My mother just gave me a 1994 BMW with 71 thousand miles. Currently I share a 1992 Geo Prism with 170 thousand miles with my girlfriend. We live in a city which has extremely aggressive drivers. I would like a safer car, but my GF is happy with the Geo. Neither of us drives to work so the car is basically only used to take vacation and grocery shopping.
Should I sell the BMW and put the money in a bank until the Geo dies? or
Should we sell them both and buy something new? or
Personally, I’d take the GF shopping and see if you can find a safer car that she likes. If so, sell both the cars and get the new one. I wouldn’t trust the Geo too much longer. The alternative is dump the Geo and drive the BMW.
No advice, but a bit of info; my 1990ish Geo Prizm lasted to 215,000 miles, when the engine failed in a rather sudden and impressive fashion. In the entire life of the car the only maintenance was wear-items, water pumps, a radiator, etc.; the engine and drive train were fine until the end.
A 1994 BMW what? 3 series, 5 series, 7 series? If it’s been well maintained, a 325 of that era should be bulletproof–the car’s hardly broken in. I imagine the car would be beautiful to drive, as well. 5’s are similar, and 7’s… the more complex the car gets, the more expensive it will be to fix, and greater the chance of it breaking down IMHO.
On the other hand, the car’s (almost definitely) worth at least $7000, so if you don’t care about the car and would rather have the cash, that’s your prerogative. If you drive a metro, you probably don’t “like” driving, so this is probably the case.
You could send it to me. I’d love a mid-90’s bimmer
My suggestion is from a purely economic standpoint, so you are free to ignore it if economy are not your primnary concern.
If you are currently driving a subcompact with nearly 200K miles on it, I suspect you are not exactly Rockefeller. You didn’t state which model of BMW is the gift car, nor its overall condition, but while BMWs are relatively reiliable, any unscheduled maintenance costs are likely to be considerably higher than for your current car.
To me the most sensible course, again strictly from an economic viewpoint, would be to sell both vehicles and buy any car of your choice that provides you the level of safety you are comfortable with (that doesn’t automatically mean that larger vehicles such as SUVs ARE safer, BTW) but with lower miles than your current vehicle(s). While the value of the BMW will vary considerably depending on the model, the proceeds from the sale of both cars is likely to be enough to obtain, for cash, a more recent model of small sedan with less than 70K on the clock.
To get an idea what your current cars are worth, you could look up the values at Edmunds.com (I think they go back as far as '94) or contact the loan officer at your local bank and ask him/her to look it up. Be sure you understan the difference between wholesale (trade-in), private sale and dealer resale values.
It’s a 525 I in very good shape. Thanks for the advice I don’t know much about cars. Edmunds.com shows people selling these for about 5500, but with a more miles. If we drove more I would certainly keep it. However as little as we drive the either car is liable to last practically for ever.
Since we don’t drive much and it’s already 10 years old-would its age help its value? Do people collect cars like this?
Regarding your safety concerns with the Geo: My ex’s sister borrowed ex’s 94 Geo Metro (hatchback) one day, and was in a spectacular three-car pileup. She ended up with nothing but bruises. They’re pretty safe.
It doesn’t have air bags. I presume safety standards have improved in other ways since it was manufactured. Otherwise it seems just like any other small car.
