WHEN repair costs start adding up, it may be time to consider giving up your beloved jelly-green jalopy.
Knowing when to sink more money into an old car and when to throw in the towel and purchase or lease a new car can be difficult.
Clark Lawson, owner of First Street Garage in North Vancouver, says it comes down to a simple question: "Is it taking all your vacation money?"
"First of all, the vehicle has to be safe. So if it starts to have rust holes in the body or the frame or major components then that's obviously a huge issue right there and you should be moving on," he adds.
Lawson says if you're spending all your money on repairs where parts are failing and not just scheduled maintenance, it may be time to upgrade. But repairs can also be things like brakes, batteries and tires and these are wear-and-tear items, he adds.
He suggests keeping a file with records of all your vehicle's repair, maintenance and other costs and looking at that file once a year to see how much money you spent on your vehicle, and how much it averages over a month. Also important to note is how much of that money is spent on maintenance, how much is spent on wear-and-tear items and how much is spent on broken-down repairs, where something has failed on the vehicle.
A good ballpark budget is $1,500 for repairs and maintenance each year, says Lawson.
"Maintenance costs usually on a good vehicle will exceed the repairs," he notes.
However, the decision about whether or not to keep an older vehicle can also depend on the overall condition of the vehicle and how long you expect to keep it.
For example, if a vehicle is worth $3,000, and a family has to spend $1,500 now to keep it on the road for the next two or three years, it may or may not be worth it.
"If it suits their needs and it's been fairly cheap to maintain, that's a pretty good investment to keep it going for another two or three years. If you spend the $1,500 but you suspect that two months later something else is going to go for the same amount of money and so on and so on, or the last year you've been spending that kind of money then I wouldn't invest that," says Lawson.
In some cases, certain issues may be the beginning of a cascade of repairs based on the mileage and the quality of the vehicle. If items start failing that are not normal items to fail, such as steering suspension components that typically are supposed to last for close to the longevity of the vehicle or vehicle electronics, it may be time to look at other options.
Mileage itself, however, is not necessarily an indication of how long a car will last. The quality of newer cars is quite high these days and they are reaching higher mileage.
"You may find the engine gets a little bit tired, maybe it uses a bit more oil, but if properly maintained vehicles can keep going for a long time now," explains Lawson.
Having to use a lot of oil
and seeing billowing blue smoke from the tailpipe are signs that the car might be too old, though.
More important than the mileage these days is the car's maintenance, suggests Lawson.
"Maintenance has proven over the years that it saves costs in repair," he says.
"In other words, if you don't service the transmission properly and change the filter and change the fluid on a regular basis you will drastically reduce the lifespan of that transmission."
Engine coolant is also an important element to consider. There are different types now and all have different intervals for when they should be changed.
"If you don't change them they get very corrosive and cause all sorts of damage to other components like the radiator, water pump, hoses, and all these things get deteriorated if the coolant is left too long in the vehicle," explains Lawson.
"A vehicle that has been properly maintained generally is going to give you a lot less costs and more time on the road."
