A 30-year-old car cannot be your backup car.
The problem with a 1995 Subaru Legacy station wagon — snazzy metallic teal and all — is that it’s not exactly what you’d call a classic, even though it could technically be designated an antique in Massachusetts because of its age. An “antique motor car” is any motor vehicle over 25 years old, according to everybody’s favorite agency, the Registry of Motor Vehicles. But wait, there’s more: to get that designation, it has to be a car that’s “maintained solely for use in exhibitions, club activities, parades, and other functions of public interest.”
You know this already: I am not a financial analyst. I’m just the guy who has always liked taking things apart and putting them back together again. But you’d be surprised how much time I spend talking to people about risk and how to spend their money — or not.
It starts like this: “Can you have a look at this car and tell me how long it’s going to last? My neighbor is selling it for $2,000. I’m thinking it’s worth it, you know, for quick trips to the grocery store. I wouldn’t drive it off-Cape.”
They say this like there’s something magical about the Cape. I mean something other than our beaches and our oysters and our local characters. Something that keeps old cars working as long as you don’t drive over the bridge. I hate to break it to them, but the opposite is pretty much true. The wind-blown salt alone, on this sandbar devoid of garages, is the reason.
I’m not a psychologist either. But the other thing I spend a lot of time on with customers is the need to let go. A lot of people cannot be swayed by new gadgetry and the stuff the auto industry people call “surprise and delight features.” In fact, they love doing without all that. They point out how their old cars have twist-dial radios and hand-cranked windows, and here’s where they have a point: they have bodies made of more metal than plastic. These cars do have a kind of reassuring heft to them.
I hate to admit it, but even though I’ve been fixing cars pretty much since I could walk, I can’t make everything work.
So, now that it’s almost summer and you’re thinking about keeping that backup car around for your visitors and your grandkids, let me save you a high-priced session or two and describe how I’m going to assess that very used car you’re trying to keep alive.
It goes without saying that you want the car to be structurally sound. If it’s not, there’s just no point considering it further. Has the car been sitting? That’s not good. A car that’s been sitting is going to be damp, and condensation means corrosion. If the car has been babied, it might not need a new battery and tires. That would be lucky.
Then there are two other things I can bet need updating and should be put into your cost calculations: brakes and suspension. In other words, add to that $2,000 purchase price of your neighbor’s car the cost of those. A guesstimate, because every case is different: that could total anywhere from $500 to few thousand bucks.
The cost of new cars is crazy, I know. The most recent figure I can find, in a March 8 CNBC story, put the average price at nearly $50,000, with many people making payments of $1,000 a month. For a household earning the U.S. median income of around $80K, that would take up 15 percent of pretax income. And tariffs are pointing prices higher.
The reality is that for now it seems we’ve all gotten used to perpetually paying off car loans. You can resist that, but you do have to think about the cost of throwing good money after bad.
The mechanic in me can tell you it’s not actually hard to fix any of the things I’m naming here, but what makes the repairs complicated is that, after 10 years, dealer parts are usually discontinued. So, there’s a hunt for obsolete parts that can be time consuming, and there’s no guarantee of finding remanufactured parts.
Maybe the oddest experiences I’ve had with not finding what I need has to do with trim. Some people are particular and actually want things like proper door handles. But if you’re the jerry-rigging type — and what proud Cape Codder isn’t? — I’ve got some tough news for you: you’re supposed to have proper door handles. If your setup isn’t legit, you might not pass inspection.
The truth is, I do have my own obsession with vintage cars, so I’m not against the work involved in keeping an old car going. But that’s just the mechanic in me talking. The personal adviser is going to put it to you straight: you might have to let it go.
