Just a thought on buying a new car, vs restoring or buying a restored old car

Alright, say you're one of these people who is dead set on getting a new car with the touch screen, all that nonsense, I probably couldn't sway your opinion. However, if you are one of the people who could live without that, and mostly wants a driver, and not an appliance (I'd say 98% of the people here), here's a thought:

They say new cars run cleaner, are more economical, and more environmentally friendly. Are they? I mean sure they get better gas mileage, but think about this:

Every last trace of manufacturing your car if it was made about 2000 or back is gone, there is no residual pollution left over unless there is some old factory sitting in a state of abandonment turning into nothing again. I happen to know both of my wagons where manufactured in Arlington Texas, a plant open from 1954 to this day.

So with that said, is buying a new car REALLY more economical? Think about the payments, the colossal cost to get something that isn't just another boring eco-box, that's gonna be 20K+. You won't save anything in gas for three to seven years depending on the payment plan, after which you will probably be tired of the car and get rid of it. Yeah some classics can run up into this price bracket, easily, but, again, what are you more likely to turn heads in? A $20,000 loaded Corolla, or a $20,000 '68 Camaro? Probably the Camaro, but who knows? Maybe someone has an eco-box fetish and will drool over that Toyota... Probably not... But they can dream, right?

Now, take an old car like ours, with some time, money, and basic know how, you can have something as reliable as that modern car for about $7,500 (my car being an example, that's the rough budget I have set). Once that is done, you have something dependable, which is as fuel efficient as the modern car in terms of costs, when you factor in car payments, you might as well drive something that gets 9MPG, it's the proverbial trap of the food chain, survival of the fittest still applies. Those who can make, who can build, who can do, are the fittest, those who produce, and those who consume are most certainly not the fittest. This does not just apply to cars, either, take someone who would rather can their computer rather than have someone like me fix it, or learn to fix it themselves. Don't give age as a reason to not know how, my father is 63 this December and he can build a computer, he built his desktop about seven years ago.

No factor can excuse someone from not knowing how to fix things other than general laziness, it's we who make broken things not broken who are the most important in society, because we are often the inventors that push things into a new age. Whereas the consumer, they just consume, and a job at a factory does not qualify them as a producer unless they are hand building Morgans or something. Not in my book, anyway.

Back to the car though, certainly if that new car breaks someone else will fix it for you for a long time, ours is a fix it yourself package unless you have a crate engine with a warranty. So there are, of course, ups and downs of being your own mechanic, your own car dealership, and your own resource pool for everything you may need.

So this begs the question, in the end, which is more satisfying? Owning a new car? Or building a old one into something new? Personally for me it's the latter, getting in and hitting the key, knowing I'm the reason this thing is running and carting my lazy self around. Besides, if I really wanted any of that modern nonsense, they make touch screen kits that fit in my dash. But I don't want any of that, just a stereo that plays when I tell it too without tapping on a screen.

Maybe I'm set in some of the ways of the older generation, by not wanting everything that is new and exciting, hell, I still have a LG flip phone. So yeah, moral of this rant? I dunno, take what you will from it, but it was brought to mind after I had a recent discussion with my aunt of why I don't see any benefit in buying a new car.

 

All depends on what you want I guess. In the mid 90's when I was driving a Colony Park everyone thought I was nuts, I heard nothing but "if you buy a new car you'll get better gas millage"...but at what cost?...

But in 1999 I bout new, a 99 GMC Saffari mini van for my wife ( That's a wagon, rite?) and a $450 Fox body 1986 Marquis wagon for myself. As the years went on the monthly payments on the van stopped but the costly expense's didn't and other than regular maintenance the wagon just kept going.....till it was stolen and smashed

So more years go by, I'm driving low buck wagons that only the od little thing needs replacement and I own my wagons flat out. The costly mini van got to the point of, it's just not worth spending a dime on anymore so I bout myself yet another wagon and put my honey in a new Ford Escape.

So my wagons use more fuel than the Escape, but I've got a bank payment on top of that. Ironically, the pos mini van has become a blessing in disguise as I'm semi retired so I don't have access to the fleet of trucks that I could all ways use, the van is my work mule now witch in turn is saving me from packing, lumber, garden waist, you name it in my wagons.

So I'm happy with my beaters, and the honey is happy with hers...


But now if I ever win the lotto I would by myself one new vehicle, and it's not what you guys would think............

 

As long as the car is in good running condition and all safety systems on the car at the time of manufacture are functioning, it is always more economical to keep an old car on the road than it is to buy new, and for all the reasons you mention.

Even if your old wagon gets maybe 15 mpg while a new car with similar carrying capacity gets 25, it would be a long time that you would recover in gas saved what you spent to buy the new car.


Let's use your example. You spend $7,500 on, say, a good-condition mid-80s wagon or $25,000 on a brand new car or SUV or whatever that carries the same load (and remember that a new vehicle like this might actually be closer to 30K, but we'll be generous for the purpose of this example).

Assume gas is $3.50/gallon. If your wagon gets 15 mpg, then it costs you $3.50/15 mpg = $0.23/mile to drive your car in terms of gas used. If your new car gets 25 mpg, it costs you $3.50/25 mpg = $0.14/mile to drive your new car. That's a savings of 9 cents per mile.

