The car culture in the United States is unlike anything else in the world. Americans fall in love with their cars for any of several reasons, all of which, no matter how esoteric, are completely valid. That makes the question, ‘When should I get rid of my car,’ very complicated. People can easily get into financial trouble if they are constantly setting money on fire to keep a car, truck or SUV running for purely sentimental reasons. There are a few criteria you can objectively use to decide if it is worth it to hold on to your beloved vehicle or if it is time to move on. Our team spent some time putting together this information to help people make tough decisions. Let’s see what they found.
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Cost vs. Value — The most important thing to consider when deciding to hold on to a vehicle is what it costs to repair it versus how much it is worth. Let’s pretend your current daily driver has a Blue Book value of $2,500 and suddenly the transmission fails. A likely $5,000 repair bill just doesn’t make any financial sense. A used vehicle with a retail value of $2,500 that undergoes $5,000 worth of repairs isn’t going magically be worth $7,500.
Predict the Future — Now that you have sunk $5,000 into a vehicle that isn’t worth that much, what are the odds another high-dollar repair is likely to happen again. We can’t overstate how financially dangerous it is to keep fixing things that don’t add any actual value to a vehicle.
Drops in Efficiency — Old vehicles use more fuel. This is just a thing that happens. Sometimes this can be fixed with a few simple and worthwhile repairs. However, sometimes a new fuel filter and fresh tires won’t fix anything. If you find yourself spending more and more on gasoline each month, it might be time to move on to a newer vehicle.
If you have any vehicle-related questions, any Carizma Motors product expert will be happy to walk you through your available options.
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