4 ms·

>My last car had 150,000 miles on it, and needed around $3000 of engine work (timing chain, head gasket). The car was only worth around $4000, so I traded it in

by hueving 10y ago

>My last car had 150,000 miles on it, and needed around $3000 of engine work (timing chain, head gasket). The car was only worth around $4000, so I traded it in on a new car. I don't understand this logic. You had to put up way more money to buy a new car. Unless you really want a new car, there is no cost justification for buying something brand new that will lose more than the value of your old car in less than a year.

robryan 10y ago
Typically though once you get to that stage the continued maintenance of keeping it on the road is going to quickly run more than the value of the car. If that work would get you another 5 years it would be worth it, usually though something else will be close to failure.
creshal 10y ago
At some point cars are so old and worn down that you're going to have to replace something every few months, and the maintenance costs explode – sure, you can completely refurbish the car, if you want to, but that's easily in the magnitude of a new car. Labour costs to produce a new car on an assembly line are much lower than those of having two or three (skilled, but not necessarily familiar with your particular model) mechanics take your old car apart and test and reassemble it again. That manufacturers sell spares at a premium and aren't interested in long-lived products doesn't help, but the basic problem remains.
- bluGill 10y ago
  > At some point cars are so old and worn down that you're going to have to replace something every few months, and the maintenance costs explode – sure, you can completely refurbish the car, if you want to, but that's easily in the magnitude of a new car. I half agree. You are correct that cars will eventually wear out, but not in 150,000 miles. Most cars today can go over 300,000 miles with basic maintenance. The original post stated the car needed $3000 work of work, which seems reasonable. If he had put that money into the car that repair would be good for another 150,000 miles - before he does it again. Now we have to assume another $3,000 (number pulled out of me head, but it seems reasonable) in other maintenance alone the way. So for $6,000 more he could have a car with 300,000 miles on it. What did the new car cost? If we assume that he got the full $4,000 value on trade in (seems unlikely, but dealers often will not consider overdue maintenance in trade in value) plus the $3,000 he needed to pay, plus the $3,000 that the old car would need in maintenance, minus $1,000 for maintenance on the new car we can suggest that $10,000 comes off that price. Did he make a bad decision? You need to decide which of my numbers above are valid before you can answer it. It is quite likely that buying a used off-lease car with 30,000 miles on it and trading it in after 100,000 miles is probably the cheapest option in the current market. BTW, the dealer taking the trade-in above is not stupid. He isn't going to fix the car. He is going to ship it to Mexico, sell it for $4,200 with the note that it needs some work done. The buyer in Mexico has just saved up $4,500 for a car (this took a while) and he will do the work himself. (Even if he paid someone to do the work the cost would be much less than our $3,000 figure above)
  - creshal 10y ago
    > The original post stated the car needed $3000 work of work, which seems reasonable. If he had put that money into the car that repair would be good for another 150,000 miles - before he does it again. Now we have to assume another $3,000 (number pulled out of me head, but it seems reasonable) in other maintenance alone the way. So for $6,000 more he could have a car with 300,000 miles on it. I doubt that the $3000 would have covered all necessary refurbishments to last every single component another 150,000 miles. Small bits here, small bits there accumulate over time (and have even higher labour cost overhead than refurbishing everything in one go). > The buyer in Mexico has just saved up $4,500 for a car (this took a while) and he will do the work himself. Dumping our problems on third-world countries with cheap labour is always the cheapest solution.
    - bluGill 10y ago
      > I doubt that the $3000 would have covered all necessary refurbishments to last every single component another 150,000 miles. Small bits here, small bits there accumulate over time (and have even higher labour cost overhead than refurbishing everything in one go). Depends on the car. I have 240,000 on my car, and so far the 150,000->300,000 jump is on track for about that. Tires for $500, Some AC work for $500, some brake work for $500. (I did a bunch of work myself, lets call if $500 for radiator hoses) There are some scratches that I'm ignoring but they are cosmetic. If you want to keep your car like new it will cost a lot more, but if you accept imperfections that do not hurt functionality the costs are lower. Note, I'm assuming a good, honest mechanic. I had one quote me $4000, but the second opinion came in at $500 for the sensor and the brakes which is why the brakes were so high above - I didn't mention the other work done at the same time.
Johnny555 10y ago
While you might think that a 14 year old 150K mile car is in pristine condition, that $3K of engine work was just the minimum I could spend to get the engine running and back on the road. The air conditioning had stopped working, probably due to a bad compressor, one of the back windows wasn't working, the rear struts needed replaced, the power steering pump was making an awful racket when cold, the car was burning oil (which could have been the head gasket, or could have needed more engine work), the transmission needed work (it would sometimes take several shifts to get it to go into reverse, I tried to always park in pull-through spaces), it was nearly time for new tires, brakes needed serviced (and the master cylinder needed to be rebuilt). I don't even know if it would have passed a smog check due to the amount of oil it was burning. And that's just the problems I knew about. Oh, and it was missing out on the past 14 years of car safety improvements (ABS, multiple air bags, etc) as well as modern emissions and fuel economy improvements. Meanwhile it was sitting at the shop and I was renting a car to get to work. It really made no sense to keep it, so i visited a car dealer and got what I think was a good deal (with 0% financing) on a new car - they towed the car from my mechanic and I drove home in a brand new car, that 8 years later, has had zero problems (so far).

