Drive it till the wheels fall off

[Eeyore98]

For us, the "wheels have fallen off" when either an engine or a transmission repair is needed. These are very costly (min $1000) repairs, and it's difficult to find a reputable shop that does quality work. Family members of mine have gotten these repairs done and put up with the aftereffects of shoddy work...after all that money, the vehicles were never right again and didn't last but another year or maybe two.

 

[Diabolicdesire]

For us, the "wheels have fallen off" when either an engine or a transmission repair is needed. These are very costly (min $1000) repairs, and it's difficult to find a reputable shop that does quality work. Family members of mine have gotten these repairs done and put up with the aftereffects of shoddy work...after all that money, the vehicles were never right again and didn't last but another year or maybe two.

This is what I consider the wheels falling off. My 98 Honda Civic has 225,000 miles and I am hoping to get at least another 75,000 out of it

 

[kimsuenew]

Our 3 cars are a 1993 with 200,000, a 1997 with 195, 000, and a 2001 with 250,000 on it. We keep these properly maintained and serviced.

Op ~ Your vehicle does not sound like it is "shot" as of yet... I would keep it!

 

[mrodgers]

For us, the "wheels have fallen off" when either an engine or a transmission repair is needed. These are very costly (min $1000) repairs, and it's difficult to find a reputable shop that does quality work. Family members of mine have gotten these repairs done and put up with the aftereffects of shoddy work...after all that money, the vehicles were never right again and didn't last but another year or maybe two.

Routine maintenance can cost your minimum o f$1000. Many cars require a timing belt to be changed at 60,000 and combined with the water pump you should change because everything would be torn apart already, can be in excess of $1000.

A routine maintenance item of just changing the clutch could be in excess of $1000. Just wanted to point these things out since the amount $1000 was mentioned of which both are routine maintenance.

 

[hsmamato2]

When I get sick of working on it.

That's us!!! right now I'm in this position- DH takes care of all the cars,and he does a great job. But lately it seems like the cars have had more problems than he has time to deal with. We have a '96 subaru w/ only 70k on it- with some issues.(it's bit of a lemon)
and a 95 Mercury with around 160k- it is starting to have some bigger problems tha last year or two. This means that either one or the other is always up on ramps in the driveway for over a year....
I LOVED my mercury van,but I think it's time to replace it with a sedan(better gas mileage too) I think we may actually go new vs. used since the breakeven cost is so close now.......now I have to convince DH to retire the elderly lady...(the van,not me!)

 

[neatokimmo]

When I priced a new van, payments were over $600.

So figure out the car you'd buy instead. Get that payment. Divide the payment into it and see how many days of a new car that $300 would get you.

I have a 2000 Hyundai Elantra that has been an awesome car. They drove it off the truck in 99 and handed me the keys. I currently have some sensor issues where the check engine light stays on 24/7. They are quite a bit to fix and the car still run with no issues so I drive it. A deal breaker for me would be a repair over $600 (1.5 monthly payments of what I am considering), like a repair that interferes with how I drive the car.

 

[hsmamato2]

also, when you don't trust the car on a daily basis anymore. For instance,my DH always says I can't drive my 95 mercury van too far from town WHAT!?! and we carry extended AAA for all the tows we got last year... I no longer trust the car. Last month the gas gauge stopped working while we were on our way somewhere to meet friends....yep, ran out of gas...(hate that!) the friends took a vote and decided we got stuck in the van WAY too often...I have to agree!

 

[Lewisc]

People who want to drive their car unit "the wheels fall off" still have to decide when it's time to get rid of the car.

Substantial rust is one reason.

A car which needs an engine or transmission overhaul is another reason.

A car which has multiple (expensive) maintenance items coming up in the next 6-12 months is another reason. You know your car will need new tires, brakes and a timing belt in the next 6 months. Your battery is 4-5 years old. You're starting to burn engine oil (or transmission fluid). You may be looking at 1-2K of repairs/maintenance without a transmission or engine. Substantially more if you need either.

edited to add--Also check places like Consumers Reports. You should be less likely to spend $$$ repairs/maintenance if the car has a history of transmission issues.

 

[hsmamato2]

...to add to Lewisc.... if the muffler leaks stinky smoke up into your car in spite of the putty your DH spent hours trying to plug....if you can't park on the drievway b/c it makes oil spots....if the seatbelt motors are frozen....if the side door opens about 1/2 the time.....if it's like a gym workout opening and closing side door...... if the back hatch only closes if you hold the latch a certain way while slamming it......if you have to shutt off interior lights b/c of loose door,and keep the locks engaged so no one falls out of said loose door..... LOL

 

[DawnM]

Most people who are able to keep their cars going for forever do the repair work themselves. DH does our car repairs and it saves us a bundle.

I also don't work, so if we have to go without a vehicle for a while, it isn't the end of the world.

We also have a 3rd vehicle. That 3rd vehicle is indeed on its last legs. It is a 1996 and the tires are dry rotting even though the mileage hasn't reached even close to what the tires are supposed to be good for. But I refuse to pour in $900 on new tires when the car isn't even worth that much and has some other issues.

