I has no car payment!

[tcbofade]

Current garage:

2016 Ford F150 XLT.

2017 Ford Fusion Platinum.

2017 Ford Edge Titanium.

Paid off the pick up truck yesterday. 

For the first time in nearly 20 years, we have NO car payment!

All three are paid for, have valid tags, and have comprehensive and collission insurance.

Yay!

[JoeRockhead]

It's a nice feeling to be payment free, nicely done, congratulations!

[SouthJamaica]

---

@tcbofade wrote:

Current garage:

2016 Ford F150 XLT.

2017 Ford Fusion Platinum.

2017 Ford Edge Titanium.

Paid off the pick up truck yesterday. 

For the first time in nearly 20 years, we have NO car payment!

All three are paid for, have valid tags, and have comprehensive and collission insurance.

Yay!

---

Congratulations.

Do you have any other loans that are still open?

[tcbofade]

One mortgage, one second mortgage.

Experian counts the second mortgage as a credit card.

TransUnion counts the second mortgage as an installment loan.

No idea how Equifax sees it.

If I see a score ding for paying it off, I'm fine with that.

Finances > Ficos.

[FicoMike0]

Good job!

I just helped a friend wrestle an alternator on his suv. Like I told him, it cost less than a car payment (including the beer) and only took an afternoon. Keep the old buggy.

[urbex]

---

@FicoMike0 wrote:

Good job!

I just helped a friend wrestle an alternator on his suv. Like I told him, it cost less than a car payment (including the beer) and only took an afternoon. Keep the old buggy.

---

I said that for the better part of 20 years - "It's FAR cheaper for me to keep these 5 old crapboxes on the road than a single new car payment would cost me..." Then having an almost catastrophic failure on my 30 year old Chevy 1,000 miles away from home changed that mindset a tiny bit, lol. 

Main crank pulley came apart on the motor, and thank god I was only a few miles outside of Denver.  I was able to get it towed in to town, dropped off at a motel for the night, the parts store 1/2 mile away had the pulley I needed in stock, and I happened to have the needed tools with me to change it.  I don't even want to think about what it would have cost to have a local shop do it, plus the extra motel charges for however many days it would take for them to get to it along with the "we don't want to deal with old crapboxes but since we can take advantage of someone with little choice..." surcharge. 

100 miles later, I started having issues with the fuel injectors, and just barely was able to limp it home the rest of the way....3 days later, there was a new truck sitting in my driveway with a $40K loan, lol.  At least I was able to spend some time in finding mostly what I wanted, at a halfway decent price, in the dry desert...rather than having to buy whatever I could find locally in that rust belt...

[FicoMike0]

Sometimes you do have to write one off. 

the SUV in question is a 2016. Not that old. We replaced the alternator, tensioner pully and belt, put in a new 850 cca battery and threw in a new air filter and a set of iridium plugs for $450. Got the parts delivered from walmart.com, except the battery and beer, we picked those up at the real wamart. 

[IsambardPrince]

---

@tcbofade wrote:

Current garage:

2016 Ford F150 XLT.

2017 Ford Fusion Platinum.

2017 Ford Edge Titanium.

Paid off the pick up truck yesterday. 

For the first time in nearly 20 years, we have NO car payment!

All three are paid for, have valid tags, and have comprehensive and collission insurance.

Yay!

---

Don't get another one would be the smart move.

Keep what you have. Take care of it. Fund your retirement account. Make an emergency savings.

[IsambardPrince]

---

@urbex wrote:

---

@FicoMike0 wrote:

Good job!

I just helped a friend wrestle an alternator on his suv. Like I told him, it cost less than a car payment (including the beer) and only took an afternoon. Keep the old buggy.

---

I said that for the better part of 20 years - "It's FAR cheaper for me to keep these 5 old crapboxes on the road than a single new car payment would cost me..." Then having an almost catastrophic failure on my 30 year old Chevy 1,000 miles away from home changed that mindset a tiny bit, lol. 

Main crank pulley came apart on the motor, and thank god I was only a few miles outside of Denver.  I was able to get it towed in to town, dropped off at a motel for the night, the parts store 1/2 mile away had the pulley I needed in stock, and I happened to have the needed tools with me to change it.  I don't even want to think about what it would have cost to have a local shop do it, plus the extra motel charges for however many days it would take for them to get to it along with the "we don't want to deal with old crapboxes but since we can take advantage of someone with little choice..." surcharge. 

100 miles later, I started having issues with the fuel injectors, and just barely was able to limp it home the rest of the way....3 days later, there was a new truck sitting in my driveway with a $40K loan, lol.  At least I was able to spend some time in finding mostly what I wanted, at a halfway decent price, in the dry desert...rather than having to buy whatever I could find locally in that rust belt...

---

My car needs about $600-800 in repairs every year on average.

vs. People out there with $800-900 payments every MONTH, insurance bill quadruples. Doesn't stop for 6-7 YEARS and by then their car is worthless compared to what they paid in interest and depreciation. Then it starts breaking down on them again because they're plasticware with a computer now.

Nobody ever gets out ahead by saying "I don't want to drive a $5,000 car so I'll spend $55,000 on one."

[urbex]

In my case, it was more due to the engine in the thing - a 6.5L Detroit Diesel produced V8 diesel...with a generally accepted lifespan of ~250K miles, and I was showing about 230K on the odometer.  Being that the truck (rather ironically) came from Denver originally, it had significant rust in the cab, was in need of a full front end suspension rebuild, and was then about due for an injection pump and injectors...I was looking at potentially investing in the area of $5K-$8K in a truck that in good shape would only be worth about $3K...I decided it was about time to buy myself something nice for once, lol.