Quote:
Originally Posted by 10/10ths
I'm just of a nature that makes it hard for me to part with a vehicle and hard for me to not invest in an old car to preserve her for future enjoyment.
I just sold my 1990 Miata that I turbocharged to a nice guy in Chicago for only $2,400. I've dropped $20,000 in that little car over the past twenty years. Did I lose my shirt? Not at all. I learned a tremendous amount about modifying vehicles, drove the car for 250,000 miles, and passed her on to another fellow enthusiast who will get years of enjoyment from her.
For the first time in over 23 years I do not own a Miata. This Boxster is my dream car, and I'm loving every minute. We are taking her to the Grand Canyon soon from our Louisiana home, and can't wait to get busting bugs.
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I have a slightly different attitude born on similar experience.
I owned a '92 Miata before my '98 Boxster. Huge upgrade, btw. I paid about $5k for the Miata, drove it for 6 years and put another 7K into it during that time...a mix of upgrades (roll bar, frame stiffener...), missed maintenance and stuff that just wears out on a car that old (wheel bearings, water lines...etc.) Sold it for $3,500 with the additional 30k mile I added.
While I agree that you shouldn't expect to get your money back and you should be making mods and fixes for your own benefit (not resale) I also feel I'm not as inclined to spend so much time turning a wrench. I'm at the point in my life I want to drive more and wrench less. Having said that, I'm not ready to fund a mechanics kid's education.
So, with the Boxster, I do what will make the car more reliable (preventative maintenance) and what makes it more fun for me (radio upgrade) but I don't do maintenance that seems unwarranted or is just for resale.
I've got a '98 with the dual row bearing and change the oil regularly (with Porsche approved synthetic) and send it out to Blackstone for checks (they measure the microscopic metal in the oil which will give an alert way before finding shavings in the oil filter.)
I'm going to keep driving it until an oil report tells me differently. If that hurts me a little on resale so be it. I doubt I'd ever recoup the $2k in resale anyway....closer to $3k if I let someone else to it (especially because it isn't a garage queen and will likely be venturing into the 100k territory when I sell it.)