Or, they would have been if both cars suddenly didn’t need major work that actually cost more than said car payment.
First, it was new tires for the Jeep last month. Unfortunately, the price of tires has gone up. Way up. Last time, I had to buy a set it was around $600. This time, it was $810. At least they’ll last a while (hopefully at least 50K miles). Thanks to a good mechanic friend of mine, Amos, I didn’t have to replace the front brakes–he turned the rotors for a very reasonable price and we were good to go on that.
Then, last week, I noticed my Mustang was lurching and/or bucking when I was just cruising down the road maintaining speed. If I was accelerating or idling, no problem. I had just filled up recently, so I thought maybe it was bad gas. The problem got worse until finally on Monday I got a “Check Engine” light. Oddly, after the check engine light came on, it ran better.
Well, my car has just over 100K miles, so I figured it was time for a tune-up anyway. Amos is a little inconvenient when I need to leave the car for a period of time, so I took it over to America’s Service Station where Shane takes his car. I figure if they can keep his ’96 Ford Exploder (that he didn’t change the oil in for the first 60K miles or so that he owned it) running, they could fix my car.
About an hour later, they called and said it was misfiring on a cylinder due to a bad O2 sensor (crap, that sounds expensive) in addition to needing the tune-up ($160 just for plugs and wires). The nice thing is they told me the coolant flush/fill that I had suggested (I’ve never had it done in the car) was not needed. So, that saved me a few bucks. Still, it came out to just a few bucks shy of $800.
Well, I guess I’m glad I don’t have a car payment. Otherwise, it might have been a challenge to come up with how to pay for the last two months! I can now, however, give a pretty glowing recommendation to America’s Service Station considering they had the car done by just after lunchtime and actually saved me a few bucks by not doing some of the things they could have. I wouldn’t have even blinked if they had serviced the coolant system, but they didn’t.
Oh, and it runs a heck of a lot better. I’ve known something wasn’t quite right for a couple weeks now. I guess when you drive a car nearly every day for 10 years, you get a bit of a “connection” to it.
Unless you have to make costly car repairs each month you will come out on the winning end of not having a car payment over time. That is why I still drive the 96 Ford Explorer. Even with the repairs (including a transmission rebuild) the monthly cost over the nearly 10 years I have owned it have been real low. Something like $200 including all repairs and the initial purchase cost. That is why each year when I think of replacing it a look at payment I would have if I bought something else usually sobers me up.
We as a family are less than a year away from no car payments (mine is newer, wife’s is paid), and I want to stay that way for a while.
Trick is not to let the car know your payments are done, then it doesn’t break down. 😉