Why do people replace cars that can be repaired?

[widman]

In my previous life, the company I worked for had about 4000 cars. Their policy was 4 years of 40000 miles, no matter what. I was told that
1. Our time was too valuable to be wasting it taking to the shop.
2. After 40000 miles it would start needing tires, batteries, breakes, etc. Too much time and money.
3. Image - we represented the company image. (and had to keep it washed weekly, etc.

There was a period of time when I was putting 40,000 miles on my car every 9 months. So every second or third car I bought from the company for my wife to drive, depending on how reliable it was.

Here in Bolivia people keep asking me to sell them my 99 4Runner and 2002 HiLux pickup, but I prefer to keep them. both have 100,000 km on them, both are as good as the day they were delivered (with 1 to 5 ppm of iron in UOA). Since I depend on these two to take me to remote mountains and swamps, I'd replace them in a minute if they became unreliable.
I had one Toyota engine rebuilt at 600,000, but regret it. Much of the rest has since fallen apart from metal fatigue.
I had my 95 4Runner rebuilt at 100,000 km after I recovered it from the river. Doing well at 300,000.
So there are a lot of factors.

 

[gedcruise]

I'm not so sure about this. When I was growing up, we always had at least one brand new car a year.
When I left the nest, I assumed that cars couldn't really be relied upon for very many years.
In my early adulthood, I learned to work on my own cars both out of curiosity, and as a matter of economic necessity. I continued working on my own vehicles long after the economic necessity part faded, and have learned that the average car will give reliable service for a whole lot more years and miles than I would have originally thought possible.
Vehicle maintenance and repair is one of those hobbies that will save you significant money over the years. You can also take pleasure in knowing that you've done the work right, and used quality parts.
Finally, you will enjoy reliable trasport at less than half the cost per year or mile as your dealer-dependent friends and associates.

 

[Quattro Pete]

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Wrecking yards. There is no need to spend $300 for an ECM when you can get a wrecking yard pull for $50 that works fine.

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Depends on the car. The going price for an ECU from a junk yard for my previous A4 was about $300. New one from the dealer was about $600, if you could find a dealer that was even willing to disobey Audi's policy and sell it to you.

 

[Challenger71]

Ditto for me. Matter of fact I'd like this as my own personal motto. Mind if I borrow?

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Vehicle maintenance and repair is one of those hobbies that will save you significant money over the years. You can also take pleasure in knowing that you've done the work right, and used quality parts.
Finally, you will enjoy reliable transport at less than half the cost per year or mile as your dealer-dependent friends and associates.

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[Brogy]

All i'll say about people replacing cars is, they know little about cars in the first place, so they can only assume. When I knew nothing about cars and was looking for a good car to buy, I saw a lot of ads that said "rebuilt engine". Not knowing anything about cars, I figured if the engine failed within 120,000 miles, it was just going to fail again. That's just the logic I used, most people probably use it too. Now I know if an ad says "rebuilt engine" it really means "pretty much new engine for the same price as that other ads old engine".

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New one from the dealer was about $600, if you could find a dealer that was even willing to disobey Audi's policy and sell it to you.

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Just curious, I know nothing about audis, what policy?

 

[Aldaris]

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JHZR2: I hear what you're saying. I'd take a good running 83 Benz any day of the week over alot of the new cars they're selling these days. I love seeing an old Benz out on the road.

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I don't. They're the ones merging onto the highway at 50mph when everybody is going 15+mph more than that, creating a traffic obstruction, impede traffic going up hills, and oftentimes have a plume of smoke following them.

 

[gedcruise]

Funny, and that's also why my wife avoided driving our Benz diesels. Simply too slow.
The average Benz diesel driver, though, knows how to plan freeway entry, so it really isn't an issue.
The poster to whom you reply has it right. The W123 is an extremely capable car. Those Japanese luxury nameplate buyers just didn't understand. There is a reason DB used the slogan "Engineered like no other car in the world". It wasn't just hype, but if you haven't owned one, you wouldn't understand.

