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Bill, How much did you buy the car for? I am going to just guess here, but you bought it 6 years ago (1997 or 1998) so it would have been 3 or 4 years old, so I'll just guess and say $12,000 or $13,000 (about half it's new cost right?)
So you've driven it for 6 years (100k miles) and it's now worth $3000 (I just saw a 1980s Chev piece of crap with a For Sale $3000 sign in the window...geez, just park your hot red turbo outside a community college with a $4k OBO sign in your window and you'll sell it that week :)
Back to my point: you've driven it for 6 years, starting from $12k now down to $3k, difference of $9k in depreciation (true you put stuff in, tires, water pumps etc, but you would do that on any car, so that maintenance/repairs would be fairly constant cost of ownership on any car except brand new). So $9k over 6 years in pure depreciation is: $1500 per year of depreciation.
You will have to put in a new clutch I guess, but I would neglect all the other non essentials like shocks if at all possible if you KNOW you are going to ditch it in 3 years. You may just need to start letting go now, but get another $3000 use out of it (2 years) and after that still get something for it...something possibly close to what you say it's worth now. I can NOT believe it's worth $2500. What the hell? It's not like an 88 900 is free and 85 900, they pay you $500 to take home, I mean come on. Drive it to my house and I'll give you $2500 for it today.
I don't get it. I do feel EXACTLY what you are feeling, but I just don't get why these cars don't hold their resale value. I bought a 1973 Mercedes 280C for $1500 which was a steal. As I restore it, I can sell it along side other 280Cs if I wanted to, which sell for $3 to 4k in good condition (mine) or $6 in excellent condition. Why should a 10 year old Saab Turbo be worth less than a 30 year old Mercedes. Who knows, but if you can only get $2500 for it, it's not like it will even help buy a new car that much, so I'd keep it and buy a new car anyway. You'll get more that $2500 use out of it (based on $1500 /yr in used car depreciation, even though really a car depreciates more than that per year). You'll get $2500 worth of depr/use within a year or two. Put in a new clutch and drive it for 3. any other necessities as they come up, and maybe who knows, you might get another 5 out of it.
You just talked me into taking my 1996 900s (140k miles) out of the local classifieds! If I can get the milage to improve AT ALL (15mpg city? puleeze), then I'll drive it til the wheels go square!
Tom.
posted by 12.224.181...
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