So the bad news is, the car’s alternator crapped out in Tolleson, an alarming little burg where the term “low rent” means “gentrified.” The good news is, I just replaced the alternator in June, so it’s still on the warranty. The bad news redux is that you can’t buy a new alternator in the aftermarket. All aftermarket alternators, even if you buy one from a car dealership, are rebuilt. And, Chuck remarked as he was chauffeuring me home from his shop, “they crap out.”
Yeah. Well. Dude! It woulda been nice if you’d clued me to that before you charged me for a piece of junk that lasted all of four months and stranded me for five interminable hours in a QT parking lot inhabited by drug addicts!
Not wanting to repeat that adventure, I’m now actively in the car market. After much study of Edmunds, Car & Driver, Carfax, and Car Guru, the choices are narrowed down to a Toyota Venza or a Honda Santa Fe, 2012 – 2015.
The Venza is a kewl little crossover, unfortunately discontinued in 2015. My friend KJG and her DH own one, and they love it. I test-drove the Venza the last time I fell into a car-driving frenzy and really liked it, too. With a V-6, it’s quite the little rocket, and it has plenty of room for dogs, estate sale finds, and friends.
The Santa Fe is a larger vehicle but it has much to recommend it. The regular Santa Fe is a full-sized SUV, but there’s a “Sport” model that’s shorter, with only five seats. Edmunds calls the Santa Fe the “true winner” in its class. You can’t get a six-banger in the Sport, but you can get a turbo-charged four-banger, which is almost as good.
Also much admired by Edmunds — and given a higher “grade” — is the Honda Odyssey. But I have the same problem with it now that I did when I got the Sienna: it seems like WAY too much truck than I need.
WhatEVER. We’ll see what the broker comes up with. He said he knew someone who was trying to unload a Santa Fe, and he thinks there’ll be a selection of Venzas. I didn’t find the latter to be true on Car Guru or Edmunds — to the contrary, availability of the Venza is limited. It was discontinued in 2015, so I expect a lot of owners don’t want to part with theirs. Or something.
I’m prequalified for $22,000 at 1.9% through the credit union. It will cover certified “pre-owned” cars between 2012 and 2015. Looks like a Santa Fe dated 2013 or 2014 is likely to run $17,000 to $18,000. I think the Sienna is worth about $1200 on trade-in (can no longer see Kelly Blue Book, because they now demand that you disable your AdBlocker, which I ain’t a-gonna do). If I don’t resurface the pool this year, I should be able to disgorge about $4,000 as a cash down payment. Let’s say I can get the loan amount down to 15 grand (holy sh!t): over five years, that’s $262.26 a month.
That would be precisely $262 more than I can afford.
So…needless to say, I am not pleased at the prospect of being chained to an auto loan for the next five years. However, the credit union will let you pay down principal, so once again — as happened the last time I had to get a car loan — I’ll throw every windfall large and small at the thing, and it will probably go away in a lot less than five years.
When I bought a Camry on time — back when I had a job…remember those? — that strategy paid off a five-year loan in 18 months.
We just deposited the current Required Minimum Withdrawal from Fidelity into my checking account. I believe I’m about $5,000 the good this year. So I could probably come up with as much as 5 grand in cash — though I’d rather not. There’s a certified pre-owned Santa Fe with 30,300 miles on it on sale right now for $17,400. If my car is worth around a thousand bucks and I paid down $5,000 in cash, then I’d only have to finance about $11,400 (plus, plus, plus…). That’d be $200 a month.
Marginally affordable.
Car Guru shows only three 2012-2015 Toyota Venzas for sale in the Phoenix area. Two of them are graded as not good buys; the one they think is a pretty good deal is $18,598, for a 2013 vehicle with a V-6 engine and 46,364 miles on it. Holy mackerel.
LOL! Here’s a Santa Fe that looks like it’s orange! I’d have to paint yellow and black flames on the sides….
Ugh. I’ve never bought a used car before. This doesn’t look like a very safe prospect. But I sure can’t afford new-car prices.