So, for us, if the cost of repairs is more than the vehicle is worth, or if it will need a boatload of repairs soon that will cost a lot, it is time.

I am BEGGING Dh to dump the 1996 car but he insists on driving it. I have told him that the tires are not safe and he is our bread and butter and I would like some help raising the kids too!

Dawn

 

[ssawka]

For us, the "wheels have fallen off" when either an engine or a transmission repair is needed. These are very costly (min $1000) repairs, and it's difficult to find a reputable shop that does quality work. Family members of mine have gotten these repairs done and put up with the aftereffects of shoddy work...after all that money, the vehicles were never right again and didn't last but another year or maybe two.

I agree with when you need tranmission and/or engine repair, however when the transmission went in my 9 year old Mazda Tribute at 85K miles, I had it fixed and then sold it to CarMax. My resoning was this, I spent 4K to replace the transmission with a rebuilt transmission. CarMax offered me $6500 for it. If I had not put in the new transmission, the car was worth virtually nothing. So, in order to at least get $2500, I figured i was worth replacing the transmission.

 

[Lewisc]

I keep my cars until "the wheels fall off" and don't do my own repairs. Muffler repairs aren't that expensive. Only an issue if that's one of many items on your list of repairs needed in the next 6-12 months.

Seat belt related items are frequently covered by the manufacturer long after the regular warranty has expired. Sometimes without any limit.

I guess I could have expanded my rust reason to include miscellaneous body issues.

 

[ilovemk76]

I agree with when you need tranmission and/or engine repair, however when the transmission went in my 9 year old Mazda Tribute at 85K miles, I had it fixed and then sold it to CarMax. My resoning was this, I spent 4K to replace the transmission with a rebuilt transmission. CarMax offered me $6500 for it. If I had not put in the new transmission, the car was worth virtually nothing. So, in order to at least get $2500, I figured i was worth replacing the transmission.

We replaced a transmission with a manufactured transmission. It has about 90K miles when we did it. The new one has now gone over 90K more miles. If I traded it I was just giving another a great vehicle.

 

[ilovemk76]

OP here. I'm definitely going to drive it until at least next summer, just wasn't sure if, since I'm throwing all this money in repairs, if I should try to drive it even longer than that if it was still working and throw more money in repairs if needed. DH works a lot of hours and is really not that handy with car repairs so it has to go in the shop. The reason for the new tires was because my tie rods ends were worn and it made the tires wear really unevenly, and I woke to a flat tire one day and noticed how unevenly wore the tires were. That was $200. The other repairs were some kind of power steering belt that broke, tie rod ends with an alignment, and some other kind of bracket that broke?? And then something else I don't remember. There were a lot of repairs right after we got it in 2004....expensive repairs. The whole motor blew out just a month or 2 before the extended warranty ran out!

This is our main family vehicle although DH drives a lot more miles than I do as he works out of town. I do a lot of in town driving, but out of town family trips are in my van. It drives fairly decent just wasn't sure when the cost/time of repairs meant it was time to throw in the towel and purchase a newer vehicle. Definitely not going to get rid of it just yet! Hopefully I'll get this fixed and won't have any more problems for a while!

Hitting one bad pothole can destroy a tie rod end. All that you listed are normal maintenance.

 

[bettymae1121]

For both DH and I, it's when a car is no loger reliable. If it's a roll of the dice on if the car will start or not, it's time.

That said, my car will be 14 years old this March. We're having our first child this February and even though our Saturn still runs great, I want a car with the latest safety features. So this time next year I'll be buying a late model used Altima. We'll still keep the Saturn though, DH can use it to drive 80 miles round-trip to work, rather than pile miles on to the "new" car. We'll be a three vehical household at that point so if the Saturn does die, DH can drive his truck to work until we can find another beater to use as a commuting car.

 

[MrsPete]

This is a tough thing to know because you have to balance several variables, some of which are impossible to pinpoint with accuracy. We're drive-it-til-the-wheels-fall-off people, and I'd suggest a couple things:

1. Keep good records of how much you spend on these repairs . . . and compare them to what it'd cost to make a payment every month. Yeah, a couple hundred here and there is irritating (we've spent about $1500 this month on our '99 SUV), but it's not nearly what it'd cost you to pay a couple hundred every month. An car payment is likely to run you 3-4K per year.

2. Know the value of your car. It's probably close to zero. Vehicles are irritating that way. So when you reach the point that you need a $1000 repair of some sort -- it might be the transmission or whatever -- that's when you call it quits. For example, my husband's last car lived a good two years beyond the point that we thought it was on its last breath, but when the block cracked, we knew it made no sense to put big bucks into a car that was worth zero.

3. Gauge the financial costs against your risk factors. For example, before I bought my new car four years ago, I was driving a car that had very high mileage, and it was likely that it was going to let me down sometime. But I work only two miles from home; at worst, I could've walked. And I don't have small children. And I do have a cell phone. If I couldn't find my husband or a friend, I could always have called a taxi. I was likely to suffer inconvenience rather than tragedy. In the end, that car gave up the ghost in my own driveway. I was never stranded anywhere. In my personal experience, the things you fear most never actually happen; rather, it's the things you don't see coming that hit you hardest.

