Spouse and I share a 1998 Oldsmobile sedan with 62k miles, Kelley Blue Book private sale value of no more than $1600. This is our only car and is necessary to get spouse to work.
We inherited the car about 3 years ago after his grandmother passed. The car was in good shape, but had only ever seen light use and mostly sat in her driveway for 17 years.
We recently drove it cross-country for a move, and in the past 5 months we've spent over $2000 on repairs (massive coolant leak, major wheel alignment issue that included replacing 2 tires in April, etc).
A bunch of service lights came on this week so we took it to the dealer. The inspection for these issues cost $550, and now we are looking at an estimate of repairs over $3775 (speed sensor harness damaged causing anti-lock brake light and trac off service lights in car, two important lamp bulbs need replacing, transmission fluid pan is leaking, front brake pad and rotor replacement is necessary, multiple areas of oil leakage). We are not car experts and do not have the knowledge, time or desire to learn how to do work on the car ourselves.
We were also told previously the car would need new suspension within 2 years at a cost of $1000+.
I've heard that when repairs cost more than the car is worth, it's time to look at a new car.
We have $18500 in student loans at 6.125% interest, no consumer debt and have never had a car payment before. We had been aggressively paying down the student loan, but could theoretically redirect some of those funds to a car payment (ugh).
We make a combined $135000 gross a year, and have $3000 earmarked right now in a new car fund as well as $2100 we are waiting on from a state tax refund. We have about $6100 for the honeymoon we never took, but may be willing to use that on a car if push comes to shove, so total possible car downpayment of $11200. We'll still have around $13k in our emergency fund after paying for the car diagnoses.
Thoughts / advice / opinions on what to do here? Get brakes fixed ($615) so car is technically safe to drive and save aggressively to replace car with a $15k reliable model in 2 to 5 months in cash? Find out what our rate would be for a new(er) used car and start looking today? If we can get a really good interest rate, is it worth it to finance the car even if we could pay for it outright in order to keep laser focus on paying down high interest student loan?
If we need to buy, we would like a good, reliable car that will last us 8 to 15 years. Husband drives to work (20min highway one-way) and we visit family across town (30min highway) regularly.
While I would prefer a small SUV as we plan to start a family soon, I think it's smarter to get a sedan or hatchback to save money. Was thinking Honda Civic or Accord or a Toyota Camry, probably in the 2010-2014 range with less than 50k miles, running around $15k where we are.
Is this more car than we need? Are there better options for us? Open to any and all advice and opinions.
Submitted May 30, 2017 at 11:55AM by cardigancopy http://ift.tt/2rgqmkL
