grateful wrote:
Well, I'm late to this one, but I have a story to share that might help
My great-aunt married her husband right before WWII and he left to go to war shortly after it began. After the war, cars were scarce and they did not have any money to buy a new one anyway. (He went back to school too.) They were older, my uncle was 10 years older than my aunt, and she was in her late 20's by the time the war ended...
Anyway, once they could buy a car, they could only afford a very old, loud, run down jalopy. My aunt was so embarassed to be seen in it that she sewed curtains for the windows
Oh, the resourcefulness we're losing as that generation passes!
When my dad got back from WWII service, he bought a '39 Pontiac coupe. He needed a truck so he cut the back seat off and built a wooden back with a window and put a salvaged pickup bed on the Pontiac frame. All this was done in stages, so my sister and I rode behind the seat, with a tarp covering the back for awhile, then with a wooden frame with glassless window behind us for a bit longer, then with the window glassed in and, finally, in the bed of the truck for several years until he bought a "real" 51 Chevvy pickup.
Our step mom was embarrassed every step of the way and only breathed a sigh of relief when the came home with the red Chevvy pickup in '52.
(We were not so happy because we still had to ride in the back, come rain or shine. Only when he bought a '55 Ford Fairlane did we finally get to ride in comfort . . . and within two years of that, I was in the Marine Corps!) 
grateful wrote:
I married a man who required us to run our vehicles into the ground--very difficult for this Detroit girl who grew up with the "new car every two years" mentality, though my mom could never afford that anyway. So, although my heart is with you, I know it really is better to bank the funds for a while
My car has 100,000 miles on it and with the upcoming trip to my brother-in-laws wedding, I know I will be driving it to at least 150K
Our vehicles are only getting broken in at 100,000 miles. We have a 94 Jeep Cherokee that belonged to my late uncle and it has the fewest miles of the three vehicles we own (about 45,000). My wife drives a '94 Toyota with 130,000 miles and I have an '04 GMC pickup with 100,000 miles.
Interestingly, the Toyota went through a hail storm a couple of years ago and was totaled by our insurance company, who then said you can have it back, we don't want it!
It runs just fine and it has a nice stippled finish.
A friend once told me that my wife and I were the consummate consumers . . . When we finished with a vehicle, it was totally consumed!
_________________
In Christ,
Jim B
I will consider your position if stated with firm, well-thought-out, quiet reasoning. Hateful diatribe, ad hominem attacks and shouted rhetoric don't impress.
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Fabrizio
Didn't mean to put him in the past tense 