In early 2012, my car finally went kaputz. It was a mix between several issues, including the fuel injectors, the transmission, the electrical system and the car’s old age.
The car was older than I was at the time of it’s demise, and I’ll admit to being a bit relieved that I could finally upgrade my car. It had neither heat nor air conditioning, which would have been fine save for the fact that 3 of the 4 windows weren’t working either.
In any case, it was long overdue and I was looking forward to having some relief in the hot, muggy summers.
The day that my car broke down and I received an almost $5,000 quote to fix it, I started looking quickly for a vehicle. Luckily, I had anticipated that my car wouldn’t last very much longer, so I’d been looking into which car would best work for me. However, if I hadn’t been in this situation before, I wouldn’t have known what to do.
Get a Quote
The first thing you should do if your car decides to give you a hard time is get a free quote for a car repair at your local shop.
They’ll diagnose what is wrong with the car, and let you know in a detailed quote. That way, you can look at whether or not it’s worth fixing, and if so, whether you can do the work yourself or get somebody to do it for cheaper.
Decide Whether It’s Worth Fixing
After you get a quote, you need to decide whether or not the repairs required are worth the funds. Consider:
- The age of the car
- Other issues
- Mileage
- Lifestyle (has it changed?)
- Availability of funds to buy a different vehicle
- Requirement for a car
If you decide to fix your car, great, but if not, hopefully you’ve done a thorough analysis before jumping into buying a new car.
Buying a New (To You) Car
When my car died, the problems weren’t worth fixing. I would never sink $5,000 into a 24 year old car just to get it to run. It was fraught with problems and I decided to buy a new car.
Again, I was prepared for this, so I had a car fund and a good idea of what I wanted. I found the car for me right away, and after narrowing it down to a few contenders, I decided to use a car loan calculator to find out what my financial position would be to get into a newer car, and how quickly I would be able to pay my car of choice off.
I didn’t buy new, but I bought a car that was around 4 years old but which had very, very low mileage. I was able to get a car loan for a very low interest rate, so I could keep my savings in my account accruing interest (and luckily, more interest than I was incurring with my loan).
Pay It Off
No matter what, a car loan is a debt. If you buy a car and use a car loan (most people can’t fund a newer car with cash), start paying off that debt as quickly as possible.
