Topics

If you don’t want to live a life of abject poverty, drive a 20-year old Honda Civic the collective wisdom of the finance community seems to say. Cars are a depreciating asset, you should avoid buying them as much as possible, and if necessary to get a replacement due to old one being no longer cost effective to repair, then get the cheapest, reliable clunker you can find.

Let’s be honest, there is no such thing as a cheap, reliable clunker. Clunker and reliable are opposites, and usually reliable is not cheap. When cars get older, they need more maintance and costly repair. You can keep an old car on the road for quite a long time, if you don’t mind regular visits to the mechanic and dealing with a lot of broken and worn out parts, and poor performance. People put a lot of value in looks, and often look down on people who drive old cars, including police officers who target old vehicles for violations, assuming that the drivers are poor and will not have lawyers or put any challenge to police extraction of wealth out of the poor.

I agree you should buy a car, and hold on to it for a long time. I’ve had Big Red for nearly 14 years now – it will be 14 years come early October. Big Red still runs but it is showing it’s age, including being through 14 years of winter de-icing salts, despite my best efforts to regularly was the salt off it. Rough roads and the lift kit have been rough on the suspension. But it’s a been a lot fun, taking me on many good and memorable trips, and some more mediocre trips like that time burning up the wheel bearing on my truck driving back from West Virginia. Truth is any vehicle as it gets old becomes less reliable. And reliability counts, especially on road trips and vacation when time is limited, or for that matter if you depend on the vehicle to get you to and from work. Can’t be missing work all of the time because your car is junk.

People use the appreciating asset value as an excuse to buy a lavish, unnecessary frills full house that is expensive to heat, cool and maintain. It’s true that car becomes garbage after a decade or so of driving, but does many parts of even the nicest house. Houses aren’t free to live in, they have taxes, energy bills, repair, maintance and upgrade as substantial costs beyond the purchase and finance price. But people buy houses, not just as the most basic shelter, but as a place to give them joy and to feel like a comfortable place to be away from it all. Truth is cars preform more then just basic transportation. They give people pleasure when they drive them, and take them to pleasurable places, at ease. If cars were just basic transportation, why not just take the old city bus every where? That’s an even cheaper option then owning an old Honda Civic. Or better yet, walk to work and the market. But we like the freedom an automobile brings.

15 years ago as we were climbing out of the Great Recession, I was hard pushed to ever consider buying a Japanese car. It seemed anti-American, even though plenty of my friends including those who drive pickup trucks, swore by the reliability and simplicity of the foreign brands. I wanted a big jacked up truck, like so many of the farm kids I went to school with had. They used from farm things, they needed the power to tow and haul cattle, hay and tractors and who know what else. A big truck also seemed attractive to me, as I’ve long been a truck-cap camper, since I got my Ford Ranger more then two decades ago, and I wanted more room then a Ford Ranger. So I got Big Red.

Big Red has been great. But he’s big, which means he’s not great for off-roading, small parking lots, urban streets, or even tight campsites. He cruises nice on the highway, but the heavy weight means he’s a bit of dog on the hills, especially with the lift kit and the way those big tires are slow to accelerate and even more tricky to slow with the brakes. You really got to be careful and down shift and be easy on the brakes as you go down the big hills. Truth is I want something smaller if I’m thinking about driving out west, next year to the Midwest but in future years, who knows how far west. I want so mething easy to drive and more fuel efficent.

Mom suggested why don’t I consider an small all-wheel drive SUV. That way the cab can be heated in the winter for camping – and I don’t have to go out and buy a truck cap. Have you looked at the price of truck caps these days? The days of a very nice truck cap coming in under $2,000 are long gone. But I still want a truck. Maybe a Toyota Tacoma 4×4 extended cab? Or a similar American model of the mid-size? Nissan’s trucks are said to be an old reliable design, and have g reat prices but who knows if Nissan will be around in 10 years, they’ve had such trouble with their car fleet being crap, and nobody buys Nissan car anymore, unless they don’t know how bad Nissan CVTs and engines are on their SUVs and cars. I would love a manual transmission, some of the Toyota Tundra 4×4 still have that as option, as it’s so much better for off-roading, and honestly, driving in the snow too.

I could wait and see how much longer I can keep Big Red on the road, but I want to look late next winter into early spring at getting a new truck, hopefully before Big Red is no longer able to be driven without substantial repairs. It’s much easier to get around to car dealerships and lots to look at cars when you have your own vehicle. It also would be easier to get gear out of the old truck, when you’re not rushing to clean things out at a mechanic shop or roadside, before the vehicle is junked. Trade in values for running vehicle, are far better then a junked vehicle too.

How many more years can I get out of Big Red? That’s a valid question. Maybe I could get Big Red through another year, into late 2026 or even 2027. But let’s be honest, he’s 14 years old and getting up their on the miles. And I want to make that Great Midwestern trip next year to Northern Michigan and Wisconsin and I don’t want to be driving an old clunker that could leave me on the side of the roads between the cornfields or worse yet on a dirt road in Michigan wilderness. I want to be comfortable, cruising in a modern, safe vehicle with things like adaptive cruise control.

So maybe a Toyota Tacoma Extended cab 4×4 is my best choice, but I should also see what Detroit is producing that is similar these days. I know GM’s latest batch of engines are pretty bad but I’m not sure if that applies to the smaller trucks or not. I don’t think I want something as small as the Ford Maverick but also not full-size. I do also want to get a cap that I camp in and a rack up top for the kayak and solar, and a trailer hitch for a bike rack. Probably mount all that camp power batteries, controller and inverter in the bed, though I would run a voltage controlled relay to feed power both to starting battery when camping with solar and also feed power to accessory batteries while driving.

At one level, I have some time to consider my options as I want to keep Big Red on the road at least through the winter if possible, though I still have to get it past inspection in December and any other mechanical breakdowns that occur in the meantime. And you don’t know with a 14-year old truck what could break down, but I’d much rather be beyond salt season before I get my next truck, which will hopefully last me through retirement around age 55. As  I make good money, and I like traveling dirt roads in my truck, so I should get one next year, so I’m ready for my epic trip next year.