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On Oct 20, 1:16 pm, jim wrote:
wrote:
On Oct 20, 12:46 pm, wrote:
I have kept my two old trucks running far beyond reason with my old
1985 Nissan having 313,000 and the 1988 Dodge having somewhere between
180,000 and 200,000. This weekend, coming back from working on my
sailboat, I was seriously worried the Nissan would not get me home.
Not only is the transmission going bad, the center support bearing is
gone from the driveshaft, I cannot get her to go into reverse without
effort, now I seem to have a timing issue making her miss a lot and
lose power (maybe timing chain has slipped). No gages except the tach
and odometer work. One of the front drive axles has a torn boot (I
never use the 4wd so it does not matter). She would not pass
inspection anywhere else cuz the pollution control stuff long ago
rusted away.
Now the Dodge (the only vehicle I allow my 18 yr old son to drive) has
developed transmission probs. I simply cannot continue to repair so
many things because it takes all my time.
I loathe the idea of truck payments and comprehensive insurance but it
looks as if I'll have to just do it if I want to keep towing my boat.

Maybe I am too obsessive about having little debt but I always thought
of it as a freedom issue. With little debt I could do as I pleased.
Of course, having kids changed that some but still I have waaaaaay
less debt than most. It just seems WRONG to take on debt that ties me
down. My wife says "Dont worry about it, you'll keep this truck for
20 years too" but it is the near term debt idea that slays me. Saving
up to pay almost all cash would be difficult with so many kid expenses
and my wifes mouth surgery and so on and on, even the down payment is
tough when we want to keep a reasonable cash reserve just in case.
How do y'all justify debt on a vehicle to yourself?

I imagine it involves a lot of lying to ones self

Quite frankly, I am finding that I have little time to do any repairs
the past few years. Fortunately, my trucks are so old that I dont
have to do that much cuz all the stupid stuff like pollution canisters
long ago fell off. It is possible that I am old enough that I can
justify not lyin under a truck in the heat to replace a clutch. I
lalso know that I have waaaaay too many projects to spend much time on
repairs. Maybe I am just tired of doing it.
Here is a possible scheme: Buy a Titan or Tundra and then build a
trailer to allow me to occasionally haul the 7700 lb sailboat places.
Could I justify this with the Titan or Tundra costing about 1.4X the
gas all the time? The smaller Tacoma or Frontier would easily haul
the Tolman Skiff.
Y'all with larger trucks, how did you justify it?

I am having no problems with my F150. Other than I bought a year or two
early. If I had waited, could have gotten a good used one for a fraction of
the cost. But love how it drives. Would do a F250 or F350 if the boat is
really big. Even use the 4x4 in the winter.

Had a Nissan, sold it at 250,000 as rust. Had some problems with it when
new but was fixed by the dealer. Most Dodge owners seem to get a trany fix,
or in at least 3 of 4 I know that have RAMs have.

Not a big fan of GM since the car we had crapped it's transmission at 16,200
and had to argue with them for a proper fix and not a band-aid fix.

Justify it? Easy, I don't want more than one vehicle, but it must be a good
one. Most people overlook a vehicle depreciates+maintenance faster than the
fuel you feed it. So fuel mileage inside of reason isn't an issue.
Reliability and longevity is.

It must pull a 2500 to 3500 lb boat safely. And I don't want under powered
and under provisioned wandering all over the road going 30 mph up hill.
Safety is a must. F150 Lariat hauls it easy and safely.

Must be 4x4. I need to get to work even if their is 4-7" of white stuff.

V8, I like heat at -20F. And they run better too at low temperatures.

I justify it because it fits my needs, one vehicle does all and I like
driving it. Plan on keeping it a long time.