Crank no start 1995 Olds 88

Ludicrous! If you own assets and not dollars the value goes up. Or, if your asset follows inflation exactly, the value stays the same even if the number of dollars achievable creeps up.

And used cars don't follow the overall inflation chart these days. They exceed it. OPs sitting on a gold mine.
Not when the price of used cars is starting to come down now.

Certain assets go up and certain ones go down. Look at watches, that was going up for a while but with the crypto collapse, it's been coming down.
 
Right the value of the car might not go down, but stuff like needing a tune up and replacing various parts including tires goes on the more it ages. So while the price might not actually go down, you end up putting more money into it to keep it running and even if the price of cars didn't go down, inflation continues to eat away at the value of the dollar so if you paid 3k for something 10 years ago, you'd probably need close to 4k to break even not even accounting for stuff spent on repairs. The entire value of your fleet from last year just went down about 9% from inflation even if the actual value didn't change.
Blah blah blah. I get parts cheap and labor is free. I don't care much about inflation as I'm not a big buyer of consumer goods or even food, and my assets are all paid for. Most of my cars I bought for under $1,000 or $2,000 and less than a dozen were over $5,000. I'd rather put my money into something I can control and enjoy instead of gambling on the stock market or other investments where brokers rob you blind with their fees.
 
Blah blah blah. I get parts cheap and labor is free. I don't care much about inflation as I'm not a big buyer of consumer goods or even food, and my assets are all paid for. Most of my cars I bought for under $1,000 or $2,000 and less than a dozen were over $5,000. I'd rather put my money into something I can control and enjoy instead of gambling on the stock market or other investments where brokers rob you blind with their fees.
Well you might work for free, but even if you work for free, it's not really free. And I guess you have a lot to learn about the stock market, you can buy index funds which have very low expense ratios. So basically if you have $10,000 worth of Fidelity's S&P 500 index fund (FXAIX), the expense ratio is 0.015% so that means you end up paying $1.50 in fees for that 10k investment. But there's other funds like Fidelity Contrafund where the expense ratio is .81% so your 10k would cost you $81 in fees. Probably still less than parts and labor that you put into it and over the last 10 years, Those two funds have returned about 36k for a 10k investment 10 years ago.

Do you even carry insurance on those cars or do you just do a blanket policy or just nothing at all? Also are any taxes due on them if you hold onto them for a while?
 
Check it out
June 11 2022

Aaron Bragman, Detroit bureau chief at online automotive marketplace Cars.com, told Fortune. “There simply aren’t enough vehicles to meet demand and that’s starting to impact sales.” New and used car prices are inextricably linked. A shortage in new vehicle supplies immediately drives up demand for used ones, creating a shortage there too. Prices for used cars were already rising earlier this year, and the market has only become more warped since then. Used car and truck prices have risen 16% over the past year, and 50% more than before the pandemic. In many cases, a used car is even more expensive than a new one of the same model. “It’s a weird situation,” Bragman said. “We hear from people who bought a used vehicle three or four years ago and actually sold it for more than they bought it for just last year.”
 
June 11 2022

Aaron Bragman, Detroit bureau chief at online automotive marketplace Cars.com, told Fortune. “There simply aren’t enough vehicles to meet demand and that’s starting to impact sales.” New and used car prices are inextricably linked. A shortage in new vehicle supplies immediately drives up demand for used ones, creating a shortage there too. Prices for used cars were already rising earlier this year, and the market has only become more warped since then. Used car and truck prices have risen 16% over the past year, and 50% more than before the pandemic. In many cases, a used car is even more expensive than a new one of the same model. “It’s a weird situation,” Bragman said. “We hear from people who bought a used vehicle three or four years ago and actually sold it for more than they bought it for just last year.”
It's starting to go down but of course won't instantly go back to normal but we're probably past the peak and on the way down although it will still take a while to go down more.




