A lot of people in my family (starting with one of my paternal great grandfathers and working on down) are extremely anal about cars.
I don’t mean that they care a lot what kind of car you have—as long as they feel you’ve made a reasonable choice given your financial situation, they’re cool with whatever.
No, I mean that they seem to feel that an individual’s car upkeep standards are a window to the soul. Constant vigilance=good, lax care=bad. They know that there are people who think of cars simply as a means of transportation; they just don’t understand it.
Every little scratch and ding is immediately taken to a repair shop. No damage, however small, is ever let sit. Of course forever after you may find one of the menfolk (us women, while still pretty anal about things, are considerably more mellow) staring at the place in the car where the dent was, and if you get too close they’ll grab you and show you how you can tell it’s been repaired and repainted.
Cleanliness is a big issue, too. Leaving stuff in the car is a no-no. Leaving trash in the car is a hanging offense. And the outside must always be at least reasonably clean. Visits from my dad’s uncles require special care—all the cars are taken out to be professionally washed and waxed. Last time this happened we were in the middle of planning a funeral. No matter, out the cars went in a little caravan. It’s not wise to present the uncles with a dirty car. You catch a lot of crap.
I myself seem to have inherited a little of this (I was actually devastated when I first realized I wouldn’t be able to repair a scratch on the first car I was financially responsible for), but I’m nowhere near as bad as my dad and his uncles.
So anyway…I’m interested in how other people or their family members feel about cars, if it seems to run in the family, any funny stories illustrating that…etc. You know the drill.
(I get the feeling that this thread is lame and is going to sink to the bottom real quick, but you never know.)
In my family, a car is merely the most convenient way to get from point A to point B. If something is wrong in the sense that the car won’t run properly, we get it fixed; if something cosmetic is wrong, eh, doesn’t much matter. Big scratches should be taken care of because they can lead to rust which can lead to problems. The car my husband drives when he works out of town all week is disgusting inside; your uncles would shoot him on sight.
IMO this way of looking at things is so much more reasonable…it’s an attitude I really wish I could force into my head. Because, I swear to god, when I was in a pretty bad car accident (for the car, not me) last week one of my first thoughts when I got out to survey the damage was, God dammit, if they were going to hit me, couldn’t they at least have done some damage to the door so their insurance would end up covering the scratch from that egging too?
My family is pretty conscientious about cars, but not so overtly. Scratches, dings, etc. need to be fixed, and the inside is always kept clean. Even when I was a little kid there were no cheerios left on the floor. I think most of this was practical though; we lived in a rural area and food in the car might attract squirrels to nest in the car or something of the sort.
I still keep my car neat, I’m anal in general about neatness, but I almost never get around to taking it to the car wash. It’ll rain eventually and wash away the dirt, right?? :rolleyes:
I generally think of my car as getting me from point A to point B. However, since I enjoy taking car trips (actually enjoy driving) I’m a stickler about it being in top mechanical shape. Scratches and such? That happens to cars since they travel on roads and park in crowded lots so I don’t get too upset of those kind of things. I keep it reasonably clean but I’m not opposed to keeping my work things in it. Plus I run it through the car wash. Something that drives my husband nuts. Our marriage runs much more smoothly since he accepted that my car is…well, my car.
mr smartini, on the other hand has an illness where cars are concerned. It has defied treatment and makes an otherwise normal, sane man appear to be quite unbalanced. We try to hide it from people outside the family.
Since I was a kid I have known that cars should be fixed when they are dented or have broken tail lights or missing hubcaps.
Not to repair cars is exactly like not repairing your house when there are broken porch lights or hang-down shutters.
It’s a blight on the neighborhood and a basic cheapening of your own things - to your own disadvantage.
A dented car is simply worth less - just try to sell one for full price.
So you are spending your life in a low value car that you paid high value for once.
Conscious but not anal. I lightly kissed the dividing median last winter (stupid black ice!) with the front of my car and haven’t yet bothered to get those scratches taken care of - tho’ I do need to do so sometime. It’s plastic/fiberglass, so I’m not worried about rustage, I just can’t justify the cost just yet.
The inside is clean, however. And it must be. Don’t like dirty, garbagy, cluttery cars. It could use a vaccuum, and the dash positively needs to be wiped off. Maybe this weekend.
I do keep up with all the maintenance, so I know it’s running well.
I definitely take after my father who used his car as a mobile office and kept enough papers and general stuff to fill a filing cabinet. However, Dad would let the contents fossilize, along with garbage and food, while I’ll make a pass through every couple of weeks and remove the most egregiously useless stuff. Washing and waxing is something that happens to other people’s cars. It’s possibly done by elves.
I’ve never understood people who keep their cars tidier than Martha Stewart’s living room. When they open their trunk and reveal nothing but immaculate carpet and a spare tire, I wonder, "Where do they keep their cross country skis and/or kayaking gear? And rope, for tying stuff to the roof racks? And what if they’re at the beach and need a change of clothes and a kite to fly? And where are the flashlights? And the thermos for road trips? And the power inverter for the laptop and digital camera? And the spare jackets and the fleece and therain gear and the blanket and the tools and the first aid kit and the camera and the ice scraper and the gloves? And the emergency books and magazines in case you’re in a line and need something to read?
Assuming facts has it right. If you don’t take care of the scratches and dings you’ll be driving a rustheap around. And while I’m not a fanatic about cleaning the inside, I clean out the crap and only leave the stuff that I need to be able to lay my hands on.
I keep my cars for a long time. I expect to take care of them so they’ll take care of me.
I disagree. Fixing minor cosmetic problems does not increase the value of the car by the cost paid to do so. If you fix it, you’ve now got a high value car that you paid even higher value for, and the difference is larger than if you hadn’t bothered.
