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I would strongly suggest though, to stay away from anything wearing the Chrysler badge. When they were near bankruptcy, the cars were crap. When Daimler took the company over, they basically took all of any Chrysler technologies, emptied the bank accounts to the tune of 66 BILLION dollars and drove off leaving Fiat to hold the bag on a spent company. Obviously the company is having to reinvent itself from scratch. But anything with a Chrysler badge is near junk....even when it was sitting on the lot new. The new Ram trucks, they are making some serious headway at Ram and the newer 300s are a decent ride but otherwise avoid them. I doubt you'd want to spend that kind of money anyway. ]
Hey, I bought a brand new Durango this week. It's far from a piece of junk. Fiat has actually been dumping money into Chrysler and bringing their technologies to the new models.
I'm more concerned about an 80 year old who wants to dump thousands into a car to drive it than who made it. I mean if she has the cash, then she can do what she wants. If she doesn't have the money, then tough luck.
How is her driving? I say this with all seriousness. My husband's grandfather needed his license pulled years before it happened. He said he was fine to drive, but he couldn't stay in his lane or drive above 30. He had to use his left hand to start the car because his right hand and arm didn't work well due to a stroke. A doctor finally pulled his license after another stroke. I wondered where this doc was for years! Some people thought I was nuts for being concerned, but I drove behind hime more than once and was absolutely terrified at what I saw.
I had the same thought as ss20ts. Since you're saying your mother doesn't have the mental ability to formulate and carry out this plan, my biggest question is whether she should be driving at all. I know it's very difficult to have that conversation, but it's better to do it before she or someone else is killed.
This situation is doubly problematic because the repairs are open ended. You can't even tell how much it costs to fix it. I doubt even the mechanic can tell you without getting into it. The junk yard will take it off your hands for $300. Take it.
Grandmomma doesn't give a hoot what anyone else thinks about her love for that car or chryslers in general. We were advised by some not to buy the second one and to be honest, 18 months later it has had nothing but lube and oil change so I don't want to hear any Chrysler bashing. It is about how the car makes her FEEL.
Her driving is adequate. We've definitely been monitoring. She recently had her cataracts removed and does okay. We will pry those keys from her cold dead hands, but I don't think it is yet time to tackle that. She is learning slowly to use public transit so we are encouraging that.
I went to Kbb and found that the car in excellent condition is worth about $2000. She recalls the estimates were about $1500. I have very gently broken the news. We will likely be donating the car.
She CAN and could afford to have the car fixed. She has postponed these repairs for 3-4 years or so. We don't really know what emotional blockage prevented her from doing so (First excuse, nothing to drive while it was repaired, second excuse she didn't want to drive a rental or loaner because what if she didn't like it, third excuse, no other car would satisfy, etc) I finally pointed out how horrible it would be if she broke down on the beltway with my alzheimers dad, and my brother had to come and rescue her. Finally got through. We shopped for MONTHS, looked at every durned convertible in the DC metro area, and came to the conclusion that she had to have a car that was virtually identical. I bought the first one i found and she still gripes about the color, the way it handles, the cloth seats.
Thanks for the feedback! It helps to have additional vocabulary to use when discussing this with her.
Now she says she is going to 'have to think about it for a while....'
My parents drove their sebring until about 180k+ miles. They took care of it though. Hers sounds like a pile and that's what happens when you let problems pile up and don't take care of anything.
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