I keep saying that my “beater” that I bought from a friend three years ago (almost) owes me nothing (and it doesn’t really, I am astounded it is still on the road). I don’t take it on long trips, it is a city car, but mostly highway stuff. I managed to get it for $2500.00 from a very good friend, who was going to trade it in on a new car she was buying. The dealership only offered her $2500 as a trade-in, so I said I’d pay that for it (and then proceeded to not pay her in full for 6 months, so needless to say, a very kind and patient friend too). I ended up with a car that I know well, and my mechanic knows too (he has done most of the repairs on it for 8 years at least), so it was really a no lose choice for me.
I have wondered how much this car is actually worth. A friend pointed me to the VMR Canada Car Value Calculator web site. It is a pretty easy web site to use, and my figuring that the car couldn’t be worth any more than $1500.00 , I was surprised that this site values my car around $2600.00 ? Holy cow, that is a lot of money.
Now another way to think of the value of this car to me is, that I need it right now to get my kids shuttled around to all the events they want to go to, so the car may actually be worth more than $2600, in that if I had to replace it, it would cost me a lot more money!
What’s your car worth?
I figure my ’95 Dakota is worth what it would cost me to replace it, less the costs of repair and the additional costs to operate over it’s replacement. As such, it has a value of about $700 – $800/mo. As for what the dealer would offer me on a trade…… that’s a whole other story.
I guess I’m not that great a participant in the economy.
David