Your circumstances may be quite different, so you should consider your own risk factors, should your car let you down one day.

4. Start making that car payment NOW into a savings account. That way at least you'll have a good downpayment when your car really does die. It's also not a bad idea to know what you want. When my car really started going downhill, I did some test drives and picked out exactly what I was going to buy when the time came . . . but I kept my money in my pocket 'til I absolutely couldn't do anything except part with it.

 

[ekatiel]

Another GM van owner here (2005 Relay with 100K miles on it). Just wanted to commiserate with you about the stinkin' "power" (and I use that term loosely) sliding door! Ours has never quite worked right, even after replacing the entire mechanism and having it adjusted a trillion times. GM just does not do well with electronic components. We have to "help" ours close every single time. Kind of an embarrassment in the car rider line at DS's elementary school. "Look, there comes the lady we have to help her door close!" . All that being said, the engine has always run like a champ . We are hoping to replace ol' Bessie next fall when YDS is done with preschool and we get the "done with preschool raise" . Good luck with whatever decision you make! --Katie

 

[elainesj]

We faced that decision two years ago - in 2009.

That summer, we had a 96 Honda Accord and the airconditioning had been busted for about two years (fixed 3 times...but the fixes only worked temporarily) and just overall costing more and more in repairs. So we reached that point where I was annoyed at how many repairs we had to deal with. We got another used Honda Accord and sold our old one.

Our 98 Caravan was also getting old. I was hoping to get another year or two out of it as we had just replaced the Honda. That fall, we had transmission issues. That made me nervous. We ended up spending the money to fix it but I just stopped feeling safe. Plus, neither my husband nor I know squat when it comes to cars and fixing them. So, we decided to replace it.

I ended up selling it to a close friend for really cheap. I warned him about the transmission issues, etc etc but he's more handy so he was willing to take the chance. Two years later, he says it's still running well and it was an awesome deal for him. I'm still glad I did it though - it was well worth it to me to feel safe in my vehicle.

Do the price comparisons - 2 years ago I was SHOCKED to find that buying new cost a lot less (over the life of the car - which I conservatively estimated to be 10 years to be safe) than buying used. I had wanted and planned to buy used but I found used prices to be relatively high compared to the ridiculously low prices of buying new. After a lot of calculations, I ended up buying new. I got offered 3 years 0% interest which made it an even sweeter deal for us.

By the way, like someone else said, start shopping around early. My only annoyance with my van was that with the transmission issues, I only gave myself a month to replace it....which is not a lot of time to shop around...particularly in the used vehicle market. We replaced our Honda Accord before its last legs and that gave us the luxury of shopping around for several months with no pressure. I'd much sooner be prepared.

 

[herdtoDisney]

We are a 'drive till the wheels fall off ' family too OP, I think you could hang on to that van for a while. A $300 repair is not so bad if you keep it another year or two. The tie rods going is not unexpected with age, on any vehicle.

Some people won't do transmissions, but I did one on my 1998 Chevy Astrovan (bought in 2005) in 2008. I still drive that van. It's paid for, and insurance and property taxes are dirt-cheap on it, on all our cars in fact. I would not put any more big money into it.

My daily driver is a 1997 Chevy Cavalier that I just put 4 new tires and an alignment into in Oct. Dh also replaced the water pump and a motor mount. This old car is great on gas and so cheap to insure.

We are going to Disney in Feb and we have chosen to rent a vehicle to drive, because our cars are old. The cost of the rental is less than 2 months car payments on something new and i'm not putting the wear and tear on my own van. For us, this works out.

For me, when a vehicle is driven into the ground is when-it won't run and the costs of repair is thousands. Tie-rods and water pumps and stuff is routine repair for any vehicle. I also choose to have AAA, but we've actually only used the towing twice in like 15 years.

I'm not saying I didn't admire the Chevy Traverse outside Test Track, because I did but then I looked at the sticker price and thought about how much I like not having car payments!

ps-here, we pay property tax on vehicles, and it's based on book value. It can be substantial (like, many hundreds) on a new car. I also don't carry collision on my old cars which makes our insurance cheap. But I keep some $ put aside in case a vehicle is wrecked or dies beyond repair.

 

[ssawka]

We replaced a transmission with a manufactured transmission. It has about 90K miles when we did it. The new one has now gone over 90K more miles. If I traded it I was just giving another a great vehicle.

Actually, since I sold it and downsized I will recoup some of my $ due to the lower maintenance fees and lower gas mileage and I now have a vehicle that is under a bumper-to-bumper warranty for 5 years and power train warranty for 10 years. Add to that the fact that the new car came with free oil changes, free tires, and free inspections, I really don't feel like I lost very much by trading in my Tribute. I was also able to save more $ because I got a very low rate from the dealer and used the cash from CarMax to pay off some other debt I had.