When do you give up on a car?

[bananapancakes]

My H drives a 2003 Elantra. Overall, it's been a great car. We haven't had to put much money into it until recently. A little over a year ago, we had to replace the  catalytic converter ($1300). We put $300 in back in the fall and recently had to replace the radiator ($600). Right now it is in the shop and they are saying that the alternator and three belts need to be replaced for about $900. It has a little over 250 000 km on it right now. We're not sure whether it makes sense to fix it and hope we get another year out of it or give up and buy something new. Thoughts?

[Deleted]

When what it costs to fix it is as much or more than a decent downpayment on another car.

[ECB]

While it's getting close, that isn't quite "nickel and diming" yet. Yet. And that's by my standards only. But DH and I really drive our cars "into the ground" and it would take a bit more before we'd give up.

[ECB]

Jun 25, 2013 10:57:12 GMT -5 ninjabridemom said:

When what it costs to fix it is as much or more than a decent downpayment on another car.

This was actually our deciding factor on our last car.  We were told it would be over $1000 to fix and I told DH that's a good enough chunk of change that could go towards a down payment.  This was not long after a previous big bill.  So... we finally called it.

[motzie]

When your annual maintenance costs are equal to/more than/close to what the payments on a new car would be.

[Deleted]

Jun 25, 2013 10:58:20 GMT -5 ECB said:

Jun 25, 2013 10:57:12 GMT -5 ninjabridemom said:

When what it costs to fix it is as much or more than a decent downpayment on another car.

This was actually our deciding factor on our last car.  We were told it would be over $1000 to fix and I told DH that's a good enough chunk of change that could go towards a down payment.  This was not long after a previous big bill.  So... we finally called it.

Yeah we did this when Jake's Hyundai broke down and we got the Matrix.  It worked for us and is generally our plan for every car.

We'll be doing the "run it into the ground" thing w the car my parents are loaning us, though, and I'm hoping I can convince them to donate it to NPR or something afterwards b/c it won't be safe once it's run into the ground, lol.  The last car they ran into the ground (literally, it was in our driveway un-driveable for a year) they gave to a high school student so he could use the engine in a newer body and they ended up driving it  Made us all soooo nervous, my dad had him sign a quickie waiver which probably wasn't legally binding at all.

[Deleted]

I subscribe to the run it into the ground theory, and I also take into account poor gas mileage, on top of blue book value and whether payments are feasible. IME, the gas mileage on older, struggling cars can become abysmal.

[luckyval]

We really go to the extremes with our cars too. H and I budget around $2,500/yr in added repairs above maintenance for our vehicles - belts, tires, filters, whatever. If it's over that, we figure it's time to take on a new car payment.

Right now his old truck is the only one getting the extra TLC after we had to give up on my station wagon with the $6,000 repair bill. Yay new car for me!