Quote:
Originally Posted by Henn28
... I wonder how many of us keep a third (or second if single) car to help keep the X5 on the road. In addition to my wife’s car and the X5, we keep my 93 grand Cherokee which gets maybe 400 miles annually and can be considered a whistling tin can of death at this point. I think about donating her occasionally, but then need to call her back to active duty. She’s never let me down tho when it comes to being available to run parts to the X5 somewhere, or drive while the X is on jacks, at the shop, etc...
|
Regarding backup vehicles: my wife and I have 3, down from 4 a month ago; I never let go of my cars or trucks unless I have to. It's been that way for thirty years, ever since we moved to the sticks.
We bought a house 40 miles from her college, 35 miles from her part-time job (at that time), and 55 miles from my job (also 40 miles from either set of elderly parents, mine both in bad health, so we might need to get to them immediately). And, it seems, for thirty years, we seem to always travel widely separated from the other, so two primary and secondary vehicles (of varying capabilities) are desired.
We only had a vehicle apiece (an '86 Chevy S-10 for me, and an '85 Chrysler Lebaron 2.2l turbo for her), no spares, and if mine wouldn't run, at first, she'd stay home for that day, never the other way around, since I was required to be first-in and last-out at my work (and on-call 24/7/365). We had no friends, neighbors we knew well-enough, nor car rental businesses near enough, to get a spare vehicle on demand, thus the need for another car or two become obvious to me.
So, I started acquiring a second car for each of us, as that would eliminate the forced stay-at-home policy. It took awhile, as we were both newly divorced, after each of us divorced our exes that bankrupted us, separately. Short on cash for a bit, we were.
Since I was/am a life-long car-nut, my first back-up was a '66 Chevelle, which I'd drive occasionally to work (while it still was basically stock, with a 327 and 3.38 rear gears); but living a mile from a dragstrip, I soon started modifying the Chevelle to become faster to race it. Eventually, with a solid-lifter. 700+ hp 427, and a full-spool (no differential action) 4.88 rear gear (not to mention the 5-gallon fuel cell, and the race gas it needed), it became unusable as a backup car. I had already started restoring a '69 Chevy C-10, bought for a backup/tow truck for the Chevelle's trailer, so it became my daily driver, and the S-10 was our common backup.
Then, a large Oak tree fell on her Chrysler, and I bought her an '88 Pontiac Fiero (that she saw and fell in love with, and had to have). Along the way, her niece needed money and we bought her '92 Olds Achieva SC (with the Quad4 engine). Both of those were maintenance nightmares, so naturally I got another Chevy C-10 to restore and use as another backup/tow vehicle/project...see where I'm going with this story, yet?
Next, when my wife started "catastophe insurance adjusting", she wanted/needed a business/living space trailer for extended stays who-knows-where, an a truck to tow it with. Of course, my two old semi-restored C-10's weren't good enough, and she already had eyes on my racing team leader's '98 GMC, so we bought it.
I found good homes with racing associates for my C10's, after the S-10 got T-boned and I replaced it with a nearly-new '04 Chevy 2500HD (so the older trucks became expendable). About that same time, the wife used some of her insurance business money to buy an '08 Cobalt, and the Fiero and Achieva sat waiting for me to repair each (never happened...traded them to a tree-cutting service guy for removing several trees). Then, while using the '04 2500HD as my daily driver (also for camping and towing the race trailer), gas rose to $4 and I bought an '09 Chevy HHR Panel for my more economical daily driver.
Very long story made short: now both retired, not racing (nor even camping much, anymore), I traded the Chevelle for my X5 (bought specifically by my neighbor, at my request, to semi-restore prior to the straight-up swap). We ended-up with two GM trucks, two GM econoboxes, and my X5 project car...until I couldn't fix the Cobalt brakes to my wife's satisfaction.
With the Cobalt sitting unused for nearly 3 years, she was driving the HHR mostly (GMC pickup rarely), and fell upon a friend-of-a-friend's '14 Lexus ES 350 (55k miles) for sale. HAD TO HAVE IT. So, we sold the Cobalt to another friend-of-a-friend (a newly divorced mechanic in need), and used the proceeds to fix nagging problems on her GMC (new tires, brakes, A/C control unit). So now she's got a Lexus (primary) and the GMC (backup), and I have the 2500HD(my backup) and X5(my primary), both in dependable working order, so now the HHR has become expendable (but very handy for trips to the store).
You can never have too many spare vehicles, IMHO.