My wife and I have had a third car for quite a while. Liability insurance is less than $200 a year and tags run about $65, including ad valorum and emissions. But, we make a point to run it once a week or every other week on weekend errands and such. It really comes in handy when one of our primary cars has an issue. This gives me time to diagnose and research the problem. Some issues, like the heater core, took me longer than a weekend to fix. The beater came in really handy to get to work that week! We typically find a need to use it like this two or three times a year. Since it is a big SUV, it comes in handy for hauling and towing. The gas mileage sux, so having smaller cars with better gas mileage, but cannot tow or haul very well for our primary cars works out well for us. Towing happens once or twice, but hauling seems to happen once a month on average.
The only cars over the years that we kept were those that we didn’t “like” to normally drive, like an old Civic, a Nova and a Chevy Prism but they were very economical and worth putting up with for short trips, emergencies etc. They were our main vehicles and loaner cars if we did mostly short trips or had visitors. IMO, it’s easier to rationalize the extra car with multiple drivers or an eco car (like old Metro). If it’s a gas eater, I would dump it. I feel it’s something that needs to have some value as an economy car or hauler like a truck for camping and other use. Just to have an extra car for the sake of having an extra car is difficult to rationalize economically.
Some car rental places bring the car to you.
You’ll find them in Big cities…NOT in rural NH. The closest rental place to me is Manchester Airport (25+ miles away). I MUST pick the car up there.
"Some car rental places bring the car to you. "
There are rental places affiliated with dealerships some miles away that, provided you have filled out the paper work prior or are a regular customer with information on hand, will always deliver the car to you if you wish…for a fee. .
Mike, they don’t deliver to Allenstown either.
I miss my old pickup. Sob!!! }:-/
@dagosa funny you should mention the pink flamingos. There are a few houses around here that have a bunch of them in their front yard. The youth at church have a fund raiser for their summer trip. For $15 you can have a bunch of ugly pink flamingos put in someone elses front yard. To get them off or avoid them, you can pay $20 for insurance against a flamingo infestation. I meant to buy the insurance this morning but I was in a hurry. They are really ugly.
I’ve got a trailer so really don’t need a truck, but still hate to part with the old iron.
@Bing
Sounds like a cool and fun way to raise money.
Probably the main thing you should do is spring for a battery tender as mentioned. Otherwise, the sparse use will probably lead to battery sulfation and no-start situations at bad times.
The pink flamingo fund raising thing is very ingenious.
I vote for an annual oil change and coolant when due. I wouldn.t bother with the rest unless the tranny fluid or brake fluid looked dirty.
I’d make sure I ran a couple of tanks of gas through it every year, and use Stabil.
"Some car rental places bring the car to you. "
Then you wasted even more time. Waiting for the car to arrive, driving the delivery person back, doing what you needed to do, returning the car, getting a ride back home.
“Then you wasted even more time. Waiting for the car to arrive, driving the delivery person back, doing what you needed to do, returning the car, getting a ride back home.”
There are some car rental places that deliver the car to you and that don’t require you to drive their delivery person back to their office. I have seen some rental cars towing a tiny car (such as a Geo Metro) in back of the car being delivered to the customer. The employee simply detaches the tiny car, and drives himself back to the office.
Not in my area. And I suspect not in other rural towns, which probably constitute much of the country.
But most of the population is in metropolitan areas.