Your car--repair or replace?

Situation: Little brother’s car went kaput. Bystanders say it will cost $1200 to $1500 to repair, little brother thinks, “hmm, this car has 100 K miles on it, maybe I ought to consider replacing it before it needs more money spent on it” Spends weekend pondering new cars, his finances, and letting the mechanic look at it. Verdict, less than $1000 worth of repairs, it will be repaired.

Since I also know that my mother’s mini-van is almost 10 years old with nearly 200K miles on it, I know that it would not take much in the way of repairs for her to decide it was time to buy a new car.(Though the last time it broke down, she did spend $500 to get it repaired so she could take her time about replacing it.)

I have a 2000 Saturn with 3K miles on it. It would need a lot of money to be spent on repairs before I’d consider replacing it.

What about you? Imagine your car developes sudden problems (either through an accident or malfunction) How much money would you be willing to pay to repair it before you’d consider replacing it instead? Insights into how old or tempermental your present car is or how seriously you are already thinking of replacing it encouraged, but not required.

Insurance companies decide on whether to fix a car or call it totaled by figuring out the value of the car first. If the estimated repairs are 75% or more of this figure, they call it totaled. If not, they will fix it. It’s a good rule of thumb.

You should also factor in some other things as well. For example, if a dealership has one of those “If you can push it in, we’ll give you $2,000 as a trade-in for it” deals, that would make looking at a new purchase a bit more advantageous.

Conversely, if his credit sucks and/or taking on new car payments will be a huge financial burden, he will look more carefully at repairing it.

BE CAREFUL THOUGH!

My ex-wife put a new transmission in her car, and less than five miles from the service station, the engine died forever! Have the mechanic give it a thorough looking over first, since he might not do it on his own and it makes no sense to sink tons of money into a car if the mechanic can see another huge bill down the road.


Yer pal,
Satan

[sub]I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Four months, two weeks, 18 hours, 26 minutes and 37 seconds.
5470 cigarettes not smoked, saving $683.84.
Extra life with Drain Bead: 2 weeks, 4 days, 23 hours, 50 minutes.[/sub]

"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
[sub]Thanks for the ringing endorsement, honey![/sub]

What Satan said is true, about the value of the car needing to be thought of with the decision of how much you’re willing to pay to have whatever it is fixed.

But, first have a repair shop that you really trust. We just went through this with my son’s '93 Ford Taurus. DJ is in college and had told me the car ‘is running hot’. I ask the usual questions, ‘anti freeze okay? Any leaking, any smoke, engine light coming on?’ Everything is fine, I’m figuring maybe the gauge is kaflooie.

He comes home this summer, I take it to Hub Ford for an oil change and hey, son says it’s running hot, could you check on the gauge? I get a quote of $2500 the next day on this car that cost us $3900 to buy for him this past April.

We take it to a broken down looking garage that unhubby loves, and sure enough, the gauge is broken, and we get it fixed for fifty bucks!

My '95 Crown Vic, I’d probably keep paying to have it fixed, it looks fabulous and drives like a dream, but it’s never been in an accident and that can change a person’s mind pretty quick.