Quote:
Originally Posted by muscatty
All in with purchasing the Boxster, parts, tools, Jake's class I am approaching $20K.
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The dollar figure can be a little overwhelming but it looks like you really went through it and should be good to go for many years to come other than standard maintenance. Also, like you said, you enjoyed the process and learned a lot.
I tell people, who are considering a very old car to be prepared for expenses that could equal or better the value of the car, and doing work yourself and finding a competent, fair independent mechanic are critical to keeping expenses in check. This path isn't for everyone and certainly not for people who like to treat their cars like maintenance free appliances.
If one does a good pre-purchase inspection and stays on top of maintenance, repairs are likely to be considerably less than the cost of depreciation that comes with a newer car.
P.S. I've got about $15k into a car that is optimistically worth $10-11k in my area ('98 with 70k miles.) I've put about 4k miles on the car so I'm close to the price per mile you are but I expect the mile to expense ratio to get better over the next few years.) Like you, I've also enjoyed learning and getting to know the car.