My DH is off in fantasyland...
His 2007 TrailBlazer is sitting in our garage waiting for him to call and make an appointment with the mechanic. The week before Thanksgiving, it shifted hard into second gear and the "Check Engine" light started flashing...NOT good. He continued driving it, rumbling and chugging down the road to the store (1 mile from home) and shut it down. He fired it up to drive home and the light was off and all seemed fine, until he turned out of the parking lot...it slammed into second gear and again, the light started flashing and the truck was rumbling and chugging. He limped it home and parked it in the garage. He said he thinks it's the catalytic converter because it smells really bad. I'm no mechanic, but I *KNOW* that the catalytic converter is going to cost a LOT more than that truck is worth. DH says we just need to repair it so that he can drive it for a few more YEARS. It already has 210K miles on it so I don't know how many more years he thinks it's going to get. We have a savings account that I started about a year ago that was intended to go towards a down payment on a new truck to replace his when it finally died. We were hoping that would be at least another year since we are only 2 years into a 6-year (interest-free) loan on my new car. On top of that, we bought a 2013 Ford Escape back in June for our two teenage daughters to drive and we just did a complete rebuild of the transmission ($3200) which had to come out of that savings account. So now, we are faced with the prospect of either buying a "new to us" used vehicle to replace his TrailBlazer and we would still be looking at a 5-year car payment of $500+ OR we would be severely depleting the car savings account and fixing his vehicle which would FORCE us to keep it for another 2 years. (Full disclosure: For the past year, I have been paying $500/month into the savings account so, essentially, we have already been paying a "car payment" monthly. We have just been paying ourselves.) Either way, we are not going to have a third, functioning vehicle anytime soon. Fortunately, neither of the kids have their licenses yet (still driving on permits) so we don't NEED three vehicles. DH is retired so he is the "dad taxi" and he shuttles the girls to school and their jobs. We make due with two vehicles, but that third one will be very convenient once one or both of the kids finally start driving solo.