So I thought with the sky rocketing diesel prices I would go "practical" and trade my diesel truck in for something more economical but still practical for what I need in my climate (ie, 4x4, towing cabability, room for a bike, etc); so I started looking at Jeeps. I've heard mostly good things about them; never owned one, but found that Jeep made a nice Grand Cherokee Limited edition with the items I was accustomed to.
I drove to the dealer (Salem Auto Sales, in Salem, Oregon) and drove the car, they looked over my truck (of course wanted to give me practically nothing for it) and we put a deal together. There was a small "tick" noise coming from the engine so I asked my sales associate about that sound and if it got any louder when the engine was completely cold. He assured me that it did not and that was the noise it came in with, and that he himself owned several Jeeps that make that noise-- "it was just a Chrysler thing'.
I did some quick and dirty research and found quite a few owners of Jeeps posting about the same noise online in Jeep forums, and from what I read it was just an annoyance more than a problem.
Long story short, I had the Jeep for 3 weeks and put two tanks of gas through it and the head gasket blew! Salem Auto Sales wanted nothing to do with me at that point and said "too bad, you bought an as-is vehicle"... Well, that of course didn't sit well with me. I let them know that they went to quite the degree to represent this car in a very particular condition, and cars just dont develop head gasket problems over night. I had a feeling that they knew about it and Alex, the sales associate, just looked the other way. Ya live, ya learn I guess.
So $1,749 later from a shop, the head gasket is fixed. Now it has an ATF leak somewhere, so I get to be hassled yet again by taking it back and having them ID the source and fix it. What a mess. And on top of all this I'm trying to put everything I've got into working towards an advancement opportunity at work---when it rains, it pours.
So anywho, here's the deal. If i had a spare $1700 laying around in cash, I'd think about using it to pay for this repair. But the question would be do I want to do that? Would YOU want to do that. Well somethings you might ask yourself is, "How much is my "nest egg" earning? Do I have to pay a stock commission to get it? A Certificate of Deposit penalty? Do I want to let go of $1,700 of my HARD-EARNED-CASH?" Or you might have an option to borrow it from yourself. You would think about how much it would cost you to borrow the money from your Visa credit card (remember it'll be at that lovely Cash Advance APR--not the standard purchase APR (unless the shop takes Visa, which is probable); or do you have a Line of Credit, unsecured or, home equity? Or do you have the value in your car that you could refinance the car and roll that new debt ONTO the asset itself (in my case, onto this Jeep)?
Rates are so low right now that a good way to go about it is to see if your bank or credit union will do a refinance with cash out (the cash out to pay off your credit card or replenish your nest egg) in order to get a better rate (secured is usually always lower rate than unsecured). And what makes it simple for bookkeeping wise: if you want to unload this POS and just get rid of it because now you've got more debt associated with it than you wanted, you simply sell the car, get one check to pay off one loan and VOILA! You're done.
But it's all up to you. Where will you save the pennies so the next time your car blows up you'll have the dollars to spend? :)
Cheers!!
Oh, by the way: I have a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee for sale, Limited Edition, very clean, runs great! :P