Even though I am not particularly fond of motorcycles, I’ve been toying with the idea of owning one for a number of years. In their favor: thanks to the wonders of lane splitting, I wouldn’t have to spend hours of my life crawling through traffic. On the other hand, every single rider I’ve ever talked with tells me, “You’re going to fall off at least once.”
But come to think of it, isn’t that the same problem with cars?
One of the recommendations I’ve most often heard about cars is that you should buy a cheap and disposable one to learn (to drive) as it will get scuffed and dented and generally FUBAR’d by the combination of youthful antics and inexperience. Every one of us has had at least one close call with our cars, be it our fault or someone else’s. Every time we go out on the roads, we’re trusting that every single other pedestrian, cyclist, biker or driver knows what they’re doing and will not screw up massively. Most of the time it works. Other times, it doesn’t.
Latin America has always had a proud reputation of taking cars that have been totaled in the U.S and repairing them using ingenuity, cheap labor and a complete disregard for safety. On the upside, you can have a reasonably recent car with all the accouterments at a fraction of what the dealers would want for one. On the downside, like a relative of mine, you can drive around your pride and joy only to have it suffer a complete suspension failure a day down the line. No consumer protection to make whomever sold it to you take it back, either. I’m of the mind that a totaled car can be repaired and made to function as well as when it comes down the line, but you have to be prepared to shell out some serious money and bring someone along to make sure you’re not getting ripped off, Mr. Wormwood style.
So, fair people of the CC Commentariat, would you play with fate and drive around in something that has been crashed before? Or would you just rather wait until depreciation comes along?
I’ve owned several ~
My 1975 914 VW/Porsche was made of two cars welded the good ends to – gether , not the best welding job I’d ever seen but stiff like new and perfect panel/door gaps throughout .
My ’82 (? I forget) VW Rabbit Convertible I bought it from a junkyard with shiny new paint from the cowl forward , it drove just fine but had been totalled three times and the last bit of body work was really dodgy ~ the head lights in A1 VW’s sit in cup shaped stampings in the header and the idiots who’d done the last repair hadn’t bothered to notice this and so made the right side straight across then had to fiddle the whole mess to get the plastic grille & headlights to fit in the opening , _after_ they’d painted it….
I only paid $ 1,800 for it less than 10 years old and ran the living crap out of it so I didn’t much care ~ some crazy b*tch ran a stop sign and bashed the left fender as my Brother was driving it and yelled at him ‘ why the f*ck didn’t you stop when you saw I wasn’t going to stop for that stop sign you @$$hole ?! ” . amazingly her insurance paid to have that fixed .
I’ve rebuilt and sold many salvage cars but not so much wrecks as i don’t really trust those .
-Nate
I may or may not have been foolish to go ahead and repair the Trooper after the deer hit this summer. Both estimates were in the $4000 range (on a 13 year old car with 225k+ miles). If the airbags had gone off, that would have certainly pushed the decision over the edge. OTOH it was in excellent mechanical condition, recently having some minor engine work, new tires, and a number of other things.
The fact that I knew the full history of the vehicle and it’s strong mechanical condition pre-accident, I went ahead with the repair since you never know what you’d be able to buy in that price range.