[Yesterday: watson road 3.4 miles]
Our adult daughter has gone through a series of old and nasty vehicles over the last few years. She had an ’84 Ford Ranger (which ended up traversing the Alaskan Highway and finally died in Whittier, AK). Then she had an S-10 of similar vintage. Then we bought a late ’90s Honda Accord in Tuscaloosa from Craigslist and drove that out to her. It lasted a couple of years. This summer that one died. She drove a late ’70s Toyota pickup for just the length of time it took to prove that the alternator wasn’t charging the battery. Then I gave her the choice of my ’85 F-150 or ’97 Toyota Tacoma. I had bought the Tacoma online and was thinking she would probably be happy with that. But, surprise, she would rather have the F-150. This is the same F-150 that I had put a new engine in a few years ago. It is ugly but functional.
Anyway, the daughter had a single-vehicle accident with the old F-150 the other day and hit an off-road obstacle. I’m very glad that she is OK. But the truck has a bit of a phone-pole dent in the front. She has a plan to try to repair it along with a friend from work. And that would be OK if they can do it. I am somewhat skeptical. But I’m not the ‘man on the scene’ so I really don’t know anything, just my fatherly intuition.
So I’ve been trolling Craigslist and the government auction websites looking at late 90’s pickup trucks. I put in a bid on one in Colorado that would probably be a good replacement and it is near where she lives.
Well, two thoughts on all of this. First is that you can buy a reasonably OK car or truck for $2-3k off of the internet and it will probably be about as advertised. It may run for a couple of years and probably cost you another $1k in repairs and maintenance. Rule of thumb is $100 per month, more or less. It helps to be “handy” and have some tools and be able to troubleshoot and fix things. If you have to pay a shop $65/hr (or more) to change spark plugs, things will get pretty ugly, maybe it would be best to go another way.
Second is that it is hard to buy cars for other people. My children are very gracious about my interference. The daughter in particular has expressed gratitude for vehicles over which she had no say in their selection, color, features, whatever, and I appreciate that. I wish I had the money to just let her go to a dealership and pick out what she wanted. She felt bad about denting the old truck. I told her that the kind of vehicles I buy are disposable, nobody is in love with them, they just do their thing, like a pair of shoes or an old hat. You try to make them last just so you don’t have to be bothered with the time and expense of finding something else.
We will see about the F-150 repair. Plan B is the auction vehicle out there. And plan C is that I drive to Colorado and deliver this Tacoma to her and fly back (I have paid vacation, she doesn’t). I suppose it could happen that I’ll “win” the auction truck and she is able to repair the F-150. That may leave us with an extra. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.