Someone tell me what to do with my Acura, PLEASE

[Siera56]

Okay I've been posting about this the last few days

In short: was given an 1992 acura vigor, it will cost 3000+ just to bring it to safetey and e-test standards, the car only has a wholesale value of 1200.

Everyone in real life is telling me conflicting things, and people here seem to know what they're talking about...so please tell me what YOU would do with this car...

sell it to a junk yard?
give it to car heaven and get 1000 credit to be used for future GM vehicle?
sell it as a parts car?
give it to charity(i.e the standardautowreckers charity thing)
register it as unfit and store it? (don't wanna do this because it will cost $60 a month to park)
try and fix it?
something else...?

Someone please advise!!

[KevC]

vigor's a nice ride. i'd try to fix it. if you have time and patience, you might learn something new. if you buy things used and try to do it yourself, it'll probably be cheaper than $3k. i bet you can still drive it for a year or so, then sell it off for ~$2k.

but then again, we have no idea of the condition of the car...

[BartBandy]

If you could use the tax writeoff, donate it, but something tells me you don't have a high enough income if you are being given old cars.

If you can do some repairs yourself to save on labour, keep it. If not...sell it for what you can get for it.

[Siera56]

Thanks to those who answered so far, looking for all the imput i can get.

Here's a few more details:
This car hasn't really been maintained as best as possible. Hasn't had a tune up in several yearss.

the rear breaks are shot
O2 sensor is close to dead, there is some kind of oil leak into the exhaust system (I think...he showed me but I forget what that part is called)
huge crack in the windshield
several other problems that I don't even remember what the parts were called...theres a bunch of worn out wires

Doing the repairs myself isn't much of an option because really I know next to nothing about cars. I was only planning to drive this around for 6 months or so while I saved up for a better car.

Please keep responding. Thank you for any advice given!

[BartBandy]

Money pit.

[700mb80min]

Sell it outta province that has no emmision standards ???
+

[Tomy]

trade it in for a new car

save u the hassle

[vtachy]

if you were only thinking of keeping it for 6 months then use it for a trade in. getting the car up to snuff to drive for 6 months sounds like it would cost way more than 6 months of payments on a financed vehicle (assuming you were going that route...). in addition you still have to pay for all of the registration, insurance and headaches of the repair. If you can't do anything on your own then the choice should be simple.

[brendonp]

I'm with Tomy, trade it!

However, if you want to drive it - who did the $3k estimate? Get a second opinion; rear brakes (which are hardly used on most vehicles anyway) are generally cheap, and O2 sensor should be cheap as well - though some can be a pain to install. You could probably try to source parts from a salvage yard; you might also find a small private mechanic that would install parts for you (ie, if you could source them from a junkyard). Worn out wires sounds like it could be a big problem though....

[Siera56]

Okay what do you guys think of this plan...

There's a car my dad thinks I should buy whcih comes certified already (yay)..it's cheap and old but I only want it for a few months anyway. I pretty much told the guy I'll buy it.

So i'm thinking I'll give the Acura to car heaven, get the $1000 GM credit. Drive the other car for a few months while I save some money, then get a new car using the car heaven credit, the other car as a trade in, and the GM student bonus to take a pretty decent chunk out of the cost of a car.

That way it'll be like I'm trading in the Acura but without needing to buy from a dealer just yet...

Does that make sense or am I missing something? As you can probably tell I'm no expert when it comes to buying/selling/trading cars

[VivienM]

So i'm thinking I'll give the Acura to car heaven, get the $1000 GM credit. Drive the other car for a few months while I save some money, then get a new car using the car heaven credit, the other car as a trade in, and the GM student bonus to take a pretty decent chunk out of the cost of a car.

Just make sure you can use the GM student bonus on the car you're planning to get... the list is a bit short and probably hasn't been updated for a while (I'd expect Saturn Aura to be on there, for example, but it's not... maybe the dealers have a new list)

[dapper_remy]

Sell it on ebay not much to lose could be fun, might gain