[jqpabc123]

Not everyone is in a position where they can just decide to buy a new car because it’s the prudent financial decision.

Regardless of your position --- salvage the old car (puts some money in your pocket) and replace it (with a similar used one if necessary) for *less* than the cost of the repairs to the old one. Take your significant other to dinner with the money you just avoided wasting on your broken old heap.

Why would a reasonable person *ever* spend more on repairs than the money required to just replace the broken car with one that works? Irrational, sentimental reasons perhaps?

Why spend $6K on repairs if you can buy a similar working car for only $5K? Why make your net "position" $1K worse with flawed logic?

What part of this sounds "tone deaf" to you?

[bumby]

>salvage the old car (puts some money in your pocket) and replace it (with a similar used one if necessary) for less* than the cost of the repairs to the old one.*

I mean, sure, if that's an option. But there's always risk in swapping out one used car for another. If I can only swing $2.5k, I'd rather put it in the vehicle that I've had for 10 years and know the maintenance background on that roll the dice with, as you say, another "old heap."

It's not about being sentimental or irrational. If you're in the situation where you have to weigh these decisions, you tend to have limited options. It's not likely one of them is "trade in my old heap for something great and reliable." In these situations, taking money that could go to your car and instead go out to dinner would be the irrational choice.

>Why spend $6K on repairs if you can buy a similar working car for only $5K? Why make your net "position" $1K worse with flawed logic?

I don't think it's flawed. I can reduce the uncertainty on my utility a lot more with $6k on my own vehicle than I can on a $5k random car. When you get to that low of a price, most cars are going to have maintenance issues. There's nothing guaranteeing that I spend $5k on something else to only have drivetrain (or other major) issues six months down the road.

[analognoise]

A 5K used vehicle might need a similar 6k repair at some nearby point.

But a 6k repair to get a new engine/transmission is almost a new car (utility wise) - you know that for the next 100k miles you're probably set w.r.t. drivetrain.

It makes sense to me?

[jqpabc123]

By the time most cars need a replacement engine and transmission, the only thing available is likely to be used/salvaged or rebuilt. New ones are often out of production.

And you certainly can't buy a whole new drivetrain and get it installed for $6k. The only people who attempt this are those who can do the work themselves.

[bumby]

>By the time most cars need a replacement engine and transmission, the only thing available is likely to be used/salvaged or rebuilt.

There are plenty of engines that go back 30+ years that can still be bought brand new. You're probably right about the "whole new drivetrain" not being able to be installed for under $6k though (depending on what you define as a whole drivetrain). But even a rebuilt engine can fairly easily last another 100k miles, depending on the vehicle and the quality of the rebuild.