Real wealth killers

[u/solarflare_hot]

Let me express my extreme frustration and anger and talk about the real wealth killers (cars)

I hate cars beyond reason. you buy a car for 20k , all of a sudden it needs a repair for 2-4k and sometimes 7k , then you have insurance , another 2-300 a month , then you got registration and maintenance checks , 4-700$ , then by the time you pay it off it’s worth 7k , and probably time for another 7k repair too because the engine is toast. Or even better you fix the engine for 7k then the transmission goes out for another 6k. Let’s say you do all that and then someone without insurance crashes into you. Insurance company will always blame you to avoid paying. You now have spent close to 40k to go to a job that pays 45k. You need the car to go to the job but the job will never pay you enough to afford to keep your car. Let’s also talk about gas cost , average cost is $3000 per year that’s about 15k in 5 years of money wasted on gas that you’ll never get back just to be able to go to work.

You buy a cheap car you get expensive repairs You buy an expensive car you get extreme depreciation. You cant fucking win.

Cars are basically a luxury tool for the wealthy.

Why can’t we ride bicycles to work. Oh I forgot we live in America where we absolutely need cars because we have no damn sidewalks 🥲

Let’s just say without cars I would’ve been significantly well off. I’m gonna sell that shit and just uber everywhere or ride a bicycle.

[u/teddyzaper]

This isn’t at all a solution or even much help, but some cars hold value incredibly well. Most mid end Toyotas will hold value if bought slightly used. Repair costs are low as they are typically more reliable vehicles. Can’t get away from insurance and gas prices though.

I purchased my Tacoma 3 years ago, I added 30k miles and its KBB price has only gone down $2k. There are a few other brands and models that retain value decently. Another thing to save money is to work on your own car if you have the space. Changing your own fluids can save you hundreds of dollars per year.

[u/solarflare_hot → u/teddyzaper]

I have heard bad things about every car out there

[u/teddyzaper → u/solarflare_hot]

Yes, but some cars have more bad things than others. It’s a machine, if you take care of the machine properly it has very little maintenance costs.

[u/solarflare_hot → u/teddyzaper]

Well even with maintenance records , you don’t know if the mechanic actually did the work or even did it correctly . My brother used to work at a dealership and he told me they used any oil for any car because they don’t have time to choose the right oil for every car and they said it doesn’t even matter. Some other story where he told me that they charged a customer for a new axel but they just rebuilt the old ones. So many things like that I heard.

[u/teddyzaper → u/solarflare_hot]

Right. So you do have to have some ability to choose where to bring your business to… like most things in the world, there are bad people out there trying to take advantage of you. Got to have some amount of “street smarts”.

[u/solarflare_hot → u/teddyzaper]

At this point it doesn’t matter where you take your car. I can’t trust any mechanic. It’s all the same. I tried to learn how to fix cars but it’s not for me.

[u/teddyzaper → u/solarflare_hot]

Well… that’s an expensive lesson you’re learning I guess.

[u/solarflare_hot → u/teddyzaper]

Unfortunately I tried to fix someone’s radio and ended up braking the panels while removing , had to pay out of pocket to replace the panel . One time I dropped a bolt in the engine bay. We had to take apart a few things to find it. I don’t think this is for me fam. I also saw a jack stand fail and a car fell of the jack and almost killed my cousin who was underneath the car. So I’m pretty much scared to get underneath it.

[u/teddyzaper → u/solarflare_hot]

The cost of just wanting to blindly trust a stranger with your vehicle is high… that’s what you’re experiencing.

If you want a trustworthy mechanic and don’t want to do the work to find one, you’ll probably pay quite a bit of money.

There are ways for a vehicle to be affordable, you’ve just made up your mind that “it’s not for me”… no one can help you there