I'd love advice about getting another car or not

[WithoutAPaddle]

I personally think that anybody is nuts to spend more than a few thousand dollars for a car unless they have some business need to "appear" successful, like if they are a salesman or have to transport customers or prospective customers.

I haven't bought a new vehicle since 1975, when I paid $3,700 for a new, bare-bones Chevy 10 van.  I can afford new cars.  I just don't buy them.

I usually find that I can get the best value for my money when I shop for vehicles in the $3,000 to $4,000 range.  I typically get 60,000 to 80,000 out of such vehicles (I average about 30,000 miles of driving a year), and only once have I had even one of these vehicles require expensive repairs.

The place to find a lot of cars to look at is now craigslist.  I learned that by accident.  When I needed a replacement van about six months ago, I found that the pickings for vehicles within my search parameter had become thin for two reasons: 1) In my locale, the police were ticketing unregistered vehicles that were parked along the roadside, so there were a lot fewer of those to look at, and 2) the classified ads for used cars in my local newspapers had dried up.  But one morning, when I was coming out of my house to get into my rental van (I was paying $280 a week for it), some guy was parked behind my dead Ford Windstar and asked if it was for sale.  I told him it needed a repair that would cost more than the vehicle was worth, and he looked really disappointed and said that he was only in this neighborhood because craigslist had an affordable used car listed on this street, but by the time he got here, it had been sold.

All I knew of craigslist at that time was that it was in the news because someone had used it to somehow aid in the commission of a crime, but I don't follow the "Nancy Grace" type stories, so I honestly don't even know how craigslist got abused.  

I selected the automotive catagory and was able to narrow my seach by model and make, price and distance.  I searched for Dodge Caravan, under $4,000 and within something like 30 miles and there were about 60 of them listed.

I didn't buy a Dodge Caravan.  After looking at a couple I didn't like, I did some research on minivans (I knew little of them, because I had always bought full-sized) and saw that the Chevy Astro looked more like a regular van, so just on a lark, when I had scheduled two viewings of Caravans that were three hours apart, I called someone listing an Astrovan for $1,000 only because his listing included his phone number and it was just a few blocks away from where I was at the time.  I would never seek out a $1,000 vehicle because if a vehicle is only worth $1,000, then there is no way that it will be dependable enough to meet my needs, but I figured if I liked what I saw, then I would do a search for Astro Vans in the $3,000 to $5,000 price range and find a suitable one.

Incredibly my search ended with this $1,000, 1994 Astro Van.  The seller was the original buyer, who had paid $23,000 for it way back, and a few months earlier, he had made a decision to spruce it up, buying new tires, putting in a complete new exhaust, having a full brake job, replacing the radiator, water pump, hoses and belts, the fuel pump and filter, the alternator, putting in a top of the line battery, and replacing the ignition wiring and parts.  He even had the dated reciepts to document all of this.  Then, the front air conditioner compressor went (it has separate front and rear air conditioners) and he decided that he was through throwing good money after bad and bought a new minivan for $25,000 instead.  Basically, I have benefitted greatly from his multiple, poor decisions.

I now have a minivan that, when I am driving it, I couldn't tell from a new vehicle except by the vintage of the dash buttons.  I've got power windows, power mirrors, power door locks, cruise control, six-way power seat, etc, etc. and it runs like a top  I will be surprised if I don't get 100,000 miles out of it.

The only warning is, buying a vehicle in a private sale is very much caveat emptor.  I am enough of an amateur mechanic to be able to field judge a used vehicle, but even then, I can't test for a cracked or warped head, nor could I spot an intermittent ingition computer malfunction..  If I had bought one of the three Caravans I had looked at before I settled on this vehicle, I would not be writing this glowing endorsement of low-end, private vehicle purchases because two of the three were junk, which I could spot but other might not have realized, and the third one had a lender lein on it that the seller did not reveal and then denied.  A fourth prospective purchase was funny.  The seller would only sell it to me if I would meet him in a desolate parking lot in the evening and pay cash on the spot.  Riiiiight.

And once you've pocketed the $15,000 in payments you would have made over the next six years, you then just buy another $3,000 vehicle and find a better use for the rest of the money.

[Lloyd Danforth]

~Get a nice 1968 VW bus~

If you don't care about heat or headlights that light anything

[K. Darien Freeheart]

I buy and sell everything on Craigslist now-a-days. I don't even use eBay anymore, except for one specific thing that just works better that way due to the nature of the item and low shipping costs. (Specifically, Magic: The Gathering cards)

[neggy]

the rule of thumb for financing a car is if you can't pay for it in 3 years you can't afford it.

Whomever is trying to bury you in a 6 year loan is not someone you want to be doing business with, ever hear of the " rule of 72"?

start forcing yourself to put away a little money each month to buy a decent used car from a private party and pay cash.

[Lloyd Danforth]

I was thinking that if one needed an extra vehicle for just going a few miles to do errands while the main car was away all day you could consider buying an old gas hog.
A few miles a few times a week won't mean much if the gas hogs are selling for as little as I assume they are.
The owners of these older sedans are coming off the road every day and I'm guessing their kids don't want them. They have probably received good care.

[Raineyrocks]

Well, so much for keeping the van. 

We made the decision to keep the minivan and we were all so happy until, no lie, 4 days after making our decision the van started rolling backwards while in drive.  We took it to our mechanic and he said it was the transmission, gave us a ballpark price for repair, told us the van is not going to nickel and dime us, it's going to dollar us.  His words, exactly.

We don't have money saved for another car, (to buy outright), because we are on a "shoestring" budget, so we got another car with a loan.  We saw no other option.  I couldn't and won't risk anyone's lives that are behind us when the van starts to roll and my kids that are in the back seat.

I know it's not good taking a car loan out but our hands were tied.  The mechanic said that the 2003 Windstars are notorious for the kind of problems I've been having with it.  I looked it up on the internet and it looks to be true. 

We intend to put any/if Rick gets one this year, Xmas bonus towards extra payments on the principal to shorten the loan life.  Without going into my entire budget it was all we could do at the time. That's why we're trying to sell our house to get rid of the big mortgage, pay off old credit cards, and hospital bills.

A few weeks ago I even cancelled cable to save $60 a month but now it looks like we're not going to be saving that $60 anymore.

I would love to find an LNA job on nights and weekends but we're pretty far from where places are hiring and I can't see driving over an hour for what I'd be making because I have no experience. Then again, I have to figure that choice out better to see if I'm right or not.  In fact, I'm going to call my LNA instructor, (her and I became good friends), to see if she has any job leads.

  I'm in a good mood, trying not to get freaked out and depressed like I was a few days ago and I'm trying to look on the positive side in case the law of attraction thingy really does work.