I know that many of you say you drive your vehicle into the ground. I have always said that too. But now I am starting to wonder if mine is in the ground or not. How do you decide when it is time to buckle and buy a newer vehicle? My van is 8.5 yrs old and has 140,000 miles on it. It has been a great vehicle, but lately it needs everything done to it. We just spent over $1000 on it getting new brakes, new tires, new starter, flushing the transmition and fixing a small leak. But it still has some problems. It has a little shake to it and the muffler system is getting noisier and noisier. I just worry that I need a reliable vehicle. The guy at the shop told me it is just getting old and it is normal. Ugh!!! how do you decide if it is worth it to keep fixing things or buy something different?

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~Happiness is a large family~

DH's truck is 20 yrs old. He has had it for 2 yrs. (bought it for $2500) but when we bought it he did a complete tune-up and while we spend money often on it, it is a better investment than buying him a new truck..

My suburban is 8 yrs old and because the previous owner took excellent care of it, its still in great shape. We have had it for 1 yr and have changed the brakes only.. however next year hubby said we will be putting in a new motor for maintenance sake (I make 3-4 trips a year back home, usually alone with the kids, and its 700 miles round trip).

For us it seems its cheaper to replace the parts than buy new.. but we also have a Chevy and a GMC and dh does most maintaining himself.

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Kristi
Mom to Eric, Alex, and Taylor
Happily Married to Joe:love:

Well, into the ground to me is... really old, and.... old. The one time I did this was when I was 18 years old and had just had our first daughter. I was driving a 1985 Saab. I had it in 2003. :-D (I LOVED THIS CAR SO MUCH!!!) I literally drove it until it stopped working one day.

Right now I am driving a van with high mileage and it is 8 years old, but it is in great shape and I have had to fix nothing. But now that we are more comfortable financially, if the van starts costing us more than its worth to fix we will trade in and get a new one.

I literally drove mine until it stopped working!

Our Explorer was a 1998 and was bought in 97 so it was around 9 years old. It also had similar mileage that your van has on it...I think it was around 150 or 160k. I would have continued driving it if it had been a minor repair, but our only option was to pay almost $4,000 for a new engine.

It sounds like your costs are mostly coming from normal maintenance and minor problems that will occur on a car that is as old as yours. Honestly, if it were me, I would probably hold out longer. Especially if your mechanic is telling you it is normal wear and tear on a car of it's age and mileage. That being said, I would also factor in the frequency of these "little mishaps". If you are repairing something every month, you might consider starting to shop for a newer model.

I haven't gotten to that point yet with my Sunfire. It's getting ready to turn over 169,000 and is still running great. It's needed a few things here and there, but nothing major. However, if I were in your shoes I would at least drive then van until you've gotten good use out of the new $1000 worth of stuff that you just put on it. Another suggestion is once you get something new keep the van as a spare in case one of the others needs to go in the shop. I can't tell you how many times having a spare has saved us.

So far it doesn't sound like you're doing more than normal maintenance. And 140K on a vehicle isn't that much. I try to keep my vehicles until 300K.

One vehicle I kept until it blew a head gasket. I got it repaired and drove it another several thousand miles. I ended up giving the vehicle to my dad because we needed a larger vehicle. He drove it for several thousand more miles then gave it to my brother who drove it even more, then got rid of it after it was in an accident.

Another vehicle, we kept until the engine blew. Again we fixed it and drove it for a little while longer. It developed a problem where it would suddenly stop running and after putting lots of time, effort and money into trying to fix it, we got rid of it.

The only vehicle I can think of where we didn't drive it 'into the ground' is my Saturn. We had just gotten custody of DD. Getting her in and out of the carseat was a real pain as I had also been recently diagnosed with arthritis in my back. It broke my heart to sell it but we gave it up and bought a minivan.

I truly HATE having an unreliable car. For me, being able to get into my car and do something or go somewhere is a huge part of my freedom. I literally get depressed when I don't have the ability to do that. When my car is so questionable that I hesitate to go anywhere, I know it is time to start looking for another. LOL! That is usually when I give hubby my car and I get to drive the new one! I've learned long ago not to let hubby have the new car because he is really hard on them and they won't stay new long.

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"I've been rich and I've been poor but independently wealthy is where it is at."

Is it smart money wise to have a spare? Don't you have to pay for insurance and registration and such?

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~Happiness is a large family~

I drove my 1991 Sentra until it had 170,000 miles. I could have driven it more, but we had one child and another on the way with plans for a third. It was a two door car did not fit what we needed anymore so we got rid of it for the van.

My dh's car (Isuzu Amigo) we got rid of a little earlier with 130,000 miles at 7 years of age because - well, it was a crap car!

We now have an 8 year old Explorer with 130,000 miles and a 5.5 year old van with 106,000 miles so we are considering getting rid of the Explorer for a more fuel efficient car to drive on long distances as well, but we will see. It is starting to have issues, too.

Great question!

I was wondering the same thing. Like how much per year should I be putting into repairs before I say enough is enough and get another car. (We aren't there yet. Ours is 7 years old and has 97,000K. We drive less than 10,000 K a year so it should be going for a lot longer but I'm thinking I'd like a cut off repair amount for when then time does come.

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Bought my 1994 Ford Explorer when it was three years old and it finally died at 257,000 miles. I had owned it for nine years. Very, very sad day when the transmission died. I could have fixed it, but chose not to.