Wednesday, July 23, 2008

How Do We Make Lemonade?

We need some car advice. Here's what we have: 2 work trucks with no a/c and 1 car with oodles of miles, unresolved overheating problems, broken automatic windows, needs new shocks/struts. The car is what I use for hauling the kids around. It's been paid for for a couple years which is so awesome. But not when it threatens to overheat when it's above 80 degrees outside. It makes going places with the kids a bit challenging. Evan has replaced a bunch of stuff to see if we can get the overheating fixed. Nada nothing. It's most likely the head gasket, which would cost about $1,700 to have repaired. We just had the a/c redone a month ago for $500. We would get $800 if we traded it in. So....we have no idea what to do. With #3 coming up a bigger vehicle would be nice. But a car payment would not be. A friend told me today that you always come out ahead if your repair payment would be cheaper than 5 months of car payments. But if it's going to cost us $1,700 to fix it...that's quite a bit more than 5 months of payments. Do we:

A) Drive the car until it dies and then worry about it.
B) Trade it in and get our $800.
C) Lease. (I don't really understand the pros/cons to leasing...anyone do/done this?)
D) Go green, ditch the car and become hermits.

16 comments:

Amber said...

trade it in, that way you don't have to woory about being stranded with all three kids.

Shannon said...

yeah, we already got stranded once...it was 95 degrees and the kids were literally dripping wet...as was i. luckily it was 2 miles from home and evan came and got us.

Melissa said...

You should trade it in...except wait for one of the 'push, pull, drag' sales where they guarantee you a minimum amount (the dealers here offer $3,000...and there's always a push, pull, drag sale going on). I'd say a bigger vehicle would be good with 3 growing kids, also. We looooooove our van (Chrysler Town & Country), but it does come with a car payment.....

Mrs Starling said...

We're thinking of leasing a car after we sell one of ours...Aaron seems to think leasing is a good way to go if you think you'll only want the car for a couple years (a bridge until we decide what we want for a "family car") and you aren't planning to put a lot of miles on it. Just make sure you read the lease agreement closely, I guess. Not sure if that helps or not....

Mindy said...

todd & ina leased & they said they would never do that again. isn't feb. the best time to buy a new car? do you think it would last until then? another option is to find out when a police auction is in your area. you'd probably have a car payment, but get a good deal.

Gwen said...

how about a horse?? oh wait they eat hay..and you dont need the fertilizer either.

Lani said...

I'm all for going green... would do it ourselves if it was practical. Honestly, if we didn't have to have a way to get to meeting, I probably WOULD get rid of the car.

I HATED going back to a car payment, too. And any advice I give is because it is what we would do, not necessarily because it's the best choice, but I say go ahead and trade it in. I'm guessing you'll like having more space when you're a family of five, too.

Isn't owning a vehicle a pain?

Shannon said...

i'm really interested in the 'push, pull, drag' deal, melissa! my daycare girl's dad used to sell cars...i'll have to call him up and see if he knows about this.

evan is going to call a few car places to see if we can get a diagnosis without paying a couple hundred for the tests, etc. if it's only a couple hundred dollar fix it may be worth it to just fix it. who knows.
i guess if it was the olden days i'd have broken wagon wheels and foundered horses.

Amber said...

If you have an Auto Zone in your area, they'll hook your car up to a computer for free to check out the problem.

Melissa said...

Oh, and I don't recommend going green and becoming hermits. NOT good to be housebound with small children!

farron and cheri said...

Isin't leasing expensive enough to have a car payment anyways?

I wonder if dealers mark up the prices of their cars for push/pull/drag sales?

Does Evan need two work trucks? Could you sell the car, and use the money to fix the air on the extended cab? Then you and the kids could bum around in that...

Shannon said...

but how do we sell our car without doing a trade-in or without lying about the condition it's in? no one would want to buy it...it has too many expensive problems to fix.

i wouldn't mind doing that...i used the truck all winter. it's just a beast to drive and i hate parking it. i always have to find a place where there's 3 open spots so i don't have to park in more than one maneuver!

Anonymous said...

I say trade it. It's not worth getting stranded with kiddos. There are good quality vehicles out there that shouldn't give you too much of a payment. I hate payments too-if you lease-you need to make sure that you won't go over in miles and that you are committed to that vehicle for X amount of years. Good luck! These decisions are never fun!

Shannon said...

well...evan is stopping on his way home to drive two vans....one a chrysler town & country and the other a dodge caravan. after he gets home we're all going out to drive two more...again the same makes/models with just a few different additions...wish us luck!

Lorene said...

I'm like Cheri, why do you have two work trucks? maybe you you took the car and one of the trucks down south you might be able to trade two for one and be able to trust the dealer.

Shannon said...

we have the jet-black truck that came with the business when we bought it 4 years ago. it is small and a piece of junk but it pulls the trailer. evan used to rent a storage garage and have his sealer delivered via jet-black corporate. this was very expensive. to save money we bought a bigger truck for him to use for picking up his own sealer more often and storing it in our garage...the little truck wasn't big enough to hold a pallet of sealer. he also uses the bigger truck for giving estimates...it looks nice. the little jet-black truck doesn't look nice at all and image is a lot of the sale.