Damn George Bush and his handlers for wrecking the economy and putting me (and everyone else) out of a job! I’d have bought a new car six years ago if it weren’t for those shenanigans…and would easily be able to afford another new car right about now. That’s “new” new, not “new to me.”
Is the alternator the only major thing wrong at the moment? I would hold off on buying, especially if the repair is covered as its under warranty. In my view, the thought of having another debt payment when more costly stuff could go wrong with the house is not my idea of a good time. I don’t love how small my car is but with a nearly paid off car, i am done with payments and can’t wait for them to be done with.
I don’t have any other debt at all, not even a mortgage or rent payment. And there is, actually, plenty of cash (plus a $30,000 line of credit…) that could cover a truly expensive house repair. The roof is new, the AC is new; I’m not going to replace the double oven, though I’ll get it fixed this winter. The only credible liability is the pool. I think it’ll hang in there for another year, though. By next winter I should have stashed enough to cover the cost of replastering.
What happened on Saturday was exceptionally unpleasant. In temperatures over 100 degrees, the car stopped dead in the left lane of a major thoroughfare, with angry motorists honking and threatening me. The police had to clear them out and then they had to push my car out of the road.
The “Roadside Service” provided by my insurer, Safeco, was ironically named “About Time Towing.”
Yeah. I was stuck by the side of the road for FIVE HOURS before the jerk showed up, and when he did arrive, he was visibly high.
My son came to babysit me, mercifully — driving 20 miles to get there; that’s how far I was from our respective homes in central Phoenix. We waited in his air-conditioned car. Because he works in the insurance industry and also is a lot more ingratiating than I could ever be, he periodically called Safeco to report that the tow truck had not arrived — they called us to check, too. Hours passed. Finally, after 8 p.m., the joker showed up.
In the meantime, we had an encounter with two drug addicts who used his car to shelter while they were tweaking. They were harmless (at least at the time), but it was extremely creepy.
My car had stopped about 3 or 3:15 p.m. It was AFTER 9:00 AT NIGHT before my car and I were delivered to my house!
Chuck indicated that rebuilt alternators are unreliable.
NEVER do I want to go through that again. If the alternator can’t be trusted, and we no longer can buy the part new in the aftermarket, then the car has gotta go.
Gonna side with Tara….As Charles Schwab once said….”Don’t panic!”….Get that alternator replaced and Chuck SHOULD eat the labor….IMHO. Gonna disagree with Chuck the Wonder Mechanic…The quality of the rebuilt alternator varies from place to place. In this neck of the woods NAPA products are very reliable. Chuck should let his vendor hear about it! Four months for a part to fail….NO BUENO!!! After the DC is fixed maybe shop around. Call me cheap BUT MAN I’m back at $250-300 a month for FIVE YEARS. In other words it will be paid off after the next two presidential elections. If you do decide to buy, I don’t know if I would be in any hurry to pay off a loan with a 1.9% rate…..
Well, I’ll talk with Chuck some more about it.
As a practical matter, though, the car isn’t going to run forever. It’s 16 years old. In fact, it may be closer to 17 years — I may have bought it in 1999. SDXB thinks I bought it the year he retired from the Air Force, because I surprised him by driving the thing to the airport to pick him up — hadn’t told him because I knew he would argue me out of it. He retired in the fall of 2000, but I don’t think the time I got it WAS his last year in the AF.
You can’t do without a car in this city. I can’t even get a bag of groceries, much less go to the doctor or get down to choir. In Phoenix, if you don’t have a car, you’re trapped in your house, especially in the summertime. Cabs are very expensive, and they show up whenever they feel like it. To use Uber (whose business plan gives me the creeps), I’d have to buy a smartphone and pony up $50 to $150 a month for that. Think I’d get a lot more use out of a car than I would out of a phone that I can’t figure out how to use.
Anna the Gershep, who was the immediate cause for me to buy the vehicle, was not that old. She was three in 1999…and as I recall, she WAS three when I came up with the idea of getting a vehicle that would keep her from barking right straight into my left ear.
If that’s the case…really…the car is almost 20 years old.
Wow! The situation indeed sucks. I know how tight your budget is at the moment.
