Friday, July 14, 2006

How Old is an Old Car?

How old is too old on a car? Which repair is the final straw on the decision? Which repair makes you feel like if this gets fixed, nothing else can need to be replaced anymore?

The current broken thing on my car is the throttle actuator (I have learned about so many new parts owning this car). What on earth does this do? Well, it's the part that connects your accelerator pedal to the rest of the engine to tell it to go. However, on my car, it's a bit iffy whether that connection will be in place or not. When it's working, the car goes. When it's not, you can press on the accelerator all day long and you'll never hear the engine rev and it won't go faster than the let-your-foot-off-the-brake-and-creep-forward speed. Let me tell you -- that was freaky the first time it happened! But, if I turn off the car, and turn it back on, it fixes it up. For now.

Now, it's not this particular repair that has me questioning my car's longevity. But, we have been making relatively large money dumps into this car over the last few years. Not as much as a car payment would be (and that's unforgivingly every month), but repairs are big lumps unexpectedly.

I'm sure I will get it fixed, and continue on until whatever else goes wrong. But I'm curious -- how do you make that decision on replacing/repairing a car?

2 comments:

revjustin said...

In our family, we have relied on the kindness of strangers to let us know when the car was too old. They usually let us know thier opinions by smacking their car into ours.

Anonymous said...

Ah! I had an 89 Ford Tempo with lots of memories. I ended up selling it for $300 when it began costing too much to just get it to pass state inspection.