Eh–who says I’m gonna sell it anyway? I’ll drive it until it dies. Also, I intentionally don’t pay big bucks for my vehicles for just this reason. Why spend money on a concept so ephemeral as “new car”? My $1100 dollar dented car gets me to work just as efficiently as a pristine $30,000 one would–and both will end up on the same junk pile some day. So I guess that means you can count me in the camp who is completely baffled by people willing to put that much money, effort, and stress into a vehicle. If damage is inhibiting the car’s function, I have it repaired. Otherwise, I’ve got better things to do with my money.
We’re car slobs. Back when I had the MomMobile (full size Chevy van), my husband swore our entire family could live for a week out of it if need be - and he was right! I kept water, snacks for the kids, changes of clothing, small toys, books, crayons and color books … anything I could possibly need if I broke down with a passle of kids in the van. Now I drive a Sentra and it stays relatively neat because the kids are older and I only drive it to and from work.
My cousin, on the other hand, has the unfortunate memory of having left a watermelon in her trunk long enough that the seeds sprouted out of the carpeting :eek: Her husband told on her and we’ve never let her live it down.
We buy our cars used, and then drive them into the ground–and then some. My dad is still keeping his early 80’s Subarus alive; he likes them because they’re easy to fix. We have some of the newest cars in the family–a 92 and a 93.
We are also car slobs of varying degrees. I like to clean my van out every couple of weeks, but I’m not big on washing it. DangerDad is a bit slobbier, but not much. My mom’s car is fairly messy, and my dad’s is a hideous explosion of trash and stuff and machine parts (computer, car, and the tools for them).
My dad was once in LA, and gave a short ride to a homeless guy who told him a long story about how he’d been living in his car, but his buddy borrowed it and got busted, and now the car is impounded…and the guy got into Dad’s little truck, saw the piles of empty Big Gulp cups and tortilla chip bags, and said, “Hey man, you live in your car too!”
My dad grew up on a farm so he likes to have a 10-20 year old truck lying around as a ‘fun’ car. He currently has a 1990 Dodge Ram, but before that he had a 71 chevy, before that it was a 70s F150, I forget what he had before that.
Jeeps are also popular in my family, at least to my dad and older brother. My dad has owned two jeeps and my older brother almost bought one but didn’t (although he did inherit the cherokee from my dad). I, being anal about money, won’t go near a jeep because their reliability is very very poor.
Word-up on that Jeep reliability thing. I’ve worn out many a shoe prematurely because of my Jeep. Also had to learn to “Hitch-hike” all over again.
My wife and her mom absolutly kill me the way they treat thier/our car. Looks like wild animals have been living in them. All manner of food, trash and flotsam can be found in the car after they have been in it for more than 5 minutes. I’m not anal, but fer christ sake, can’t you people get at least most of the food in your mouth and not between the seats?
Don’t get me started on the “Super-Double-Mega-Big-Gulp” of Dr. Pepper that has been spilled in every car (except the BMW- I won’t let her bring one in. But I still find french fries and straw wrappers all over) we own. Its like the wife has some kind of kinky babtism ritual she has to go thru.
Thankfully, she won’t drive my old Ford or my Fiat, so they remain realitively clean.
If you’ve lost any of these things let me know and I’ll run out and check my husband’s van he uses for sailing trips. It’s probably there. I can check at night if need be because it has blue "runway’ lights inside for night vision. It’s very old but he “pets” it and maintains that he fully expects to be buried in it. When smartini-kid and I travel with him in it we play “I Spy”…
Always Fords, always. We’ve had Fords in our family since the Model T. (Well, okay, my great Aunt Margaret’s dad had a Pierce Arrow, and I think that came before the Model T (?), and I’m not sure whether that was a Ford or not.)
Cars need to be well-maintained and relatively clean. If they’re a bit worn and dinged no biggie, just no obvious fast food wrappers and ciggie butts and stuff in the car.
No bumper stickers, no way.
Two cars in our family now, but that’s just so my mom can do her own thing once in awhile. Growing up, we were a one-car family.
No car payments, ever. If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.
Finally: a car is a tool, something to get you from point A to Point B, at least as far as my family (and I) are concerned. As long as it runs and stuff doesn’t fall off of it, we’re happy!
Wife’s van? Immaculate. Every stray dust particle, dog hair, and shoe print are hunted down and dispatched with a vengeance. She even gets on a ladder and scrubs the ROOF! You can eat in it, but heaven help you if you spill something.
My truck? Used for camping, biking, hiking, hauling go-karts, camper, boat, hunting gear… you name it. Inside are usually found wet dogs, muddy kids, smelly RC vehicles, McDonalds wrappers and BigGulp cups. Engine and mechanicals are maintained with near-fanaticism since we go everywhere in it (underhood is probably cleaner than the front seat). Roads, woods, tracks, beaches, interstates…, we are almost constantly traveling somewhere in it (in the last coupla years we’ve ranged from Utah, to Key West; and everywhere in between). Every coupla weeks I run it thru the 2-bucks-with-a-fillup wash at the gas station.
Don’t lose much sleep over scratches and dents. Anything major is fixed, but the little stuff is ignored.
My truck? I washed it in… I think… 2000 or 2001… I shovel out the inside every once in a while in case someone wants a ride. It’s a 1999 and I have just under 179,000 miles on it, so I do not worry about resale value.
My car is a sty right now. I always have to have a couple of bottles of water in the car. This is a neurosis I picked up from my mother who got it from reading Cujo. Those water bottles have come in handy more times than I can count, too.
I commute 90 miles a day, so I do a lot of eating drinking and living in my car. I need to clean it out, vacuum it, wash it and wax it before winter hits. If it doesn’t rain tomorrow I’ll do it then.
