200,000

Yesterday my van hit the 200,000 mile mark. Around here we keep our vehicles a long time. In fact, I think Tim's Subaru is the newest vehicle in the 100 Acre Wood. It is a 1998.

We bought the van used about six years ago. We got a good price because it was a salvage title. Salvage title can mean different things, in our case it meant this; the vehicle had been wrecked and the insurance company determined that it was too expensive to fix so they totaled it. The owner decided he could fix it cheaper than the insurance company, so he fixed it, got it inspected, re-titled and sold it. We got a good deal.

I will admit though, at the time, we really didn't know what we were doing with the whole salvage title deal. We got lucky. If you are thinking about going salvage title use caution. Edmund's has a little more information here.

You can do this with your own car too. My brother, Eric, has an older car that is in pretty good shape. Because it is older, the book value is low and it doesn't take much damage to total his car. He also doesn't have the best driving record. His car has been salvaged twice.

The biggest draw back to having a salvage titled car is resale. The value is low. As Larry Lovejoy is quoted at Edmund's,

If you buy a salvage title car, you might want to count on keeping it until the wheels fall off.

That is what we do around here.

Is keeping older, high mileage cars really frugal? I can only speak from personal experience, and I have to say , "Yes." We haven't had a car payment for a long time. We have put some money in repairs, but not nearly what we would have put into a new vehicle. (Papaw and Tim do a lot of the repairs here, so that definitely helps with the cost.)

There is some added inconvenience. There are little glitches to my van. Nothing major, just little inconveniences, like the back wiper doesn't work and the key won't unlock the drivers side. Annoying? Yes. Worth a car payment? No.

The van is pretty dependable, but I suppose it is getting fixed more than a new car. That can be inconvenient, but for us a second car is not a necessity. It is a high priority want. Tim must have a car for work, but most days I don't need a car. If a vehicle happens to be down, I sometimes will rearrange my plans or am able to use one of Mamaw and Papaw's vehicles. Again, it can be annoying, but we do not have cash for a vehicle now and I am not willing to take on a car payment.

Should you drive your vehicle past 200,000 miles? That is up to you. I am willing to put up with some inconveniences to not incur more debt. There are days when I have been completely frustrated with the van and I start pricing vehicles, I look at the checkbook, I sigh and keep driving my van!