 

[Aldaris]

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Funny, and that's also why my wife avoided driving our Benz diesels. Simply too slow.
The average Benz diesel driver, though, knows how to plan freeway entry, so it really isn't an issue.
The poster to whom you reply has it right. The W123 is an extremely capable car. Those Japanese luxury nameplate buyers just didn't understand. There is a reason DB used the slogan "Engineered like no other car in the world". It wasn't just hype, but if you haven't owned one, you wouldn't understand.

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I haven't owned one but I think I can understand. My girlfriend's mother has an absolutely cherry '88 560SL convertible. It's a solid tank. I love the way it was built. I also admire the gas mileage that people get out of the old MB diesels. However, in Southern California traffic they don't seem to cut it, especially as they grow older and slower. We have stoplights on highway onramps to control traffic flow during busy traffic hours. This means that you cannot use any of that speed and downhill momentum gained from going into the onramp and you find yourself having to accelerate to at least 55mph within 12 seconds. Most of those slow old Benzes can probably do it if the driver brake torqued them and flogged the #@$%! out of them, but they don't...

 

[Quattro Pete]

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Just curious, I know nothing about audis, what policy?

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Well, I suppose it's a policy that wouldn't cause an issue here since we're talking about out-of-warranty cars in this thread anyway. But basically, Audi would only sell you a new ECU if you went to them for repairs and they determined that your current one is faulty. They would not sell you a new ECU if you just came to the parts dept. and asked for one. I think Audi was trying to make it more difficult for people to chip their cars using a spare ECU while under warranty. It used to be a common thing for people to have a spare chipped ECU which they'd normally have installed in their cars, but when it was time to go in for service, the owner would put the stock ECU back in to hide the fact that the car was modified.

 

[gedcruise]

That really wasn't my point.
There is no road that a W123 can't smooth out. There are no railroad tracks you can't cross in a 123 without slowing down. There are no corners through which the 123's gentle final oversteer can't help you. There is nothing from the late 'seventies or early 'eighties that equals the bank vault solid structural feel of a 123.
The maximum 123, a 280E, is not a quick car. The slowest, a 240D, really is slow. DB didn't develop these cars for Socal. They developed them for the world. Sorry if a 123 diesel holds you up every now and again, but as I said originally, if you haven't owned one, you don't understand.

 

[Jett Rink]

It really wouldn't surprise me if every country on the face of the globe still has W123 Mercedes Benz diesels rolling. I've been to probably about a dozen nations and have seen them. Often on news reports, I'll see one in the background. There are two being used as daily drivers in my neighborhood alone.

If they don't accelerate enough to satisfy the drivers on Los Angeles freeways, or just generally cramp their styles, then who am I to argue with them. They don't seem to be accelerating that much slower than delivery trucks or 18 wheelers from stoplights around here, vehicles we also share the road with around here. You might say life in general is slower paced around these parts, perhaps that is why I am not annoyed by them. It is a very solid feeling car.

I live in a small town and semi rural area. Lots of crusing at highway speeds and not much bumper to bumper traffic. Maybe some of us out here in flyover country perhaps have different ideas of what constitutes a good car. if so, then so be it. I know they will cruise at the posted speed limits on interstate highways. Oh, well, to each his own.

 

[JohnBrowning]

Ignorance, Neglect, Lack of Saveing!!!!! They have not done any maintence dureing their 3-5 years of ownership or close to none. So out of the blue to them their car needs a lot of things serviced like transmission fluid and filter, fuel filter, rotors, pads, radiator flush and fill, belts, spark plugs and a water pump. So they are at the dealership and get an estimate for $1500-$3500 dollars for parts and labor. They think wow if it neds this much work all at once it must be falling apart!!!! I better see if I can get out from under this thing????? So they go see the salesmen and see if they can get a deal going thinking they are getting the upper hand. The apprasier is going to take all of the needed work into account so they really are not getting a deal. If they know how to work on their car they could fix everything for $300 or less themselfs!

