I know that's why I've cut spending to the bone.
And our cars now really can last a long time with a little extra care ( care that a good neighborhood mechanic who needs your biz. would love to help provide).
It's become a bragging rights thing among my friends of who has the oldest w/the most mileage.
Care to join in the fun? How old/miles is yours?
Same here.
Isn't it "interesting" that in February, consumer spending "went up"?
I think the powers that be jiggered the numbers to make it look that way, but I'm not buying it - or much else for that matter...
Both our main vehicles are late 1990's vintage (one with 82K and the other with 105K miles), and we have one 20 year-old project truck that has 150K miles on it. I just spent $1k on repairs for one, but it's got to last me at least five more years, so I figure that's still less than car payments would be in the long run.
I would much rather spend my money on vacations than cars. (And I do.)
We have two older cars, good quality, bought them used in the 1990s for cash.
So instead of “ugrading” to a new car for $30K, I could spend the same money on about ten week long vacations for the 6 of us: Hawaii, Disneyland, Washington DC. And that’s what we do.
A car is just transportation. Kids just kind of trash up new cars anyway. Vacations are experiencing life!
We bought a 94 Lincoln Town Car with 130,000 miles on it.
We bought it on Ebay for $2,500.
We ran it until it has 275,000 miles. It still runs fine. It gets 24 miles to a gallon.
We recently bought a 2003 Lincoln Town Car with 70,000 miles for 10,000. For the same money we could have bought a new Hunday.
'90 Ford full size Bronco -- 95K miles
'01 Ford F-150 SVT Lightning -- 27K miles.
'01 Suzuki SV650 -- 1K miles.
Japanese. 1992. Still young at 150+k miles (another 100k until retirement at the mileage where I retire my Japanese cars).
2003 Buick 90k miles
We plan to get at least five more years out of each.
Care to join in the fun? How old/miles is yours?
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I just sold a 98 Taurus w/230K and the original tranny for $1000 and bought a 95K 2000 crown vic fleet car (ie. regular maint done) for $1500 ,, not bad paying only +$500 for a car with 300K more miles left in it especially as the taurus needed at least that much in a/c work (the taxi fleets usually run crown vics/town cars to about 400k)
Last one was an 86 Buick that I bought for $900 in 97. It was killed at 280k NYC MILES with the original engine, suspension, exhaust and tranny. The beast didn't smoke at all and still passed a dreaded NYC smog test.
My friends all have new cars and have been telling me to junk it for years since all the paint was gone. It still ran perfectly and I used it as a beater car until last year. Someone totaled it while parked. I was really disappointed until their insurance cut me a $2500 check.
The only major repair was a "new" gas tank from the junkyard because it literally rusted through and started leaking! With the $2500 check, I actually MADE money by owning that car.
Right now I'm at 130k with my Nissan. Nothing but routine maintenance so far. It looks great, runs perfect and I don't care about having the "latest" like my friends.
I bought a 2002 Isuzu Rodeo last year with 132,000 miles on it for 3800, it was in great condition, I love it and drive it pretty much exclusively. My husband has a 1998 4WD extended cab pick-up and we have a 2001 Honda Odessey (sp) that we just traded our F150 4 door pick up for because we needed something comfortable for the 2 of us and the 4 from my son’s family because we often travel together and the kids are adult sized now and we needed more room.
I have bought 2 brand new vehicles in my 38 yrs of adulthood and believe I really messed up both times although I drove the first one for 11 yrs and the second one for 5 yrs and then sold it to my son who drove it quite a few more yrs.
There are really some good bargains out there right now for used vehicles and I sometimes wish I needed one but I don’t.
I am a business owner’s worst nightmare as far as consumers are concerned. I buy very little we raise our own beef, have chickens and preserve much of the veggies that we use.
Well, my Amigo was bought six years ago, 120K miles... now 180K. Uses no oil, run premium synthetic in it, filter change every 3,000 miles, oil ( alleged to be good for 15K ) every third filter change.
Paid $3,500 for it, usual tires, belts, brakes, hoses.
Maybe not my ideal vehicle ( sure miss a big V-8 and automatic ) but runs fine, the AC is cold, and it's paid for...