Oh dear! My poor little car, which has had a bit of a rough time of things recently, seems to be in trouble again. It is terminally ill in the sense of burning oil a bit and not being worth enough money to make it worthwhile stripping the engine down to fix it. Then I bumped it into someone else's car on a very bad day in December. Logically it wasn't worth fixing this dent if not worth fixing the engine. Now this morning on the way to work, it started juddering in an alarming manner whenever I was stationary in traffic, feeling like my old diesel car instead of its usual smooth-running self.
We do seem to have a very bad time with cars. Over the past 4 years we have had 5 of them. Admittedly for the last year we have had to have one each for work, so that accounts for one - and the one that belongs to mr me has done pretty well over the last year and only had about 2 minor problems, so maybe it is just me who has a terrible effect on the cars. Of the others, one was written off by a hit and run in the middle of the night and 2 had mechanical problems that were too expensive to fix. We are forever having this problem - the problem is more expensive to fix than the car is worth, fixing it will be throwing good money after bad and you just know that if you do, next month something else will go. But when you come to buy a new one you don't have enough cash around to get a much newer one, so it starts to go wrong again. Having said all this, I know plently of people, my parents included, who drive older cars around all the time without having this kind of death rate. Maybe we will end up having to get a car loan. But I really don't want to. A mortgage and a student loan feels like quite enough debt for me and car loans are different because by the time you finish paying the item you bought has much less value instead of more, and there's always the possibility bad things will continue to happen to it. Boo. Going to take my little car to the garage after work, so hopefully they will tell me it's just a spark plug, that will be £5 please. Somehow though, I have a dreadful feeling that's not what will happen...
3 comments:
Although I'd never advocate getting a loan normally, with the amount you guys have spent buying and fixing older cars I would recommend biting the bullet and getting a 1 or 2 year old car from a dealer and getting a loan. My Arosa cost around £6000 new and was £140 a month for four years. It has been totally hassle free, so worth the interest I think. MM.xx
Cars are a traumatic thing, aren't they? It is so hard to know what is the sensible thing to do when you have no actual knowledge yourself (assuming you are not hiding some form of mechanics qualification from us!). Hope it works out without too much hassle
xxx
It is bad. Would cost £1000. need new car. not feeling much like blogging at moment. bah.
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