Cars!
We’ve decided definitely to get rid of the van, a 1993 Plymouth Voyager with around 120k miles on it. We’ll keep driving the reliable Sentra, which as a bonus has been getting 30 MPG every tank, until we find another sedan type of car to replace it with in as little as a couple months to as far away as spring.
We’d love to get something for the van, so I’d been thinking of putting a best reasonable offer sign on it and list the details of what it’s had and is known or expected to need. Figured first I’d post about it, tell the relatives, e-mail the people at work, etc. to see if someone wants it. Otherwise it’s probably just going to get towed away, and it can at least do the good of providing parts to repair other vehicles of its kind.
We just can’t afford to put in the money it needs, want to replace the van and Sentra with one car anyway, will save money on insurance, and do away with the 3-cars parking issue. When it’s time for the Sentra to go, if it’s still chugging along, we’ll probably give it to my nephew for all the help he gave me at the office this summer. He can use it as a beater first car for a year or so and then move on to something better. But we’ll see.
We have the truck parked at the office, shades of a company truck - which we’ve actually considered making it officially - and the owner of the building, who is also the owner of my big client, would prefer not to “have cars parking there overnight.” Which is a riot, since it’s entirely possible at some point that I could have company vans that would legitimately have to park there, much as I noted a nearby pseudo-competitor has in the parking lot where they rent. I can’t imagine that being an issue if it came up as more than a hypothetical, but obviously if it does come to growing in that direction, I’ll have to clarify my ability to park company vehicles first. I know it’s not forbidden by the lease.
The tipping point was seeing that at least two of the tires look unsafe to drive on and need replacing. What we know to be wrong or needed includes: tires; windshield; transmission adjustment; something causing a grinding sound that may relate to the transmission linkage/hookup being out of whack, bearings, brakes being out of whack, or who knows; serious problem being underpowered, as if there’s a vacuum leak, or could be related to the transmission (it seems like the bulk of the problem may be things poorly put back together last time we had it worked on); and I discovered the other day that the AC is completely dead, as if was taken offline entirely last time the car was worked on.
What we know to be good or new about the van includes: new alternator and mounting bracket for same; new starter; high quality (I bought the better parts myself and had them put in) new front brakes and rotors; excellent, almost new-looking body except a bit of rusted area along the rocker panel/door bottoms, I think only on the driver side; it’s comfy to ride in, has great heat (a problem with the Sentra), and a nice, working radio with cassette (totally dead in the Sentra); it’s a few years old now, but it has a high end battery identical to the one my father used in his plow truck in northern VT for 10 years. When I first got the van, it surprised us by needing $1400 of work, which included all the normal things a vehicle with 80-90k miles might want, like total replacement of belts and hoses and timing belt.
Basically, money has been poured into it, trying to get it to a tipping point where it would just go for an extended time without anything major being needed again. I was going to keep it, figuring this would do it for a while, barring that the transmission (a replacement of the one that came in it) dying again.
Trouble is, I see the tires - $300?, the windshield - as cheap as $100 or so if I got junkyard glass and had my brother install it, but $200 minimum commercially, and the “black box” of uncertain under the hood transmission adjustment and probably other stuff, which I have been pegging at the barest minimum of $200-300 to as much as a grand if it’s major enough.
We’re done. It’s probably a good vehicle for someone who can do a lot of this stuff themselves, or who is willing to bet on the repairs plus a small purchase price being an acceptable value.
My parents had a car like that and our mechanic paid them a few hundred for it for parts/mechanic training.
Posted by Ith on 09/15 at 03:12 PMyeah, the mechanic my friend’s mom goes to has just that, it’s a late 80s/early 90s Camry since that’s a popular car in his business. He uses the good parts to determine what he needs to order for his customers, saving time and $$. Perhaps you could talk your mechanic into taking it.....
Posted by caltechgirl on 09/15 at 04:21 PMIf you don’t get a better offer, there is usually a section in the classified ads for people who buy junk cars.
Or if they don’t offer you very much, you could always donate it to Goodwill or another charitable organization. I have donated two vehicles to Goodwill, and one of those they had to pick up with a towtruck.
Posted by Will on 09/15 at 05:34 PMI hear you! Just this week, I got rid of my faithful old Chevy Blazer of five and a half years— transmission was going out— and in its place I picked up for a song a nicely kept up 1992 Jeep Cherokee.
Posted by Paul Burgess on 09/16 at 08:07 AM
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