My car, Fido. Fido has been been a source of many posts (see transportation label). He's had his share of mechanical problems, been towed and most recently, Fido was broken into.
Yep. On Saturday, July 28th, I went to my car and found that someone had broken a window, stolen the radio, scratched up the paint and made me very sad. Fido's back now - I just picked him up from the shop yesterday. He's all shiny and new.
Well, except for the lack of radio, broken speedometer & odometer and lack of power doorlocks.
So... do I get rid of my 97 VW Golf? It's got just under 100k miles. Looks great now after the body shop fixed up the paint. Few issues (see above). Kelley Blue Book puts it at $3400 for private party sale. I'm guessing I could get $3000 or so for it, depending on what *else* is wrong with it.
Pros & cons...
- Cheap to maintain, totally paid off ... until more stuff breaks
- Parking's not horrible ... except that I spend more time moving it each week to avoid street cleaning than I do driving it
- I don't need it now, but what about next summer when I may get a job somewhere outside of SF?
- I could join CityCarShare or ZipCar for trips out of the city (mountain biking, when guests come to visit, stuff like that)
- I could use the cash, but I'm not desperate for it
- I really hate driving around the city
- I haven't lived in the city during the rainy, cold season (not snowy, but still crappy for bike riding & walking)
- Getting rid of my car would be a move in-line with my sustainable ideals... but is it too idealistic?
So... step right up and click Yes or No. Comments are, as always, welcome and encouraged.
3 comments:
To me it just sounds like you need to let Fido go. I think it causes you too much time and effort to keep it. Fido should not be this broken at 100K - for instance - when a Honda Civic reaches 100K, you still think it's at 50K since nothing is broken. Not sure why Fido felt it necessary to turn itself into a red lemon!! :(
I say no, not yet. I would wait until you finish grad school and see where your new job takes you. It's only one more year, right?
I know one thing and that's that I HATE rain falling on myself. I know you're quite public trans-savvy (sp?), but it would suck to be caught in days of rain with just an umbrella (-ella....-ella....-eh.....-eh...-eh....)
I say, at the very least, you should keep Fido through winter and monitor how much you needed him. If you survived without him, it would be a stronger argument for selling him.
However, I'm also in Kate's camp: You should hold onto Fido until after graduation so that you're not limited by where/what kinds of jobs you can accept.
Unless of course, you have enough in savings that you could afford to sell Fido with the reassurance that if you had to (i.e. in order to take a job in BFE) you could buy something new at that time.
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