I thought I'd start this thread because I've seen quite a few posts on here where people are debating spending the money on, say, a new transmission when it might cost more than the car is "worth." A lot of these old GP's may only bring a thousand or two at a dealer, auction, or craigslist.

My advice is to not just look at the so-called book value of a vehicle when considering repairs, unless you're going to sell it. If you're just fixing it to use, the "book value" is actually meaningless.

What got me thinking about it was reading a thread about replacing a transmission on an old GP, and the owner was deciding not to because it cost more than the $1500 he determined the car could sell for, so he was going to junk it, but it seemed to be a worthwhile car.

As an example... I have a 1996 Chevy Tahoe 4x4. It's got 430,000 miles on it. According to Edmunds (who can't even calculate a car with over 400,000, so that's what I put in) it's worth between $800 and $2000. So what? Ten years ago I took that same Tahoe to a dealer to trade for a new Suburban. It had 130,000 on it then. They offered me $1500 for it, telling me it was very old, at end of life, and basically worthless. I said no, bought the Suburban anyway, and took the Tahoe home. 300,000 miles later (and $7,000 total in repairs, maintenance and upkeep) the Tahoe is still worth that same $1500. Somehow, it carried me for 300,000 miles as an effectively worthless truck, and is still worthless today, even though I just spend $3000 rebuilding the suspension and brakes, and it drives like a new truck. For what I just put into it, it'll go for a few hundred thousand more miles, still a "worthless" old truck that I could never sell for what I just spent upgrading and repairing it. That doesn't matter at all, as I intend to keep using it, not sell it.

My point is, utility value and cash value in older cars are often very disconnected. Just because the cash value of your car may be $1500, if it's solid and in good shape overall, don't hesitate to put a few thousand into repairing/rebuilding it if you intend to keep it and use it to get the value out of what you just spent.