Rover's Retirement

When to retire a vehicle is sometimes a hard decision. Yesterday we retired the Ramsey Rover. It was making a noise in the brake system so we took it to the mechanic to get it checked out. There was a need of brakes, rotors, u-joints, and a couple of minor things. The total cost of repair was $1100.00 out the door.

This may not seem a lot to some people but for us it is a big chunk. The choice to retire this vehicle is more based upon the possibilities of future repair. We are in mini-financial recovery mode based upon purchasing the almost sportscar. It comes to a point of cutting your losses or throwing money at a lost cause.

 

The Final Mileage Count

The rating of the minivan was not the best. See this review: http://www.carcomplaints.com/Ford/Windstar/2000/

It had taken our family as far as it could have.

In spite of the bad reviews and all the negative stuff put out about our vehicle it had real value for our family. We turned a lemon into lemonade with the long term in mind.

The original "plan" with the vehicle was to replace a car which was too small for our growing family and not have a debt. The situation at the time was three young kids with 2 car seats and a booster seat.

The minivan was the best choice at the time. Now with the kids more grown the car seats gone and 1 booster seat to go the minivan had outlived it's purpose.

It was the end of the line for the Rover; it served us well but, it was becoming an anchor. We opted to see what we could get at CARMAX rather then sell the car. There was issues with the braking system which we would not feel correct selling to someone else - safety and welfare  of the buyer outweighs the cash. The other option was to recycle and get the metal value (about $500). CARMAX gave us $700 which was more then the metal weight but less then the $1000 we wanted. (We just put new tires on the mini-van a few months earlier and were hoping to recoup the costs.

So we pocketed the $700 and sent it to our Future Car Fund.