On Oct 20, 12:46 pm, wrote:
I have kept my two old trucks running far beyond reason with my old
1985 Nissan having 313,000 and the 1988 Dodge having somewhere between
180,000 and 200,000. This weekend, coming back from working on my
sailboat, I was seriously worried the Nissan would not get me home.
Not only is the transmission going bad, the center support bearing is
gone from the driveshaft, I cannot get her to go into reverse without
effort, now I seem to have a timing issue making her miss a lot and
lose power (maybe timing chain has slipped). No gages except the tach
and odometer work. One of the front drive axles has a torn boot (I
never use the 4wd so it does not matter). She would not pass
inspection anywhere else cuz the pollution control stuff long ago
rusted away.
Now the Dodge (the only vehicle I allow my 18 yr old son to drive) has
developed transmission probs. I simply cannot continue to repair so
many things because it takes all my time.
I loathe the idea of truck payments and comprehensive insurance but it
looks as if I'll have to just do it if I want to keep towing my boat.

Maybe I am too obsessive about having little debt but I always thought
of it as a freedom issue. With little debt I could do as I pleased.
Of course, having kids changed that some but still I have waaaaaay
less debt than most. It just seems WRONG to take on debt that ties me
down. My wife says "Dont worry about it, you'll keep this truck for
20 years too" but it is the near term debt idea that slays me. Saving
up to pay almost all cash would be difficult with so many kid expenses
and my wifes mouth surgery and so on and on, even the down payment is
tough when we want to keep a reasonable cash reserve just in case.
How do y'all justify debt on a vehicle to yourself?