There is a general category of urban legend that features beater cars that simply never die. Many of these urban legends revolve around Hondas and Toyotas from the 1990s, even spawning the great “1999 Toyota Corolla – Fine AF” post on Craigslist. Many people have anecdotes of older cars seeming to last forever, or stories of buying a car for cheap and selling it for as much or more even years later.
But I don’t completely believe these stories. They really present something of a myth, born, I believe, from middle class values and fantasies.
First of all, I owned one of these beaters, a mid-90s Accord. Rather than these cars being indestructible, Honda had simply installed long-lasting engines and transmissions in them, perhaps even by accident. The transmission was known for shifting rough, but mine made it well beyond 250,000 miles. But not all was not well with that car when I bought it. I remember needing to replace the ball joints, IAC valve, EGR valve (which got plugged and killed the car several times), brakes, radiator, and rear main seal, among other things. Most of this I could do myself these days, but as a broke college student, it sucked.
I tried to do the timing belt myself, and although I did get down to the engine on that side, I couldn’t follow the instructions beyond that and had to get my two mechanic friends to bail my sorry butt out. One friend did say, though, “Dude, you could have done it. The instructions just weren’t clear at all”. However, it was only from that attempt that I realized how convoluted the engine design was and how easy it could have been to screw that job up. Somehow, that engine was known for being very reliable, but if that belt got too old and snapped, you were f’ed. What’s your definition of “reliable”?
I sold that car to a friend’s co-worker for $700, and he later sold it for $500. As funny and as great as that is, it too plays into the myth of the cheap, indestructible car, because he did have to put some money into it, it was stolen several times, and I’d be curious if the windshield ever was replaced, as when I owned it, the rust in the area where the glass sits was so bad that glass installers refused to change it, for legal reasons.
My sister and brother-in-law had an SUV that they sold after it lost 2nd and 4th gear. They actually sold it for a decent chunk of money, even after fully disclosing the issue to the buyer. I guess if all you need to do is drive to the grocery story every now and then, you probably don’t need 2nd and 4th gear, but I personally wouldn’t call that a sweet find and I wouldn’t trust it for anything beyond short distances.
One of the key ways my opinions on money have shifted over the years is that while I started my FIRE journey focused on spending as little as possible and being frugal, I somewhat quickly realized this didn’t always work in my favor.
First of all, people in the middle class love bragging about how frugal they are. It’s part of the culture. It doesn’t matter if they spent over half a million on a house or own several $30,000 bank notes for their cars, if they save $50 at the store, they think they are geniuses. And don’t get me wrong, sometimes these stories are quite fun and can be very beneficial. But they overlook a bigger issue. For example, I have some cheap furniture finds that I’m proud of, but the cost of furniture pales in comparison to the cost of eating fast food or visiting convenience stores on a regular basis [ask me how I know]. That one-time deal that saves you $200 can be nice, but no amount of savings deals can compete with your general spending behavior.
When I bought my current car, the battery was 7 years old. I immediately changed it, as it is very rare for batteries to last that long. With the new battery, I told myself that I would change it at five years no matter what. At the five year mark, I pushed my luck by no more than two or three weeks, still planning to replace it, when it died. Fortunately I was at home, and my roommate was able to drive me to the parts store to get a new battery. If I had been 2 hours into the mountains, I may have needed to get towed, which would have cost far more than a battery. And that’s the thing: people who try too hard to be frugal push their luck on things like that and often end up paying more in the long run. Sure, you can “save” $150-200 on a battery by trying to push your luck another year, but you aren’t actually buying yourself much time or reliability.
And that’s what happens with these old beater stories. I could have bragged about my old Accord lasting for so many decades, but it was a painful journey, and probably something of an unreliable journey for the guy who bought it from me. Sometimes these older cars even get old enough that the brake master cylinder fails, as happened to one friend’s family car. Sure, my old car is still going, but what will need to be changed on it next? It’s like paying to rebuild the engine and transmission but saying, “It still runs!”
In general, a “good” car might have a long-lasting engine and transmission. Because these are the expensive repairs that often “kill” a car, at least from a financial perspective, they sort of define the life of the vehicle in a way that other parts don’t. But beyond these two things, everything else still wears out and has to be repaired and/or maintained. Either that, or you are being negligent.
One old friend had a car that was in absolutely terrible shape. But because it was still going, they just decided to keep driving it. When you don’t put any money into a car, at all, the chance of being in an accident increases a lot. And that doesn’t mean you should do things you don’t need to do [note to self], but cars can and do wear out over time. Thinking your car is immune to this “because it was a good find” is delusional.
In fact, I’ve gone in the opposite direction with my car, for better or worse. I replace a lot of things as preventative maintenance, and it’s overkill. Over time, my car has performed very well and I’ve had a lot of trust in it. But this trust has come at a price. It has not been a cheap car in that sense, but I don’t know that I would want it to be a cheap car, as I generally value reliability over cost savings [though not to the point of buying new, which is a broader discussion]
Sure, if you’re comfortable with your car dying in the middle of an intersection, be my guest and never pay for anything on it. But I don’t think that’s the smart or responsible thing to do.
It’s otherwise okay if you do want to prioritize cost savings over reliability, especially if you don’t tend to drive far, but you need to have the right perspective on this and recognize it for what it is. I just replaced the drive belt tensioner on my car with an OEM part. The previous part was aftermarket and it apparently only lasted 3-4 years. I wish I had just installed OEM in the first place, as I wouldn’t have had to change it again. [Funny story, a friend actually changed the tensioner for me, but then I accidentally destroyed it getting the belt off to change the water pump, so I had to buy 2, and then the OEM! I guess that’s better than paying money for OEM and then accidentally destroying that, but still. Lessons were learned!]
And no, you can’t get away with neglecting everything on a car forever. Sure, having fresh power steering fluid may not be incredibly important, but if you never change the oil, for example, your engine will eventually cannibalize itself. With older cars, many people say, “I just want to get a few more years out of it!” but after a few years have passed, they almost always hope for a few more!
Cars are not created equally, and some manufacturers and models are way better than others. But cars don’t fail: parts fail. Your car is only as quality as the parts in it and the care you take of it.
So this whole idea that there’s some magical deal out there, waiting for you: a car that costs nothing and sells for more, that never leaves you stranded, never needs maintenance, never needs anything, and is perfectly reliable? It’s a myth. It doesn’t exist. That’s simply not how complex machines work. You get to pick what you prioritize with your vehicle, but you have to make that decision and own it.
Edit to add: Scotty Kilmer has a shtick about having never spent more than $7,000 for all of his cars, even though he’s a YouTube millionaire these days. He never says how much he has spent TOTAL on his cars, or his wife’s car, but he always goes back to that $7,000 figure I think because he’s trying to represent the possibilities of the middle class “everyman”. Over time, things like this have become more and more annoying to me, not because they are bad in principle, but because they represent what I can only think to call “middle class self-righteousness”, which can be deceitful because it doesn’t look at the bigger picture and the larger overall costs. Money and Judgement Part 2? But that’s something I need to spend much more time thinking about before I form opinions that are too strong on it. Some of my own ways of thinking are starting to annoy me, too. Someday I want to write about the things I’ve been wrong about and the ways in which my opinions have changed over time.