What to do with car needing repair?

My girlfriend isn't sure what to do with her car. It's a 1999 Ford Contour (100K miles) that needs some repairs - the engine stalls, so probably $200 to get that fixed, and it needs new tires, alignment, and a tune up, another $500+ or so. KBB value for this is %26lt;$1400 in its condition. She's thinking of just junking it and getting something for that, and then a new (used) car. I also heard that donating it could be beneficial and claiming a tax write-off (but how much can you actually get from this?). Any better ideas out there? |||You won't get much for it if you sell it, and by your own estimation you can get it in pretty good shape with new tires and all for $700-$800.





If you buy a $1500 car, will it have a fresh tune up and new tires and alignment? Not likely.





If the stalling problem isn't anything major, keep it. |||100 k miles is not that bad, but what has happened here is the car has been driven to death without any maintenance work done on it.


people get 300,000 miles out of there car by keeping up the maintenance work.


It might be worth the money to fix it( all the problems at once) rather than buying a new car.


If you decide to sell it, sell it by the paper or e-bay or something like that.


A junk yard might give you $75.00 for it as a junker.


If it were mine and the body is in decent shape along with decent interior i would fix it, then you can get your money back plus some.|||i dunno, shop around. see how much junk yards would pay for it. and also see how much you'd get from the tax write off.





i'm guessing the tax write off is better, because most junkyards i've heard of pay max of 2000 for a car. but shop around first.|||Try selling it as is...fix it up an get more outta it, or fix an keep. if u donate u will get NO money what so ever. it will off set ur return tho but dont count on it. u have to spend more than what u made to do this|||The real problem is what kind of a car are you going to get 4 1400 dollars? The one you have is just in need of what sounds like routine repairs for a car of that mileage. When you are done you will have a car that you are familiar with and know what repairs have already been done. If you get another car for even as much as 2000.00 it is only worth 1250 in KBB but 2000.00 is the retail price and guaranteed it will also need some repairs either when you buy it or soon after. So how would 1500.00 to 2000.00 be better spent? On something you know nothing about, or something you know what you are getting for your money?|||New cars cost about $2000 per year if you keep it for 10 years and have very few repairs. They require loans and more expensive insurance.





If you sink $1000 into this one, that would be only the cost of 6 months of a new car. It would probably last much longer than that, too.





If you are well off and don't need to save money on your car costs, then sell it to someone cheap online (website starts with "craigs" and ends with "list".)


There are a lot of people who need a cheap car when the economy is bad. You can help them out by not junking it.