I've read a lot of "fix your car or get a new one" blogs on the internet. There's probably more useful stuff in these forums, but I can never get the search function to work for some reason. So here's my scenario:
Honda Civic 2004, 2-door, manual, 150K miles, runs great. Slightly musty smell from door leak during heavy rains, but otherwise nothing. Put $2.5K into misc repairs in 2015, including clutch and tires.
Car use: less than 6000 miles per year currently, will go down even more once we move and I take the train to work.
Husband: works from home, prefers walking.
Me: soon to be commuting by train.
Will be driving 1-2x/week max (Costco/big grocery runs/fun activities/doctor's appts not near the train), plus day trips, long driving trips to see friends 2x/year.
Car's trade-in value ~$1000-1200(?) (probably more to sell to a private party, but honestly not sure I have the energy to go through Craigslist to do it)
Child no. 1 due in September.
We're about to close on our first home(condo), so I'm thinking about what to do with our money (in addition to investing/paying student loans) now that we're not saving everything for a downpayment. I had the face-punch-worthy idea that we should just get a new car now so we'd have something "reliable" that also had 4 doors (for ease of child seat maneuvering) -- why not do it and put 50% down (or more) before we have to start paying for childcare in a year? (If we were to get a car, it'd be probably a certified used Honda Fit or Prius C -- some subcompact hatchback with good mileage; certified because my husband would prefer new (since it worked out so well with this car, 14 years later), but would settle for certified. Let's guess out of pocket expense with taxes would be $17,000, which is less than he paid in 2004, come to think about it.)
I *think* I'm over the illusion that we should upgrade the car now — especially now I realized that I could instead use an $8K downpayment to pay off my 6.55% interest student loans in one fell swoop — but I'm curious how you all would handle it. When do you decide to upgrade your car? Should you wait till you save enough to pay for the car in cash? Do you put half down and do super low financing for the rest? Does a new baby factor into the decision? Is there any real airbag/safety feature that would justify this kind of expense (or is that all marketing/fear mongering?) Is there some simple math that helps you know when to pull the plug? Would you put another $2000 into the car to fix it when there's a major repair because it's a Honda and could easily go for another 50,000 miles?
Thanks!