I have a car but it's both a burden and a convenience.

This last two months alone I spend $700.00 on my car. The brakes needed fixing, I got a new windshield, and a new battery. The battery alone was $117.00.

The tags have gone up in price and if you don't get them purchased on time, the state will charge you $25.00 for each month you are late buying them. I just noticed I my tags are expired and I can't remember if I bought them or not, but I can't find them.

Then there is insurance of course.

Soon I will need new tires. That will cost another arm and leg.



Part of me wants to just sell my car and get a hoveround. I live two blocks from the supermarket and I could just drive over there and shop without getting out of it.

The other part of me says that I should just walk or ride my bike, it's healthier.

Then there is that part of me who loves my car and likes to dream of getting in it and going on a road trip.

I'm so conflicted.

My car is an extreme convenience Im glad to have.


IT would suck to be without it.

I recently cleared out my garage (I had a load of canvases in it) so my car could be more protected from the weather. I can't use it right now because it is snowed in.

At least I don't have to sweep all the snow off of it, but I don't have the energy to dig it out.

If I could live without a car, I would. Unfortunately, there are a number of things I need a car for, such as travel during winter, transporting groceries, visiting friends who live 30 miles away, night travel, etc.

Ideally, I want both a car and a scooter. The scooter I would use during warmer weather for most all of my shorter trips. I could even use it for some of socializing. Best of all, I would save $40 - $60 per week in fuel. That's up to $3120 over the course of a year. Not to mention the wear-and-tear saved on the car, thereby reducing maintenance costs over the long haul. Plus in my state, scooters under 50 cc and 5 bhp do not need to registered or insured. So there are savings there too. Reduced mileage on the car also results in a lower insurance premium. There are sooo many benefits to owning both.

Once upon a time we didn't have cars.

God forbid some bizarre incident knock out the computers in our vehicles....we'd all be stuck in our 6 block radius.

There is a man in my town who is a disabled vet. He was an alcoholic most of his life. He is 80 plus years old. He does not have a car.

He does not even have a refrigerator in his house. He goes to the store three or four times a day on his bicycle. He mostly stays off the booze but if he falls off the wagon, you will see him walking to the store. He lives by himself and gets Social Security. For an old man, who drank most of his life he is in excellent condition doing all that walking and bike riding.

My Father on the other hand, can't get out of bed because of so much arthritis and he has Alzheimer's disease. He worked all his life and didn't drink much at all.

My car is a 1981 Oldsmobile Omega with four cylinders. It is a small luxury model with electric windows, tilt seat, air conditioning etc.

As old as it is, you would think it had over 100 thousand miles on it, but when I bought it, it had only 9000 miles on it. I bought from a little old lady across the street from me who was going into a nursing home. She seriously only drove it to church on Sunday and had made one trip to California with it.

I want to keep it in great shape because I can't stand all this new computer technology they put into cars these days.

This car has a computer but it is not as much in control of everything as the new cars.

It is good on gas and has cruise control. I need to get the radio fixed it does not work well. It needs a touch up paint job and a new top. The top alone will cost $800.00 if I have it done.

If everybody sold their cars I'd have to go back into construction!

Speak for yourself. 1/2 of my cars are pre-computer.

Although computers can affect gas mileage, their primary purpose as far as the engine is to reduce emissions, specifically the ones which cause acid rain, NOT greenhouse gases. Two gases produced by cars have been proven to cause acid rain because they change to acid when mixed with water.

While cars do produce both CO and CO2, this is a by-product of any combustion. An internal combustion engine is always going to produce these no matter what is done to it. The only way to combat it is to maximize the energy output of the fuel through efficient, more complete combustion, i.e. better gas mileage.

There is a finite limit to how much energy can be drawn from the fuel though, and this energy has to be converted into power, in this case horsepower. Weight and aerodynamics has a lot to due with power consumption. Air resistance can increase greatly just going from 55 mph to 65 mph. This is what sparked the 55 mph speed limit during the 1970s. Reduced air resistance translates into better fuel mileage. So all these people zipping around doing 80 mph on the highway are experiencing much much higher air resistance and fuel consumption than someone doing 65 mph. That has a lot more to do with the driver than the vehicle itself.

Anyway, I'm going to stop here before I end up writing a book on car design.

If all you in the US had the high cost of keeping a car on the road and filling it with fuel we have in the UK there would be a lot less cars on the road there.

9,000 miles? IMO, forget about redoing the top. If you're going to get it repainted in the first place, for $800, might as well rip the top off and paint instead. Really, LOW miles or not, it's still an '81 Omega.

Conflict! Its a choice to sell or not to sell.

I ride the bike, walk...but the truth is a car is a most to make effective use of time.
I enjoy my car a lot. I give kuddos to those people that for 12 years have helped to care for it.

About paint. There's a new technique called water "paint" if no mistaken. It's inexpensive and car looks brand new!

For insurance. The brand with a kind of lizard is good $! Insurance is highly related to miles you drive (estimate ) throughout year. Do check what you have currently on your policy.
Merry Christmas

I didn't know you could do that. That might be a great idea.

That's my problem. Everything is too far, and I have patello-femural syndrome in one knee. It's a 2-1/2 hour walk just to the nearest convenience store and back. It's a 1-1/4 hour walk to the pub and back. It's a 3-3/4 hour walk to the center of town.

I have a bicycle which makes it much quicker, but there are so many hill and so much traffic on narrow roads, that it is murder on my knee. By the time I get home, I can barely walk - my right leg is sore, and both legs are shaking. It feels like someone threw a haymaker at my inner thigh.

Now that winter is here, I can't use the bike. Wind chill is a very real factor, especially when I can do 40 mph downhill. I tried it when it was 40 F, but the wind chill made my hands numb. I can handle low temps, but wind chill is a different story. It can make that 40 F feel like 25 F. This time of the year, it only gets worse from here. I'm not about ride my bike in 25F, and deal with 0 F to 5 F wind chills. Not even Alaskans do that.

lol, well, not quite that small


but the UK is beautiful and they pay an arm and a leg for gas but I believe their cars are much more fuel efficient,,,,having lived there merely a year, but done all my traveling by car,,,

I recently changed my insurance (well not that recent) from the Geico to another one called Liberty. I lowered my payments and got better coverage. Of course Geico wants me back. I don't know if they can beat what I've got now.

Try Esurance.com

I used to have Geico because it was cheapest. Then someone told me about Esurance. I switched when I found I could get the same exact policy, including collision, for 1/2 the price of Geico, who was still the second least expensive.

It's fairly easy to remove them most of the time. Cars are painted before the tops are put on, so there's even a chance that much of the paint under there is even salvageable. They'll just have to grind off the studs that are used to hold the trim on (not a real major job).

The cheapest that I found was Progressive. I can't complain about under $550 a year for both my car AND my bike.