Downsizing again

Remember the car issue? Buy a new car, buy a used car, buy a scooter? Well, here's the story.

We have a 2002 Ford Focus and a 1990 Volvo station wagon. We bought the Ford new, but it has been a lot of trouble. We only got about a year trouble-free before things started happening to the thing.

The brakes and tires were so cheap we needed new tires at 14,000 miles, and new brakes at 17,000 miles. The rotors went out with the brakes, so it cost us nearly $600 to get that fixed. The materials in the car are extremely cheap -- the rearview mirror constantly falls off, the dashboard rattles, and the seatbelts make a squeaking noise the entire time you drive.

The transmission has gone out on it twice. The first time it was under warranty. The second time was in 2005, just 18 months later and a few hundred miles out of warranty. Before we could have it looked at, however, my husband had a major accident (the car got swept up in a flash flood) and the entire engine had to be replaced anyway, so we ended up not having to replace it ourselves. (Free transmission: positive. Car that smells like pond water: negative). The insurance company has insured the repairs it made, and the car actually ran better after it had been submerged in water, because they fixed everything, but that happiness only lasted about a year.

Now the transmission is making rumblings again; the clutch is also making strange noises, and the car has been plagued with electrical problems. The dashboard rarely works, and the car dies at every stoplight. We don't know if this is related to the flood or if it is just the general crappiness of the car.

Now for the 1990 Volvo Wagon.

We bought the Volvo as a stop-gap measure when the Ford was in the shop. It took eight weeks to get the Ford fixed, and our insurance didn't cover a rental car, so we needed something -- anything -- to drive during that time. I had been looking at slightly larger vehicles because we wanted to have another child, and a five-passenger car becomes a four passenger car if there are two car seats. I found the Volvo and it was cheap -- just $2400, and almost $900 under blue book. We bought it, and for what we paid, we've gotten a lot of driving out of the car.

About a year later, however, the a/c conked out on the Volvo (rough in Tucson, let me tell you). Since then we've had many small problems, but the worst came about 9 months ago. The car would randomly die while we were driving it. It is an automatic, so this meant we had to stop the car, put it in park and restart via the ignition. As the condition worsened, driving became hazardous. Finally, the car was only used by my husband to get to work and back, a commute of only 2.5 miles each way, and he could go via residential streets. It would die as many as four times each way. We took the car to a mechanic 3 times -- each time cost $85, just to look at it -- and while they changed the electronic fuel transmission, did something with the battery, or held up their hands in amazement, they never fixed the problem.

Two weeks ago, the Volvo died for good.

The Ford regularly dies up to a dozen times on a trip to the mall or grocery store.

We were at a loss. Here we have a five-year-old car that barely runs, and a very solid Volvo station wagon that doesn't.

We decided to just sell the Volvo for cheap, so I put it on Craigslist for $1000 and invited anyone to bring their mechanic and hope for the best. Well, someone e-mailed me the name of a Volvo mechanic here in town.

He works on his own. He travels to where the car is -- doesn't need it to be towed to him.

He charges $55 an hour, but only if he actually works an entire hour. What a concept!

He took a look at the Volvo, found what was wrong, and fixed it in less than 30 minutes. He charged us $83.51. The cost of labor was a scant $35. I was practically singing in the streets.

Meanwhile, we went Scoot Over here in Tucson to look at scooters and took some test drives. Boy, are they fun! They are a lot more powerful than they used to be. I drove a the Kymco People S 200 -- a 167cc 4-stroke -- and it went from 0 to 45 mph with just a flick of the wrist. It scared me a little -- I was in a residential area and the speed limit was 25! Plus, it's cute.



See? :)

We discussed and hemmed, we hemmed and hawed. Finally we made a decision -- we are going to keep the Volvo. Rather than invest in a car, we're investing in a mechanic.

We're going to sell the Ford. While it doesn't seem intuitive to sell the newer car, if we sell the Ford it will pay for the scooter -- in full (it's a consignment bike with just a few hundred miles on it for $3100). We'll have enough left over to pay for air conditioning in the Volvo, we won't touch our small savings and we'll get rid of a car that has been nothing but trouble. On top of that, we'll cut our insurance costs by half, even including insurance on the scooter.

It's hard to make this choice. Being a one-car family is never easy. But the scooter gets 80 miles per gallon, and together with the lower insurance, we will save nearly $100 a month. It seems like this is our time to downsize. I just hope we can be disciplined enough to pay down our debt. I can't wait to be out of debt...for the freedom it brings. If I have to give up a crumby car to get there, well, it could be worse.