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The world never ceases to amaze me. That would include pinching pennies on a used car while paying $10000/year for a kid to play soccer.
I think I have a solution that might help. Husband could walk a mile to get the bus. No car needed. That soccer playing kid could use a bike and 15 minutes of pedaling to get to soccer practice.
That plan works fine for academic year/rainy season when he's on the turf a quarter mile behind us, but during summer and most of the fall they are playing at the state park about 2 miles and 1000 ft down. He would have to navigate a deadly 4 lane, 40mph urban highway along with those miles and elevation gain. And you can only realistically desend one way and that takes you right pass the local transient population... And by end of September he'd be ridding at night. Nope!
Penny pinching is our normal and there is 7 years of personal finance posts to show it. Paying $10k for soccer is new and I already stated I'm having difficulty getting used to it.
Last edited by flyingsaucermom; 06-13-2019 at 11:38 AM..
There's a particular feeling of freedom in driving a vehicle that is truly worthless.
There's also a particular feeling wondering if you're going to make it home. But as this thread proves, everyone has an opinion!
You have the cash and should not be entertaining financing. I buy my cars cash and really from the negotiation standpoint it's easier to negotiate the "out the door" price. When you look at your final bill from the dealership there's this fee and that fee so while you may agree to terms on the price of the vehicle you magically have fees on top of that.
Last time I bought a car we had been out all day and the place was about 15 minutes from closing. We thought we found the car we wanted but we couldn't agree on price. We were on the way out and another car caught my eye. I told the guy - if you can do $x "out the door" I'll take it home tonight. He agreed and we got the car we wanted at the price we wanted.
No matter what you do be prepared to walk. There are thousands of cars for sale in your area.
The world never ceases to amaze me. That would include pinching pennies on a used car while paying $10000/year for a kid to play soccer.
I think I have a solution that might help. Husband could walk a mile to get the bus. No car needed. That soccer playing kid could use a bike and 15 minutes of pedaling to get to soccer practice.
I always love all these unequivocal solutions that get bandied about on C-D based on the repliers' frame of reference which may not match those of others.
If you've never had a kid that plays high-level sports, yep, that's what it costs for travel/high-level leagues these days (often more).
I work outside and within less than 5 minutes of being at work, I'll be a sweaty mess, especially this time of year. But, I'm still not sweating my butt off walking to the bus and waiting there for 5-10 minutes. Plus, it takes me 40 minutes to drive to work; It'd take 2.5 hours by bus. And then I'd have no way home except for a $40 Uber ride because the buses don't run that late.
Sure, kid may live within a fair biking distance of soccer practice, but what if he lives along a US Hwy with no bike lanes or sidewalk and a 50+ mph speed limit?
OP, your car isn't a lemon. It's 8, going on 9 years old. Sure, quality, well-maintained cars can go a long time now, but some of that is survivorship bias. And, the car you own is something of a cheap, throwaway sort of car. The question you have to ask yourself is: if I do this repair will I have fairly trouble-free driving for a couple of years with it? If you're not comfortable answering yes to that question, move on.
Also, do you have a trusted mechanic? Because any used car you're looking to purchase should be checked out by one before buying. Small outlay for piece of mind. But only you can truly know what's the best course of action for your situation.
The overwhelming frequency of sentiment seems thus far to favor a "less cheap" car. Well, here's a lonely voice advocating precisely the opposite. Get a $900 car, drive it for 6 months while performing zero maintenance, and if it does, throw it away... donate to a charity, or take to the recycling-yard for $150 in metal scrap.
There's a particular feeling of freedom in driving a vehicle that is truly worthless.
Only in a Demolition Derby. There's nothing freeing about a nagging anxiety of a breakdown leaving you stranded.
The overwhelming frequency of sentiment seems thus far to favor a "less cheap" car. Well, here's a lonely voice advocating precisely the opposite. Get a $900 car, drive it for 6 months while performing zero maintenance, and if it does, throw it away... donate to a charity, or take to the recycling-yard for $150 in metal scrap.
There's a particular feeling of freedom in driving a vehicle that is truly worthless.
i had a car that i put around 150k miles on it. one day i was stopping at a red light and my car didnt stop. fortunately, nobody was coming but that was scary. my wife insisted i get rid of the car. i replaced the brakes and sold it for $4k. i dont really want to make my 45 mile each way commute with a car worth 25% of that car.
We are talking about getting a Prius for around or under $15k, but I put out a call on our community FB group and many options are being offered up including:
2000 Avalon, 110k miles, needs brakes: $2k
2008 Accord, 129k miles, $6.5k (belongs to a long-term, HIGHLY trusted and well-paying client)
2012 Focus, 94k miles, price unknown (I gave a range of $5-7k so I assume it would be in the ballpark... belongs to the real estate agent that sold his brothers townhome to us last fall... it's only because of his professionalism that kept my interest in the property enough to find a real estate agent and we had a very smooth closing).
I will not go with the Focus because I'm DONE with Ford, but there is no reason NOT to consider the Honda or the Toyota, especially the Honda belonging to my client.
I don't want to give up yet.
I'm all for not giving up. If you can get a good, reliable car for cheap, hey, more power to you!
I agree with you on the Ford. I had an Escort many years ago and it was a lemon. Never again!
1) 2016 Prius C, automatic, 108k miles, single owner, clean record
2) 2017 Yaris, 6 speed, 49k miles, single owner, clean record
I only partially learned how to drive a standard nearly 20 years ago and would need to relearn. I think I went out on my own 10 times and all 10 times I was miserably anxious. It's both more and less intimidating now as we live in a very hilly area of the country than when I drove one before. On the other hand I have more confidence in general and I think learning the manual shift is a good skill to have. Would also be good for our kids one of which is already eligible to take driver's education.
Too much going on this weekend to make a decision. We will need to revisit this next week, perhaps with different options...
I'd do some shopping around on clutch replacement, to include other Ford dealers. A clutch should cost around $1000, especially for a basic car. In fact 7-900 would sound more reasonable to me. $2300 sounds like what it would cost to replace a luxury sports car's clutch. I had a whole automatic transmission replaced on an old car for right at $2200.
That dealer is trying to take you, or perhaps trying to influence you to buy a new car. People buy manual cars because their transmissions are cheaper and easier to fix.
I'd do some shopping around on clutch replacement, to include other Ford dealers. A clutch should cost around $1000, especially for a basic car. In fact 7-900 would sound more reasonable to me. $2300 sounds like what it would cost to replace a luxury sports car's clutch. I had a whole automatic transmission replaced on an old car for right at $2200.
That dealer is trying to take you, or perhaps trying to influence you to buy a new car. People buy manual cars because their transmissions are cheaper and easier to fix.
We had three estimates between $1700-2300.
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