13th Apr 2009, 18:21
It depends on how you define "worth." When you decide to drive an old car, it means that you are not a slave to used car "value" which is only important when you get caught in the trap of trading in every four years. It doesn't matter if you only paid $1,000 for the vehicle. It has "value" so long as it continues to move under its own power and serve its function of transportation. Its value is defined in terms of how much money you save every month on a car payment. If you had a vehicle that ran and drove, but was only "worth" $50, and it needed a new alternator for $60, would you seriously junk it and decide to make a $500 car payment? Now which method is "not worth it?" Your example of spending $4,000 on an old $1,000 beater is extreme. No, of course you wouldn't spend that on that car. You would go buy another $1,000 car and drive it for 2-3 years.
13th Apr 2009, 12:29
I think you're misunderstanding a few things here. First of all, I've kept my truck for 14 years so far and so far has had no major problems. All told, I spend perhaps less than $200 a year on repairs, and of these, most are redundant items like spark plugs, air filters, plug wires, and so forth. Like I said before, the truck is in fantastic mechanical condition and I would trust this truck to go anywhere, night or day, short trip or long trip.
A mechanical device is easy to monitor. Just because something gets old doesn't mean it's automatically going to become problematic. Age in regard to a mechanical thing is only incidental. I've seen some cars that have 80,000 miles that run and look awful. Likewise I've seen some that have 300,000 that look and run like new. It all depends on how well that car or truck was treated.
But I have my own way of driving and determining when the time to replace a vehicle is appropriate. As I said before, I am 31 years old and have significant savings in cash and retirement, not because I make tons of money, but because I don't think in black and white terms when it comes to buying stuff, which ultimately means debt, I have saved more than even the typical 50 year old mainly because most people are bad with their money and waste it buying the latest-greatest cars and trucks just because they have seat warmers and "safety". You want to know what the greatest safety device a car could have? The driver.
But you're free to keep buying cars and trucks every few years if you want. To each their own.