On the coldest day of the year, the heater in the car doesn’t work. Oh Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?
Life revolves around the delicate balance of if and when to renew the vehicles in the household. In a duo-car home, the situation you want to have is to have one car that is ending its life while the other one is in its early years. This avoids the double-whammy.
Circumstances such as opportunities can arise that place both vehicles on the same life-track. We are in this situation, albeit a little bit to our surprise.
The ’97 CRV is nearing its demise. However, it is still a reliable vehicle and has little maintenance requirements other than the standard upkeep for aged vehicles. The yearly upkeep however is still well below the annual cost of a new vehicle (either leased or owned). Note: the CRV has racked up 255,000 KMs. I truly believe this vehicle could go to 500,000. Yet, this may be the year to trade the bad boy in before something does go wrong.
The ’00 Accord is in ‘mid-life’ and our expectation is to keep this vehicle for another 4-5 years. Thus, we are on the alternating life-cycle plan. But there is a kink in the execution of the plan. We’ve had to replace the transmission already, and now the heater is blown….which likely means there is some sort of coolant leak somewhere. It appears we are averaging about 1 additional trip to the mechanic beyond the standard maintenance trips. This introduces uncertainty and an additional cost that is approaching the annual cost of a new and more reliable vehicle. However, the plan is to stay the course.
The twist to the strategy is when to strike into the new car (or slightly used) market? With the changing technologies with electric cars, etc, is it more prudent to wait 1 or more years to let some of this stuff unfold and come down in price? If we hit the market early before some of the technology plays out would we be investing and wasting $$ on the current archaic technology?