by hueving 10y ago

robryan 10y ago

Typically though once you get to that stage the continued maintenance of keeping it on the road is going to quickly run more than the value of the car. If that work would get you another 5 years it would be worth it, usually though something else will be close to failure.

creshal 10y ago

At some point cars are so old and worn down that you're going to have to replace something every few months, and the maintenance costs explode – sure, you can completely refurbish the car, if you want to, but that's easily in the magnitude of a new car. Labour costs to produce a new car on an assembly line are much lower than those of having two or three (skilled, but not necessarily familiar with your particular model) mechanics take your old car apart and test and reassemble it again. That manufacturers sell spares at a premium and aren't interested in long-lived products doesn't help, but the basic problem remains.

bluGill 10y ago
> At some point cars are so old and worn down that you're going to have to replace something every few months, and the maintenance costs explode – sure, you can completely refurbish the car, if you want to, but that's easily in the magnitude of a new car. I half agree. You are correct that cars will eventually wear out, but not in 150,000 miles. Most cars today can go over 300,000 miles with basic maintenance. The original post stated the car needed $3000 work of work, which seems reasonable. If he had put that money into the car that repair would be good for another 150,000 miles - before he does it again. Now we have to assume another $3,000 (number pulled out of me head, but it seems reasonable) in other maintenance alone the way. So for $6,000 more he could have a car with 300,000 miles on it. What did the new car cost? If we assume that he got the full $4,000 value on trade in (seems unlikely, but dealers often will not consider overdue maintenance in trade in value) plus the $3,000 he needed to pay, plus the $3,000 that the old car would need in maintenance, minus $1,000 for maintenance on the new car we can suggest that $10,000 comes off that price. Did he make a bad decision? You need to decide which of my numbers above are valid before you can answer it. It is quite likely that buying a used off-lease car with 30,000 miles on it and trading it in after 100,000 miles is probably the cheapest option in the current market. BTW, the dealer taking the trade-in above is not stupid. He isn't going to fix the car. He is going to ship it to Mexico, sell it for $4,200 with the note that it needs some work done. The buyer in Mexico has just saved up $4,500 for a car (this took a while) and he will do the work himself. (Even if he paid someone to do the work the cost would be much less than our $3,000 figure above)
- creshal 10y ago
  > The original post stated the car needed $3000 work of work, which seems reasonable. If he had put that money into the car that repair would be good for another 150,000 miles - before he does it again. Now we have to assume another $3,000 (number pulled out of me head, but it seems reasonable) in other maintenance alone the way. So for $6,000 more he could have a car with 300,000 miles on it. I doubt that the $3000 would have covered all necessary refurbishments to last every single component another 150,000 miles. Small bits here, small bits there accumulate over time (and have even higher labour cost overhead than refurbishing everything in one go). > The buyer in Mexico has just saved up $4,500 for a car (this took a while) and he will do the work himself. Dumping our problems on third-world countries with cheap labour is always the cheapest solution.
  - bluGill 10y ago
    > I doubt that the $3000 would have covered all necessary refurbishments to last every single component another 150,000 miles. Small bits here, small bits there accumulate over time (and have even higher labour cost overhead than refurbishing everything in one go). Depends on the car. I have 240,000 on my car, and so far the 150,000->300,000 jump is on track for about that. Tires for $500, Some AC work for $500, some brake work for $500. (I did a bunch of work myself, lets call if $500 for radiator hoses) There are some scratches that I'm ignoring but they are cosmetic. If you want to keep your car like new it will cost a lot more, but if you accept imperfections that do not hurt functionality the costs are lower. Note, I'm assuming a good, honest mechanic. I had one quote me $4000, but the second opinion came in at $500 for the sensor and the brakes which is why the brakes were so high above - I didn't mention the other work done at the same time.

Johnny555 10y ago

While you might think that a 14 year old 150K mile car is in pristine condition, that $3K of engine work was just the minimum I could spend to get the engine running and back on the road. The air conditioning had stopped working, probably due to a bad compressor, one of the back windows wasn't working, the rear struts needed replaced, the power steering pump was making an awful racket when cold, the car was burning oil (which could have been the head gasket, or could have needed more engine work), the transmission needed work (it would sometimes take several shifts to get it to go into reverse, I tried to always park in pull-through spaces), it was nearly time for new tires, brakes needed serviced (and the master cylinder needed to be rebuilt). I don't even know if it would have passed a smog check due to the amount of oil it was burning. And that's just the problems I knew about. Oh, and it was missing out on the past 14 years of car safety improvements (ABS, multiple air bags, etc) as well as modern emissions and fuel economy improvements. Meanwhile it was sitting at the shop and I was renting a car to get to work. It really made no sense to keep it, so i visited a car dealer and got what I think was a good deal (with 0% financing) on a new car - they towed the car from my mechanic and I drove home in a brand new car, that 8 years later, has had zero problems (so far).