But you spent $17,500 more for the new car. At 9 cents per mile, how many miles do you have to drive to recover that $17,500? Easy enough to calculate: $17,500/($0.09/mile) = 194,444 miles! That's almost 200,000 miles of driving that new car before the cost of driving it will equal the cost of driving the old car the same number of miles. Few people keep a car for 200,000 miles.

If you assume you drive your car the average 12,000 miles per year, it will take you 194,444/12,000 = 16.2 years of driving to recover that cost. And that assumes that gas stays at around $3.50 per gallon during that 16 year period, which is highly unlikely.

So buy the old car, get it in good running shape, and enjoy the money you're saving.

 

Cup holders?
Satellite radio?

That's just CrAzY.

 

I have a red LG flip phone too Reckon...no frills, just like me. Long live the tinkerers (I think that's not a word but...) I like to fix things myself too, and if I don't know how I find out how. Thanks for the post. Good one.

 

Hey - our HHR has cupholders, AND satellite radio, and I happen to enjoy them. Cupholders are handy. Old cars SHOULD have had them.

Alhtough my Safari is fairly well loaded, I admit I do miss certain luxuries - electric mirrors, a nice radio with CD player, maybe even more comfortable seats. So sometimes, when the Mrs. and I go out galavantin' - we take the HHR. It's a wagon too, just a newer, smaller one. It's pretty cheap maintenance-wise (and it's paid for).

 

I've got one of those center hump clingers for change, cups, and cassettes, if that tells you how old it is! I found it in the junkyard in a mangled Crown Vic, it's blue, so it never has matched the interior, but I don't care, it's useful! I want to find another one that has cup holders which are actually deep enough to use. These are alright but they don't hold modern large fountain cups that well. I think I'm going on a junkyard digging trip soon to find a console I can cut up and put down there with cup holders, see? Who needs a new car, I can just pillage 'em when they hit the junkyard and have my own fancy inbuilt cup holders!


Sat radio, sat nav? Could add them to my tank, I care for neither, I have a good sense of direction. Though I do plan to add a dash cam, well it will really be mounted behind the rear view mirror. The way people drive around here, it'll be worth it if I get in a wreck, and worth the entertainment I can provide to ya'll and the rest of Youtube wiht the bad drivers around here.

 

Cup holders?
Satellite radio?

What ever happened to getting in and driving? No wonder there are so many accidents.
In my old cars when I need a cup holder I hand my coffee or soda to my wife. When I want entertained I listen to the exhaust or her complaining the cup is too hot, too sticky, or something else.

Okay I do have cup holders and stereo in my pick up truck and they are nice. But the GPS she bought years ago is still in the box. I've made a few wrong turns. Also discovered some interesting things and places that way. But mostly I just follow the roads and the signs put there for that reason.
I don't need heated or cooled seats. I wear more or less clothes and adjust the AC or heater. I adjust the mirrors before I leave our driveway. And I always use those mirrors when I back up plus walk around my vehicle to make sure little Jimmy from next door is not riding his little yellow and blue toy car nearby.
I also don't put on make-up, adjust my panty hose, comb my hair, fax, text, or phone home whle driving.

I also nearly took the bait and bought an HHR because it got twice the mileage my big truck gets. I'd still be paying on it. So far in the last two years all I've spent on the truck besides gas and oil were two new tires and tail pipes I could have lived without. Had I never bought the truck in the first place I'd had the money to finish all my other car projects.

 

That's exactly what I'm getting at, Denny, all that stuff is a distraction, I'll turn the stereo on when I get annoyed, but that's just because I have a inherent allergy to people, I need to drown them out sometimes.

I never do more than turn the volume up, or down, or turn the radio on or off while driving, even then I know where the controls are, so I don't look away. That's a trick to safe driving, don't fiddle, know where things are. The only reason I'd like a cup holder is so it's less likely to spill on the rare occasion I have something to drink in my car at all.

As for anything satellite? The audio typically is terrible from sat radio, and satellite navigation will lead you through some VERY strange places. I've toyed with one before, it detoured me through a cemetery, down a crooked pot holed side street I never knew existed, tried to take me down an overgrown alleyway, and tried to tell me a street went through someones house and onto the four lane highway on the other side.

So yeah? Technology? I've got all I need when I've got a working, good sounding stereo, and a cell phone in case I break down in the boonies. Someone else can use their GPS to figure out where the road I'm on is, I probably don't know, I've gotten lost on these old mountain back roads many times. Sometimes I completely lose my bearings and wind up on the other side of town.

 

Well written Reckon.

I am driving 100 miles a day, parts in heavy traffic. My wagon doesn't see the commute often so I am stuck driving my modern new 1991 Toyota pickup most days.

So I guess a fella might need at least 2 vehicles.

 

I agree. As much as we don't like it we seem to need a late model vehicle. It's not like the olden days. We have no bus, no taxi, no neighbors we can beg a ride with and it's not always practical to drive the older cars.
A friend just sent a disturbing video about war, imprisonment, etc. We may not need anything in a few months. But there are many things I don't understand.

 

What does the video about war and imprisonment have to do with this? I'm confused how that relates.

 

I didn't post the video because it doesn't have anything to do with wagons, new or old. But if what is there is true, we no longer need to be worrying about vehicles. I'd just watched it and it was on my little mind. Since I have a one track mind it was derailed!

But as I wrote there are many things I don't understand and I don't want to say the sky is falling if it isn't.

 

Uh... :confused: