Quote:
Originally Posted by slowmover
The long term vehicle is the one that can carry you and your family to safety in the event of emergency.
All other considerations are moot.
How fast, how far, how much weight loaded or towing are details of how to specify the vehicle, they are not central.
Basically, one vehicle trumps several, every time . . especially when they are old.
The vehicle that cannot meet this requirement isn't worth owning. Start from there.
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One vehicle does not and will not work for my particular situation though. :-/ If I have to drive only one vehicle that will do all jobs and be perfectly reliable that means a brand new Cummins turbodiesel dodge at about $50k. And even brand new vehicles can break down or have unexpected problems.
This strategy is about minimum total cost while doing the jobs that need to be done, and under my conditions two vehicles costs less than one newer do everything vehicle, because i'm not hauling over 3000lbs often enough to have to design my life around it.
Two people are not always doing the same thing. Because of the things that I pick up from craigslist, sometimes on a tight schedule (two people "show up before 6pm!" in opposite directions) being able to send someone else in the other direction in a 2nd vehicle works for me. The household in town will have 3 people and 3 vehicles - one normally takes the bus but will help me if I throw him the keys and say "pick up those windows being thrown out 20 miles from here" while I go to grab something else with the Saturn and trailer. The other friend doesn't want to haul anything in his nicer newer Accord and can't tow. If it were really essential to reliably get somewhere we'd probably jump in his as the newest lowest mileage vehicle.
Under any long term emergency condition i'd rather take two vehicles in a convoy than one anyway. You can always abandon one and hop in the other, vehicles can become disabled by any number of problems outside of just reliability - violent crowds, cutting more than one tire, etc. How did we get on this topic anyway? >_<
I do not have unlimited budgets. I gave all the details to welcome anyones brainstorming about ways to explore my above needs with best fuel efficiency with minimum extra costs put in... although "total lifecycle costs" skew towards a newer low or no mileage vehicle with a half million mile lifespan for something in constant duty, this is intermittent duty. The extra costs of "the best" or even just a 4bt are probably enough the TLC never breaks even. I don't know for a fact I will see enough loads that the extra 2-3mpg will ever matter, the resale of modified vehicles is always a ?? so I don't know I can get it back on the tailend, plus it costs the up front cash to finance this which I may not be able to have.
The Saturn I already have which is paid for and will keep will tow "up to" 1000lbs easily, 2000lbs suggested with a braked trailer (normal chassis limit for rear mount only hitch), or 3500lbs estimated with my CAD engineer friend's special weight distributing hitch and a braked trailer. The 2nd vehicle simply handles everything above that whether I choose 1000lbs or 3500lbs. It lets me fetch parts if I have my Saturn apart and the other roomie isn't home for instance. But in general the Saturn is already very reliable for me despite 200k on it. In the future after I rebuild the engine it will be even better - during that time i'll obviously need a 2nd vehicle anyways til I finish the rebuild because i'm a pretty slow mechanic most of the time. But I also just like the security of tearing into my main vehicle and no matter what unexpected problem I encounter I can just drive the other one immediately. Since i'd do my own mechanic work even on a new one I just plain feel better about having two anyways.
What i'm trying to avoid is having THREE just for me and what are primarily my loads though. :P Having a powerful low ratio pickup would better haul the loads and the job when it gets heavy, but never pay for itself, get horrible mileage unladen for the half of the trip there with an empty trailer, create a parking nightmare or require offsite parking at $100/month at Uhaul, etc.