 

[JohnBrowning]

Dents and dings are easy to repair. Interiors can be redone, mechanical parts can be rebuilt or replaced. If the vechile was designed and built right then NVH should not be much of an issue!! Body and chasis bushings can be replaced. I tuaght myself how to paint by reading a book ont he subject and practiceing on a panel of sheet metal.

In my case I have 19 more payments on my Camry and it is all mine! I can buy the paint and clear coat to paint it for about $300-$600 depending on what I go with. I am thinking about a custom blended base coat clear coat system. My intieror is still great but if I want to put leather in it I can do it in about 1 day with the OEM leather kit. It is just too easy to reinvent the car if you get tired of it!

Electrical problems are about the only thing that drives me nuts trying to track down. Anything other then electrical is a piece of cake! If a car is nickle and dimeing someone to death it was either neglected or is not of good quality. So you either have to maintain the car better or buy a different brand!

 

[ShiningArcanine]

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JHZR2: I hear what you're saying. I'd take a good running 83 Benz any day of the week over alot of the new cars they're selling these days. I love seeing an old Benz out on the road.

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I don't. They're the ones merging onto the highway at 50mph when everybody is going 15+mph more than that, creating a traffic obstruction, impede traffic going up hills, and oftentimes have a plume of smoke following them.

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These would not be 55 mph speed limit highways, now would they?

 

[KBFXDLI]

I have changed my thinking from the 3 year lease and out to now running cars 100-150k which is still conservative but lets me have a vehicle that is still in good shape all around. But I have a neighbor who takes excellent care of his lease cars for me to buy out at 1/2 of msrp all with less than 50k on the clock and he has NO KIDS to wreck the interiors. Got my daughter a 2002 Honda CRV in mint condition that has been run on synthetic with 5000 oci's since new for $12k. In 2 years he will have a Ridgeline going back with 35,000 on the clock and the buyout is $15k.

My best advice is to find a neighbor who leases and do some of their oil changes and buyout their turn backs. At least you know what you are getting.

 

[blmqzjc]

It's a matter of one's "philosophy". Back in the mid 70's, I worked for a guy (a multi-millionaire) who drove a 1968 Pontiac Lemans convertible with a bullethole in the windshield. One of my associates had just bought a 1973 VW beetle and was telling all of us about it when the boss walked in.
The boss asked, "Whadya pay for that bug"? My friend answered "$1500".

Boss: "$1500 - you got screwed".

Friend: "So how much did you pay for that POS Lemans you drive?"

Boss: "$800. Let me explain something to you son. You pay $800 for a car, you only have to drive it 10, maybe 15 years. You pay $1500, you gotta drive it forever!"

It all depends on your philosophy.

 

[thunderchild]

Wow, does this bring back memories. I used to buy older cars also when I was younger. I had a VW Quantum Wagon with the VW 4 cylinder engine in it. This was before they put the Audi 5 cylinder in. I was out with my new bride and the coolant hose broke. I pulled off in a parking lot and opened the hood to see the upper coolant hose had a split in the top of the hose down the length about 6 inches long. Being young and not too knowledgeable about cars I glanced over at the Auto Zone. I came back to the car with a gallon of coolant and duct tape. I put half the roll of tape around the split hose and just topped off with a little coolant. That repair lasted for the next 6 month's. I had to get rid of it when it blew a head gasket. We were moving out of town then and I did not have time to repair it. I sold it to my neighbor for $50.00. His kid was using it to go back and forth to college the last I heard. Tough car!! Ice storms could not even stop it. I used to commute from Raleigh, NC to Richmond, VA. "Don't ask!"

 

[Bernard Feltzer]

"There is no need to spend $300 for an ECM when you can get a wrecking yard pull for $50 that works fine."

Can't do that with the new models, the ECM has to be programmed with the VIN # by a $2500 scanner owned by the dealer, otherwise it ain't gonna work.

Someday with wireless, if your insurance isn't paid, your car won't start.

 

[rt_ponder]

'cause they can?

 

[GMGuy]

Not to mention, once the wrecking yards get wise, they 'raise' the price, or they end up with a Hollander(?) used parts value guide and lookup parts prices in that, which is usually 50% dealer msrp price.

Alex.