At 09:31 PM 11/17/2000 EST, Triumph Nut wrote:
>....
>Last year I sold my 20 foot center console boat which I bought new. I paid
$18000 plus trailer plus tax, added some electronics, etc, had the boat for
2 1/2 years on which I put 26 hours on it, during that time I had about
$1500 worth of repairs due to having the boat sit for a long time. I sold
it for $8000 and I thought I did great!
>....
Ya know, I always thought boats were expensive, but my calculator makes
that to be about $650 per hour for the usage. Just a thought.
I have a slightly different value system for my MGA. It starts with the
assumption that every penny spent on it is an out of pocket expense, like
taking a vacation for pleasure, never to be recovered, because I don't
intend to ever sell it. Therefore I figure the first break point was when
the odometer hit 3600 miles after the restoration, because that's how far I
could have walked in the 1200 hours it took me to restore it. The next
break point came at about 42,000 miles when the $10,500 cost of restoration
(including initial purchase price of $800) amortized out to $0.25 per mile,
about the same as the cost of a new car purchased in the same year that the
restoration was finished.
I have now accumulated 160,000 miles since the FIRST restoration, and have
done about 90% of a second restoration over the last few years (since it
hit 130,000 miles in 12 years of use). I kept track of all repair and
restoration expenses during that interval, totaling $7,200 in 12 years,
after which the car was nearly new again, similar to the condition after
the original restoration. The conclusion is that with the appropriate TLC
and adequate input of my own labor (for free of course), this car can be
kept on the road forever for about $50 per month in repairs and restoration
expense. This does not include daily operating expense items such as fuel,
brake linings and tires, but it does include all breakdown repairs and the
most recent paint, top and interior, fresh engine and gearbox and all
reconditoning of the hydraulics and some new chrome work. It now has about
300,000 miles total and is still a dependable daily driver and weekend
warrior.
So in terms of pure economics, if you start with a car in good condition,
and you take care of your car, it is very economical to own, and you could
never afford to replace it. The only valid argument against this is the
amount of your personal time required to maintain your hobby. When it's no
longer fun, or you don't have the time to do it, then it's a totally
different proposition, and you simply swap it for one of those modern
transportation appliances. But then where would the fun be?
Barney Gaylord
1958 MGA with an attitude
http://www.ntsource.com/~barneymg
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