"Don Foreman" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 22:54:51 -0700, "Roger Shoaf"
wrote:

With gas at $3.00 a gallon and you have a rust bucket why are you even
bothering to fix this car?

Seems to me it is going to be more work than you got value.

It might also be added value well worth the effort, particularly if
the capability of a Bronco (vs that of a small sedan) is useful.

The price of fuel may be a minor consideration. New trucks get
better mileage, but not that much better. New trucks are
expensive. Repairs to get another few years or 50K to 100K more
miles may be a very cost-effective course.

Value is in minimizing cost of acceptable transport including fuel,
maintenance and insurance. Insurance cost is significantly higher
on new vehicles, particularly if the bank has an interest to protect
--at your expense, of course.

A little skilled (learn while doing, buy tools as needed) labor can
add and maintain a lot of value.

I put five kids thru University to baccalaureate level with money I
did not send to Detroit, Japan, bank interest or insurance companies
beyond more-than-ample PL & PD for 20 years. All of us had
reliable and presentable rides during that time.

I don't do rust work anymore, but I gotta say it was well worth my
while when I did.


I'm with you on not sending money to Detroit etc. My current inventory of
cars are an 83 MBZ an 82 Ford PU and 94 Taurus.

I really don't have much of a perspective on cancer rust repair however. In
CA when we got a rust bucket it was considered a poor candidate for repair
as there are a lot of cheap intact cars to be had. The rusters always
seemed to have a lot of other grief due to the corrosion like broken bolts
when you went to change a fan belt and lots of electrical gremlins also.

--
Roger Shoaf

If knowledge is power, and power corrupts, what does this say about the
Congress?