I Hate When That Happens

We read everyday in the news about the tough economic times, and indeed they are. I was talking to a long time customer about his 2003 Ford F150 that has 163,000 miles on it. He was picking it up after really what I would call a major repair of around $600.00 which included a 20 mile tow. One would think that he would be somewhat upset. But he was just the opposite. He said he has had this vehicle since it was a year old and he had driven it about 140,000 mile of its life and this was the first real major thing that he has done to it. We got talking about how the vehicles now days are so much better than they were 15 years ago. We spoke about the quality of the bodies and how they don’t rust like they used to. We talked about how he takes care of his vehicles and does what the owners’ manual says. He paid his bill and went on his way.

A couple days later he stopped back in and gave me an article he had just read from his AARP magazine. The name of the article from the Aug 2009 edition is “A Keeper is Cheaper”. This article was talking about the same things that we had talked about a few days before. It had many examples of people having cars with 200,000, 300,000, and even 400,000 miles on them and that they were still good dependable transportation. There was a quote in the article that I have been saying for a long time. It reads” The secret to automotive longevity turns out to be no secret at all: it’s maintenance.” There are many testimonials in the article about how people have payed attention to there fluids, changed them when needed, done needed inspections and taking care of things before there become an issue, and it’s all cheaper in the long run.

They gave a great illustration of someone who had a vehicle and drove about 22,500 miles a year, which is about 50% more miles per year than average. In 5 years they would have done about 30 oil changes for about $1,200.00. Miscellaneous services, filters, hoses, tire rotation etc. would be an additional $1,200.00. They had a couple more major things like a timing belts, shocks and struts for another $1,100.00. This adds up to about $3,500.00 or about $700.00 per year. The article supposes that you bought a new $20,000.00 car and finance $18,000.00 at 7% for 48 months. The payment would be about $430.00 per month or $5,160.00 per year. The point is that a new car really can pay havoc on your budget. And remember that your new vehicle still need its oil changed, tires rotated, etc. It also supposed that the maintenance cost were twice a high at $1,400 per year, it still beats those car payments by $3,800 per year. In addition we have not considered the additional cost of insurance for a new vehicle.

In their analogy, if you’re annual maintenance cost were $1,400 per year and you kept your car for 5 years after it was paid for. This savings would be about $19,000.00 compared to buying a new car every 5 years. Isn’t that interesting? Also remember that in the example this person drove 50% more miles per year than the average, being about 12,000 miles per year. There are other things that also can help prolong the life of your vehicle, like washing it and keeping it clean. This is especially the case here in Minnesota which uses a lot of salt/chemicals on the roads in the winter. If you have misplaced your owners manual, pick one up or ask your shop you go to, to print out a maintenance schedule for you. Get your vehicle back on track and get it in proper shape. Something that we have seen lately is people not replacing their timing belt at the recommended interval. If this belt breaks, it usually does major damage to your engine. The old adage again is true: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In this case it is worth a TON of cure. I Hate When That Happens!