Also wanted to comment on Bush’s policies. I groan internally when I hear people blame Obama for the recession.
Yup. It’s part of an organized, orchestrated program of disinformation.
Any thought of a “pre-owned” Prius? They have an excellent reputation and the gas mileage…crazy…and they seem to hold their value. And if….I mean when …. gas prices return to $4 a gallon you’d be set. You make a good point about the age of your vehicle. I’m right behind you…my vehicle being 13 years old….is starting to “show her age” but a decent replacement would run +$30K. My thought is $30K with the fine folks at TIAA-CREF would yield around $3K a year conservatively based on past performance. And after 5 years the truck is probably worth around $10-12K ….MAYBE….A loss of $18-20K… BUT the TIAA-CREF money would have “made”…$15-16K….About a $35K swing….The real thing basically comes down to a “quality of life” decision….IMHO…Good Luck with your decision….
If the battery of a Prius isn’t on a warranty, you are screwed, screwed, GE-screwed! Couple in the choir had a Prius. Battery gave out and the vehicle stopped dead as they were driving into Phoenix from Sun City, where they lived. They said it cost them FOUR THOUSAND BUCKS to replace the thing!!!!!
Check out the replacement costs: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1078138_toyota-hybrid-battery-replacement-cost-guide
Arizona heat is murderous on car batteries. In these parts, I wouldn’t trust a Prius battery to run the full 200,000 some people claim it’s supposed to last. Supposedly Toyota warrantees the things for 8 years, but 8 years isn’t all that long in the life of today’s car. These people were retired and probably expected the vehicle to last for the rest of their driving lives.
I’m thinking maybe I need an electric cart, like a small golf cart, to get over to a nearby grocery store when the car is crapped out. Honest to god! You are really stuck if you don’t have a car in this town.
P.S. You may want to check Certified Pre-Owned cars. It looks like I can get a Sta Fe for around $17,000 (plus all the exorbitant taxes and registration AZ lays on). They’re warranteed for a few years, and really, the way cars are built these days, a three-year-old vehicle should run for a LONG time.
If I can trade the Chariot in for one or two thousand bucks (they’re selling on the internet for more than that!) and get a newer car for $17,000 and pay five grand down, the loan should not be that bad. Let’s say $18,000 – $1,000 – $4,000…that’s a “mere” $13,000…now we’re at $227/month. That’s still awful when you’re on Social Security, but it’s probably not unmanageable. At that rate, I’ll have to pull down a little more than my RMD or else get a job (ugh!).
Alternatively, I may be able to have the S-Corp pay me enough to cover at least some part of the bill.
SDXB thinks I should just take the entire amount out of savings and pay it. But he keeps his money in CDs, which of course earn next to nothing. My investments, when the crazies aren’t messing with the economy, earn 6 to 9 percent. So…it makes better sense to use someone else’s money and let mine stay in the market.
Wow…I never considered the heat out West and the effect it would have on a battery. The truth of the matter….prices of cars, their upkeep and insurance has taken all the fun out of car ownership….BUT you’re right …in most cases you HAVE to have a car. What are SDXB’s thought’s on the matter? He is a trusted friend….who is a bit on the “thrifty” side….
He wants me to bite the bullet, take the money out of savings, and buy a new car. His argument is, you’re not gonna be here forever so you might as well spend it on yourself now.
However…he’s five years older than me and has had serious heart trouble. He doesn’t intend to leave money to his kids. And he keeps his money in CDs because he’s so afraid of the market.
I on the other hand a) do not want to spend my money on travel; b) will live at least five years and probably ten or fifteen years longer than he will; c) wish very much to leave as much as possible to my worthy son; and d) have earned 60 grand from my investments this year, whereas his money has earned nothing.
Granted, today’s Fed announcement may take all those gains away…but it that’s the case, I should’ve plunked down 30 grand on a car yesterday, not waited til the broker could find a good precertified used one…
In that vain….I wonder what kind of deal a “pre-qualified” and capable buyer could get on a purchase of her choice. I have read recently that car sales are a bit soft. And I would think they are a bit soft as anybody who could “fog a mirror” has bought a car in the last 3 years. If you feel it’s time, you may just get a better deal on a new car versus a “pre-owned”….Wouldn’t hurt to stop at a couple dealerships and drink some free coffee….and get the lay of the land so to speak……And IMHO the only thing better than 1.9% would be 0%….One of the car companies as I recall has a 10 year warranty….no misprint….Good Luck!
