Today’s post is from our regular Wednesday contributor, Cat.
I am the owner of two cars that are 12 years old and 8 years old respectively. They are both foreign cars, and every single time they need repairs, it’s always $1,000+.
There’s no such thing as bringing one of my cars in for something cheap. Even the oil changes are expensive.
Just last month, my SUV’s check engine light came on, and I inwardly groaned. The estimate was $1,200-$2,000 to fix the two problems it indicated.
Then, two days later, the check engine light just went off all on its own, and it hasn’t come back on since. Riddle me that.
In the two days where I was considering a $2,000 repair, my husband and I weighed our options. Would we fix it because the SUV is paid for or would we go ahead and use it towards a down payment on a new car?
Because we’d want to replace the SUV with another large vehicle to accommodate our twins, everything was pretty pricey. We went back and forth and never quite settled on a decision before the check engine light went off and decided for us.
Old or New?
I’m a big fan of driving cars into the ground, but there does come a certain point where you wonder if it’s worth it. Towards the end of a car’s life, the repairs really start to get expensive.
I have had one of my cars since I was 16 years old, and I’m still driving it! It’s had just about everything replaced except for the engine, and it went through Hurricane Katrina. It’s a beast of a car, and I’m pretty attached to it. I think my children will learn how to drive in that thing, and the one time I tried to sell it, the dealership offered me $500 for it so I kept it.
When Do You Switch?
I think it’s hard to know when to make the call on finally allowing your old beater to die. Last year, I spent $1,500 on repairs for my 11 year old car or just over $100 a month. Because that’s still significantly less than a car payment, I choose to keep it.
Is Your Time Valuable?
Of course, if your old car starts needing repairs a lot, then your time is something to think about. If I had to put my cars in the shop often, that would be an inconvenience and might prevent me from being able to take my children to doctors’ appointments, etc. Because both of our cars are old, we also run the risk of both of them needing repairs at the same time or us having to replace them with new-to-us cars at the same time.
Again, we constantly weigh our options with this situation. For now, the two old cars with the expensive repairs are winning over having new cars. I’m not sure how long they will last or how long we will last putting up with them. For now, though, we do not drive them long distances or very often, so we’re happy and sitting tight for now.
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We’ve basically always only bought cars we could afford in cash. I can tell you that this has proved nothing but a headache. Next time around we’ll be getting a loan and buying a car that is less than 10 years old (cars are on the pricey side here). Since we are a one-car household it’s extra important to have our one vehicle be a reliable one.
eemusings I think that’s a pretty good point. Sometimes we all get so focused on saving money we forget to not give ourselves a headache!
I am with you, Cat. Usually, the repair (even if it ends up being $1,000) is a better financial decision than getting another car. It is so hard to fork out the dough at the moment, but I find it to be better than spending significantly more money on a newer car.
I went through this with my old car and I’m still kicking myself that I spent nearly 6k last year, only to have that thing die this year and it would be another 2k…then it became an easy decision, but by that time I was out quite a bit of money.
This sounds like our old car that we finally got rid of last year. It was a good car but like you mentioned, every time we took it in for an oil change there were many expensive repairs to be made. We finally got rid of it because the car just wasn’t reliable. Now that we took the plunge it is really nice to not have to worry about the cars so much. Car payments aren’t fun but I guess it’s a tradeoff.
I think repairs are definitely worth it. Too many people justify a new $20k car because their old one needed $1500 in repairs. I mean, there are certain situations where yes, the car is toast and you should get a new one, but I have a 10 year old and a 9 year old car, and I’m going to drive them literally until the wheels fall off (and are no longer able to be repaired).
Our two cars are paid off and still relatively new. We will likely keep them until they start needing pricey repairs.
I am not attached to my car at all and will certainly put it down when it starts costing more than it’s worth. This is ironic because it is not running at the moment, but the repair is cheap, so we’ll probably get it fixed soon. The other issue is that we take lots of road trips. At 120,000 miles, I still feel like it’s OK for most of them, but when I start to worry that it’s going to break down and leave us stranded on the side of the road, I’d probably get something more reliable.
I had my 97 Altima for 10 years (I bought it used). I bought a new car when the it seemed like there were issues with it too often and it broke down on me (one week before my wedding!). I probably should have maintained it better though. Another reason I rationalized buying a new (used) car was because we wanted to have the new safety features. Plus, I have a long commute to work so I needed a reliable car.
Fellow old car owner here (we have a ’96 Honda Odyssey minivan) and we plan to drive it into the ground. Fortunately, we haven’t needed to do any expensive repairs. I think our first 4-digit repair quote will probably be our tipping point for getting a new(er) vehicle, but we’ll have to see. Good luck on keeping yours running!
My cars are still fairly new 7 and 3. I’m pretty good with the maintenance so I’m hoping they last a very long time. I love not having a car payment. I have a friend who paid a lot of money to have her old car fixed to then have it die on her. It was not worth paying all the money she did to repair and she ended up having to buy a new one just a few months later. Once repairs start to get frequent and pricey, I would replace it.
We have two new cars. I know most people in the personal finance world think we are crazy, but I like how reliable they are and the fact that they are fun to drive (we have a Subaru and a Wrangler).
SenseofCents You work hard and should enjoy it while you’re young!
Practical Cents I know it’s hard to know when to let it go!
Mrs. Frugalwoods That’s pretty impressive actually!
Andrew LivingRichCheaply I think a long commute and wanting the latest safety features are good reasons to get another car!
Eyesonthedollar Yeah good point. Both of mine are over 200,000 miles so they’ll probably both die on me at the same time!
Holly at ClubThrifty I know I loved your van fix. ;)
ImpersonalFinance You make a good point. What kind of cars? Because both of mine are volvos and even the littlest part is so freaking expensive. They were hand me downs – I’d never pick one on my own.
BudgetforMore It definitely is!
Beachbudget 6k is a lot to spend in one year -that’s a huge bummer :/
theFinancegirl It’s true. We’re definitely going to hold off for a little while!
BudgetBlonde ha! actually a jeep (never needs anything) and 2005 s60 which is ridiculous. We had a butt ton of repairs to make when it hit 100k miles, and honestly it seemed like the second one thing was fixed, another went wrong, but since we got everything taken care of, it’s been smooth sailing for the past 40k miles.
I think our oldest car is getting to this point, too. It’s a ’99 Corolla and we use it just to get to and from the train station. But, like you said, the repairs are always less than replacing it — and we don’t have the $$ to buy a new-to-us car without a loan. We plan to get a Prius station wagon next, which also can make the decision difficult because we factor in how much we’ll save on gas with a more efficient vehicle.
We replaced one of our old cars when the repairs were costing thousands of dollars and not even just once per year. As you said, we felt it was costing us more than a car lease, but looking back now, I wonder how bad it really was. Of course, there’s always the concern that after you have just done a bunch of repairs it should be good to go for more than another year. Like, when do you cut it loose? You really have to do the math and also maybe willing to gamble a bit on the old car and hope the odds are in your favour. Worst case is it probably won’t cost you too much more than a car lease, so that’s one way to look at it and in favour of taking the chance. The car we got rid of was a gas guzzler and we got a 5 speed manual transmission in it’s place.