We recently came across the following article in a popular online auto repair blog which helps explain when you should spend money repairing your car vs fixing it. It helps she some cool insights as we are all faced with this question at least once in our lives. We hope you enjoy the article.
Is My Car Worth Fixing
I recently found myself at a crossroads with one of our family vehicles, a crossroads that so many of us will face at some point in our driving lifetimes. The question before me: Should I fix this car, or is it time to get rid of it before I end up in a financial hole over it? In my case, the car was a long-trusted Volvo station wagon. The car had been used on and off for years and had served the family quite well, never leaving us stranded and always navigating surely through any type of weather.
Body Repairs
If you’re faced with the keep it or chuck it question, and the repairs you’re facing are cosmetic, there are a few factors to consider. You might have a car that still serves you well but is in desperate need of a paint job. Is it worth painting? First you have to ask yourself whether the car or truck is in good mechanical shape outside of the needed body or paint work.
This isn’t just a question of whether or not the vehicle is running. You have to give yourself some idea of its overall condition in terms of future reliability. Unless you have a crystal ball you won’t know for sure, but if the car rattles, jiggles and wanders from side to side going down the road as you smell antifreeze from the front and gas fumes from the rear, it might not have a bright future. Paintless dent repairs are one thing, rust repair is another. If your car is suffering from rust holes, it’s probably not worth doing much cosmetic repair. A rust hole the size of a quarter will usually require a repair area the size of a basketball. For this reason you can be looking at serious repair costs when repairing rust.
