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I will be moving overseas to teach English in about six months. The plan is to return a year from that point to attend graduate school (I want to get it done before I hit my 30s). The problem is, my car is giving me fits, I have had to make some major repairs recently, though overall it still runs pretty well.... BUT, since then I have been having a bunch of little problems that are costing time and inconvenience, as it is hard to foresee some of the problems until they happen and my mechanic is getting tired of working on it. Usually, I can get a way to work if something goes wrong...it's just that I usually end up late (five or ten minutes, sometimes longer) to work. And my job is getting tired of that, they have been writing me up and now I am having to call out, because I am penalized less for that than if I scramble and get there, but end up five minutes late.
The only two options I can come up with cost a lot of money. I work three jobs and do not live near any of my coworkers, who have volunteered to pick me up as needed, but I think that doing that for the next six months (especially since I work late into the night and early mornings also) would be a bit much to ask. Breaking my lease early (subleasing is prohibited) and leaving earlier would cost me around $3,000, plus living expenses until my job starts. For less than that, I could probably find an old beater to get by with and keep working until then, but I don't want to buy something that I will still have to repair in that six-month window. In addition to the tardies, I have had to miss work several days already due to car issues (today being one of them).
I am trying to find the cheapest route, to save money, obviously....not sure if it would be cheaper to just go ahead and break my lease and pay the money, or get a car and hopefully sell it again before I leave (don't you lose money when you do that?), rent a car on a flat rate until I leave, or buy a car and make payments on it while I am overseas. My friends and family are pushing the last option heaviest (probably b/c they have had to deal with my car issues for the past several years and are just flat-out tired, and don't want me to come back and end up with the same issues again, I plan to work while in graduate school). I have debated and debated, and end up going in a circle. I have no idea which choice would be cheapest. The payments, should I buy a car, would be around $225 monthly plus insurance, which, times ten months would be $2250 plus the policy (I work in insurance, so I can get a policy that is around $50 a month for a brand-new version of the car I would be buying). Had I not made the repairs I made on the car I have, I could have prepaid the years' worth of car notes in advance, but I was hoping that I wouldn't have any more issues....a week later I was having trouble. Renting a car would be around $500 a month, everything included and no down payment of course. Cabs would run about $30-35 a day, though I could probably get by with bumming rides during the week moreso than on the weekends. There isn't bus transit to all three jobs....really not to anywhere even close, with the exception of a morning route about a mile from my day job (it doesn't run at night though). I also don't want to spend a lot of money and have nothing to show for it. So....advice?
Buy a $500 or $1000 beater and then either scrap it or sell it when you move. If you find a running car that cheap, it wil always need some immediate work. You usually get $350 - $450 for a scrap car. Maybe a bit more if it is driveable or if it is a car that has a high demand for parts.
To give you some examples of what you might find we have done ok with some of these:
1994 T-Bird. $500 Needed brakes, tires, a windshield, and a switch. Parts $485. Total $985 (plus taxxes, registratoin and insurance).
2003 Saturn Ion. $500. Needed two tires. Brakes. rebuilt rear brake system. Parts $165 Total $665
1998 Volvo V70 XC wagon. $1500. Needed new heater core and coolant $190. Total $1690.
My daughter just bought a 1994 Mecruy Sable with 46,000 miles on it for $2500. It needs some replacement parts (brakes and something else) but new parts came with the car. She will have to buy her brother a pizza to get him to do the work for her. This is too new to us to know whehter it wil hold up at all. We have not even registered it yet.
Other daughter bought a 1992 Lincoln Town Car for $2300 I think. She had to have the AC repaired and a full brake job. That was about $400. Then there was recnetly some other work that was another $400. She has put a lot of miles on that thing in the past year and a half.
Most cars will need an oil change $15 - $25.
Brakes cost a lot more if you pay to have it done. Usually $250 per axle. Parts are around $50.
Warning. You will find lots of Dodge Caravans around at really low prices. Bad choice. You will put parts into them every weekend in our experience. Typically we bought one for $1800 - $2500 put another $3000 - $4000 into aprts and repairs and end up scrapping it in one or two years.
How about take over a leased car with 4-6 months left on the lease? There's a few websites out there dedicated to this type of thing.
