"New" Van- $800 (and counting)

[Keleynal]

Many of you know that I recently added a 6th member to my family, pulling my grand total of children up to 4 (no autographs, please). All of my kids still need carseats, so we needed to upgrade our Corolla which comfortably crammed 3 kids in the backseat to some kind of minivan that could handle the smallest member, who ironically needs one of the largest seats.

We eventually found a '95 Plymouth Voyager with right at 200k miles on it that was listed for $1200. The color is purple or maroon depending on your degree colorblindness. It test drove just fine and seemed to be well-maintained. It had only one owner since '95. I usually get used cards checked out by my mechanic before I buy it, but this was over the holidays and we needed something fast. We settled on $800 and I drove away feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

As soon as I could, I took it to the shop to get checked out. It needed all the general maintenance and flushes and tweaks that you'd expect, and it came to about $400. So now I'm $1200 into it and still feeling pretty good.

But wait, there's more. The shop put some leak detection stuff into the oil and found that it was leaking from pretty much everywhere, losing about a half quart a week. I'll be taking it in this week to get some gaskets replaced which will hopefully stop the worst of the leaks, but no promises. That's going to run me about $500. So now I'm $1700 in. Still not terrible, but I hope to God this is going to be the last of my issues for at least a year.

 

[REDACTED]

I hope so too Kel. Unfortuantely I had a bad used car experience in 2011 when I relocated back to Florida. I had limited funds, and actually needed to have my father help me secure transportation. I opted for a used Saturn, 2001, so it was 10 years old when I bought it. The price was $4000 because it was extremely low mileage and one owner as well. We did the Carfax checking, and everything looked great. It drove just fine for a few months, then I started having this weird thing happen with the built-in passlock security system. Something in the on-board computer was malfunctioning and it would prevent the car from starting. I paid a few hundred dollars to have it reset by a mechanic, and he said there was a chance it could malfunction again unless the entire thing was overhauled (another few thousand). Of course I opted out of that.

Well for the next several months I had to replace the water pump, and some other minor maintenance items like wiper blades and a battery.

Then, just before I was to start my new job which required a pretty long commute, it died again due to the passlock system. I had already sunk in close to $1200 above my initial investment, and well, I was over it. It was nice not to have a car payment, but in the long run, it didn't pay.

Not to say that new cars don't have their share of issues, and there are plenty of solid used vehicles out there... but mine was not one of them. I ended up getting a new car, and a monthly payment of about $311.

I hope your new-to-you vehicle will last for a while without any more major repairs. Got to protect that precious cargo!

 

[NeverMore]

After my last fiasco I bought an 800 dollar 20k mile 89 mustang lx convertible 4 cylinder stickshift that has been running like a dream. All I've had to do is change the oil a sparkplug and buy an ashtray for it. There is hope! xD