car. I'm not crazy about spending all that money on maintenance, but I don't want a car payment either. Any ideas?
posted by catherine @ 10:40 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
100,000 more miles? That'd be impressive. I thought I'd comment b/c I just went through a slightly similar situation. I drove a van with 170,000 miles on it and things started going wrong. $300 here, $500 there, and then it was going to need another $1000. That's what older cars do. I didn't want to buy something b/c I liked driving the van, but I had stopped trusting it.
I bought a 2002 Stratus for a decent price and hopefully it'll last as long as the van lasted.
Catherine,
you don't know me, i only came accross your blog through reading Kevin Rains blog. i have a little Saturn that has almost 230,000 miles on it and i keep keeping it because i believe the addage the cheapest car to own is the one in your driveway. So if you can get another 100k miles fix the car you love and save all of that money for something really important like starving kids or something.
thanks for the advice! i still haven't made a decision... but i'm sure i'll be writing about it soon.
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