Repair costs vs. vehicle value...

[SaukRapids]

We don't want to finance our vehicles. View it as a way to keep a person in perpetual debt. Like the noted scenario after you pay it off, it's worth nothing. I believe this to be most true in the low to mid range car segment. Honestly, if you don't mind a payment, leasing might be a better option.

Really, these cars are worth what people want to put into them. I'd like to keep mine to hand down to my daughter some day. Tryin to build up a pile of stock parts along the way. It's worth it to us. The effort to restore and preserve is something that's becoming antiquated. I typically go against the grain, or maybe just call me oldschool, but keeping the car on the road brings a true sense of pride as well as keeps my time occupied.

Grand Prix's are almost aged out of the "book value" scenario anyway ..unless you're trying to sell that GXP you bought this season, now it has a trans issue and you still got payments. Then you're screwed, lol.

 

[ELECTRICxWIZARDx]

We don't want to finance our vehicles. View it as a way to keep a person in perpetual debt.

^^^ Exactly this. Credit score is a measure of how good a debt slave you are. I always get a laugh out of seeing guys in a brand new $80k King Ranch or Platinum calling it "my truck." I like to remind them, no, that's the bank's truck, they just let you drive it for now.

Since I'm in oil country, when the price bottomed out in 2015, there was no shortage of lifted bro-dozers on 35" swampers and covered in LED bars and other useless bells and whistles suddenly on the market, owners thinking they'd recoup the cost of mods. Sorry, it don't work that way. Hell, some modded vehicles are worth LESS in my view, since you don't know the quality of work/parts. Plus getting rid of tacky visual mods.

The way i see it, if i own it outright, but spend 2-3k a year in maint/upkeep, thats 170 to 250 a month. Plus, insurance is lower since you don't need to carry full coverage like you would on a loan. Let some other chump take the initial depreciation hit. I'll be there (with a wad of crisp hundos) to scoop it up at the bottom of the curve 10 years later.

That said, the one down side is when parts availability starts drying up on older vehicles, or cost of older parts shoots up. Priced a turn signal switch on 6th gen GP lately? Yikes.