I’ve heard exactly that about car sales and loans. In fact, the other day one of the guys at SBA was speculating that we’re looking at a “bubble” in car sales. He said loan defaults are already starting to blossom, from people who were given loans they couldn’t begin to afford. With the 0% financing, people have been buying $40,000 cars on a $15,000 pocketbook….
The Santa Fe has a 10 year /100,000-mile warranty on the power-train. Unclear to me whether that transfers to a new owner if you sell the thing, but guess I’ll find that out soon.
Wow. That must have been SUPREMELY uncomfortable as well as scary. Safeco needs to find a better towing company (but what you wanna bet that they took About Time Towing because it was so cheap?).
DF bought a car for cash almost two years ago. It was a loaner Subaru that the car place let people use while their own vehicles were being fixed; 3,000 miles and still under warranty because it wasn’t even a year old, and at a very good price. We hope to drive it for another dozen years or, preferably, 15 years. Hate hate hate car payments….
Good luck. And I’ll be back in Phoenix starting Monday….Wanna meet for cold drinks if this car snafu is fixed?
OMG! You can’t even vacation in peace! I realize that it’s a huge pain to be without a car there, it’s the same in Arkansas. Don’t get me started on how inadequate public transportation is in most parts of the country. I’m sorry, where was I? Oh, yes, try to take your time deciding about replacing/repairing your current vehicle. I personally despise car payments and if I had the ability to pay cash and be done with it, that’s what I’d do. Of course, you do what works for you.
It’s crazy in this country. We all need stables attached to our garages, wherein to board our horses and mules for the days when our cars are conked out.
I’m kind of afraid to take that much out of savings: it’s a CHUNK of dough which just now is earning one helluva lot more than 1.9%. I’d really be better off to pay on time and leave the savings to earn four times that interest rate.
Also, the annoying RMD adds an extra complication. We just withdrew the amount for this year, based on the Dec 31 2015 balance. You’re FORCED to withdraw a substantial chunk of your savings from an IRA or 401(k) or 403(b). Really, if I’d fully understood what that meant, I would have rolled that money over into a Roth IRA when I had the chance. And I would have worked one hell of a lot harder to fund retirement in taxable funds, not in deferred-tax funds…better to pay the tax when you can afford it, rather than putting it off to a time when you’re struggling to survive on Social Security and want to keep your savings to fund a future nursing-home stay, which is all but inevitable.
If I withdraw another $15,000 or $20,000 net — remember, I have to pay taxes on this stuff — that will be IN ADDITION to the RMD. It won’t count as next year’s RMD, and by doubling the amount withdrawn, it will jack up my tax bill.
OK….On the flip side….How in the world can the CU lend money out at 1.9%? Think about it….If you borrow $20K @1.9% for 5 years your payment is right around $349.68. That’s $980 TOTAL INTEREST for the life of the loan! So on average you’re gonna give the CU $16 a month “rent” on the $20K….That’s just crazy…. BUT cars are a depreciating asset BUT one almost has to have one….These are exciting times at the “Funny Farm”!
Not surprisingly, About Time Towing gets an F from the BBB. Horror stories abound in their customer reviews. Might want to send an email to Safeco to “safeguard” other folks.
You’ve covered all the bases on the alternatives, and a “new” car is warranted for your safety and peace of mind. I’m very impressed with your financial resourcefulness across the board – from your hefty investment returns in this era to your carefully calculated budgets.
Thanks for sharing your experiences and your wisdom — so helpful to all who confront similar retirement challenges. Love your blog and your writing style – you always brings a smile. Keeping you in my thoughts for a successful quest for a new chariot.
Oh, that’s good…I never even thought of looking them up on the BBB! I’ll have to mention that in my dear-sir-you-cur letter to Safeco. 🙂
Thanks for the good words! <3