Had the car in for service (leaky power steering hose, plus a "check engine" which turned out to be a faulty sensor inside the engine....ugggg - I'll do my own brakes, but that's more than I care to do).
Chatting with the guy / owner and he related a couple good ones:
1) He said back in the go-go years of the Dot Com time (95-00)and during the height of the real estate bubble / House-as-ATM time (04-07), folks would bring in their cars with a "check engine" or some similar problem. He'd diagnose the issue, quote 'em the fix and often times folks would just go buy a new car instead of paying a measly $600 repair bill.....we're not talking a new engine or transmission or multi-thousand dollar bill, but a few hundred bucks. And we're not talking POS rust buckets either, but vehicles in otherwise decent shape where a repair of this magnitude is well justified.
2) Mechanic had a customer a few years ago whose kid (18-19ish years old, so bought it himself) had a typical piece-o-sh*t rust bucket mid 70's truck. Stupid early adult kid dropped $2500 in wheels and big mudder tires for it. Kid left the state 6 months later (probably go sick of dad calling him an idiot for spending that much on shit for the truck) and the truck was in an inoperable condition. Parent / Customer was asking mechanic what to do since the truck itself (less the tires and wheels) was worth at best slightly more than scrap metal value.
Note that Mr. Mechanic has noted a swift change in values these last 5 years from anecdote 1 - now a days, he says customers are far more willing to fix the cars, even some pretty major repairs, like transmission replacements, on otherwise well running vehicles with plenty of life left in them.
