[Tuesday’s run: 3 miles; Thursday’s run: 4 miles]
It looks like the cheap cars for sale have migrated from Craigslist to Facebook Marketplace.
I have this 1990’s vintage Ford 3/4 ton van which I bought cheap from the University of Alabama surplus in Tuscaloosa a few years ago. It required a couple of repairs. But it really has been a good vehicle. I saw it as an upgrade from my mid-90s pickup trucks, being enclosed and all.
Recently I have been shopping again for a small pickup truck. My wife doesn’t like the van. It is too high to climb into when she is tired from running; the controls are too large for a small person; and the seats are uncomfortable.
Seats have turned out to be the main problem in our vehicles these last few years. It is really hard to find something she is comfortable in. I told her I could put a lazy-boy chair in the back. She didn’t find that attractive either. What we really need is a tour bus. But that’s another subject.
So I’m looking for something smaller and lower and more comfortable but which could haul things. (Haul things… don’t get me started about what dogs have done to the interior of our Lexus sedan. The dog likes riding in the van but the wife doesn’t. So we don’t have an appropriate vehicle to take the whole crew on a trip.)
Ok.. so that explains why I’m looking at the vehicles pages in Facebook Marketplace.
That’s where I was when I recently found a running motorcycle for sale at $250. Of course it needs work. Every motorcycle needs work. Every car needs work too but with a car there is redundancy so nobody cares. With a motorcycle one should probably care.
I’ve flirted with the idea of getting another motorcycle. So here we are with a good candidate for next to nothing. And I am was may still be thinking about it. I did some research on the needed repairs and the various known issues with this particular model and year.
Maybe I’ve concluded that I really don’t like mechanic work enough to do it.
Stay tuned. One feature of motorcycles that I really like is that there is definitely no room for the dog, and definitely no reason to expect comfort. It completely avoids the will-my-wife-find-it-accessible/comfortable/driveable questions. And for $250 I could fool around with it for awhile and give it away or push it into a ditch; not like I would but I could. I might. probably not.
2 replies on “At any price?”
Not what you are interested but I have read with COVID the airport rental car market supply chain is messed up. That and the general recession could find pieces on both used and new cars go down. But not pickups – not that kind of market. But there could be pickups in the repo market – although the quality would be suspect.
Concerning the motorcycle (“donor cycle”) I’ve not ever understood the appeal as you can’t relax. Of course you have to always be steering (can’t use your leg when eating). Can’t eat. Maybe you can have coffee from a water bottle? The cars that don’t see you. Or don’t care if you see them. For years I had a Saab convertible and that was 360 view and you could relax. Seatbelts and airbags. And no concern for rain showers. You could look at electric bikes – they are popular here and come in several varieties. Some look like a regular bike. Others have huge balloon tires and obviously have a battery. But they are probably novelty and expensive. If you buy used you will need the pickup to go get the motorcycle when it breaks down when joy riding. You clearing enjoy tinkering and an old motorcycle would take all the time you could give it.
Well… I was saved from myself. Someone else bought the motorcycle before I had a chance to do anything about it.