Might be a good idea, but make certain you are fully aware of all of the money that will be due upon surrender of the car. Being fully aware does not mean taking someone's word for it, it means reading and understanding the lease agreement, knowing how many miles are on the car, knowing the likely assessed value at the time of surrender, what repairs the car needs, other things may depend on what the lease says. Leases are often very different, some are really awful at the end and basically force you to buythe car at an inflated price.
What is the age/mileage of the car that you currently have? And, do you have a car problem, or a mechanic problem? The only reason I ask that is that there are some vehicles that seem to develop problems every couple of weeks when going to mechanics at chain places, some of whom are likely overburdened by work and running to the front desk that they forget to do things. Others, may not be as scrupulous. And, it happens even at dealerships where mechanics get distracted and something untoward happens, like Lexus when the work was performed by an apprentice mechanic and was to be reviewed by the senior, but the porter grabbed the vehicle and gave it back -- such that the vehicle died within 5 miles and required a new engine.
You may be able to find a reliable car for less than the $3k lease cost. If you could find an Acura Integra (not GSR, and not modified in any way), Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Buick LeSabre/Park Avenue, Mercury Grand Marquis, even Lincoln Town Car -- something that is proven to be generally reliable, and purchased in good shape from an adult owner, i.e., not a teen or young adult (especially important with the Acura/Honda). You could buy it around $3k, and probably would not lose too much selling it once you no longer need it. You would need a mechanic to go over the car, and you may need a family member to sell it for you, should you not be able to do so before you leave. This option has some risk associated with it, depending upon the age of the vehicle and condition. It would be best if you could buy a reliable car from someone you know, but outside of that, if you know of a reputable dealer and mechanic for that brand.
The new car and the rental car will not cause you any problems, or a new car should not. A rental car can be swapped out for another in the fleet if you have a problem with it. However, with the rental, you would not have a vehicle upon your return, so between the new car and the rental, I would get a new car, provided your family can store the car, and maintain it for you, i.e., drive it every once in a while, get the oil changed, monitor tire pressure, store it in a garage or under a cover, etc. Since your current car is off the road and time is of the essence with respect to transportation need, I would err on the side of a new or CPO used vehicle to keep while you are overseas.
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All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
~William Shakespeare (As You Like It Act II, Scene VII)
Well, without more description of your car and what is going wrong, it's hard to know for sure, but if it's having little problems left and right it doesn't seem like on the surface it's a good one to keep. I have a car with 210k miles on it and nearly 13 years old and it's a dead reliable daily driver. So it's possible to have that, and it sounds like you don't have it. It's also possible that it's old enough that things are wearing out and you'll reach an equilibrium here at some point soon, but I'm not sure. There's a better chance of that with some cars than others.
Rental, you'd probably have trouble doing that for under, say, $400/month. But you could check. There may be discounts if you actually book as a 6-month rental as opposed to a month at a time, and you can swap the car out every so often, maybe every month or so (they would usually prefer it so they can do the maintenance). Still, I'm guessing you could easily sink north of $2k or close to $3k into that and have absolutely zero at the end. On the other hand, there is very low chance of late for work issues and zero maintenance and repair costs.
Buy a car, well, it all depends upon what going to happen with it while you're gone. Someone else is going to drive it? Will they take good care of it? It's kind of a waste to be paying for a car and insurance while you're gone for a year, and if it's just going to sit that's not good for it anyway. It needs to be driven regularly. Really I think that would be a terrible waste of a new car which is what it sounds like you're talking about. If you're going to buy a car, a beater is probably the way, but it's hard to know how you're not buying similar problems.
Dunno. If it costs $3000 PLUS expenses to break the lease, maybe the rental might sound like a good deal after all. I think you could get 6 months of rental for under $3k, not much under, but probably under. But admittedly I could be somewhat optimistic in that assessment. For a quick check at a Birmingham-area Hertz Local Edition I got a total of about $3500 for 6 months. But that's without digging for any better deals. I'm not quite sure yet how to weigh the $3500 down the hole (when you could put $3500 towards a new car, say) vs a year of ZERO CAR EXPENSE while you're gone which is also valuable in its own way. Not to mention having a possibly 2 model year newer car if you buy a brand new one when you get back. That depreciation is a cost to consider. I suppose how that would work out again comes back to what would happen with the new car while you're gone.
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