 
So that's like $2600 profit a year on $10K? I can make that much on one $5000 car in a month or two. And have something fun to drive at the same time.
I like doing things that I have direct control over. The stocks and mutual funds are intangible and completely in someone else's hands. Plus, I like tinkering with cars..
 
So that's like $2600 profit a year on $10K? I can make that much on one $5000 car in a month or two. And have something fun to drive at the same time.
Yeah, but you have to put in cheap parts and free labor. No parts buying or labor involved once you purchase the funds. And yes, if you had 10k, that's just 2600 on average. But if you had 100k that would be 26k a year or if you had 500k that's 130k, 1 million that's 260k a year. Basically cars don't scale whereas stocks/mutual funds easily scale. At a month or two, seems like you're limited to 6-12 cars a year which is just 13-26k a year.
 
Used car prices are finally starting to right themselves meaning come down. I just got the wife a fully loaded 2021 Gladiator Rubicon with every available option. Window sticker was 67k. For the last 2 months searching these were running mid to upper 50k's used and within a few thousand of a new one. We found a perfect one with 21k miles and got it for 47,700. Still has plenty of factory warranty left, was a lease vehicle with all maintenance done. It has painted flares and hardtop, tow package, side blind/rear park assist, adaptive cruise, leather, heated seats/wheel, hardtop insulation, the new rock crusher transfer case that also as FULLTIME 4WD setting, etc .....even 4 brand new BFG tires!.....Bought it!
 
Yeah, but you have to put in cheap parts and free labor. No parts buying or labor involved once you purchase the funds. And yes, if you had 10k, that's just 2600 on average. But if you had 100k that would be 26k a year or if you had 500k that's 130k, 1 million that's 260k a year. Basically cars don't scale whereas stocks/mutual funds easily scale. At a month or two, seems like you're limited to 6-12 cars a year which is just 13-26k a year.
I rarely use cheap parts even for cheap cars. Bought all AC Delco for this Olds.

It's great that you are raking it in, but for what? Mo money, mo problems. You can only eat one steak at a time. As long as you make enough for your current expenses and have a few years worth of expenses in savings, what more do you need? And those rates are much less now than 10 years go and are not even insured.
 
This might be part of the problem.

View attachment 111805

At least it's clean. Can I put pressurized fresh fuel through the valve in the fuel rail to try and start it? Or will it all flow back to the tank?
I don't think that you have a loss of spark condition unless rodents have gotten to the wiring. IMO bad/old varnished gas IS what caused your problem. The damage to your fuel system has already been done. I have seen old gas actually plug fuel lines with varnish. There isn't any fuel additive that will fix this problem. You are going to have to clean all of the varnish out of the entire fuel system, from the pump to the injectors.
The only reason that the gas looks as good as it does is because you put 4 gallons of fresh gas in it. Mixing 4 gallons of fresh gas with 4 gallons of bad/old gas gives you 8 gallons of bad gas.
 
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I rarely use cheap parts even for cheap cars. Bought all AC Delco for this Olds.

It's great that you are raking it in, but for what? Mo money, mo problems. You can only eat one steak at a time. As long as you make enough for your current expenses and have a few years worth of expenses in savings, what more do you need? And those rates are much less now than 10 years go and are not even insured.
I'm not familiar with the problems with mo money. There's actually no pressure to spend it all just because you have it. Like I've mentioned in other threads, I still have share of Vanguard Index 500 that I bought in the 90s.

You never know what expenses you might have in the future. Nothing is really insured, do you have any insurance that you'll be able to flip cars in the future? All it would take would be one bad injury. That would be disability insurance. You do have some from social security, but it's minimal. You could also end up in a nursing home in your old age. If you don't want to be a ward of the state, then that's also several thousand a month. Someone just told me their parent was in a nursing home and it was 18k a month. Yes, that's 18k a month, not a year. The average is about 12k a month for my state, Maryland is 10k a month.
 
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