the Jeep

I have essentially given up on blogging. Yet, the facebook can't complete with blogging when you want to discuss something in more than a short post. So here goes everyone's favorite from math class... a word problem.

My wife "R" got a brand new 1997 Jeep Cherokee as a high school graduation gift. When we married in 2000, it had 60k miles. It now has 218k. It is 15 years old, but those years are full of fun memories. We have probably had less than $2k in repairs, besides the normal oil changes, brakes, tires, filters, etc. I use it as my normal commuting car with about 240 miles to work and back, plus all of the normal around town miles. It averages around 20 mpg (a little more if I drive less than 75 miles per hour). It is 4 wheel drive, has a trailer hitch, has ample interior space, has about 200 hp and a great power to weight ratio (I can still peel out if I drive it right).

It now has a broken AC blower (a very simple fan to push the air out of the vents) that will cost about $600 to replace. The car is worth about $2800 and I have a buyer. If it were just me in my family, I would probably be too cheap to replace the fan and too cheap to buy a newer car, so I would end up driving it without any AC. That isn't a great option given where we live and that other people in my family ride in it often.

So, we can repair the Jeep, or replace it with a newer car. That is problem #1. Problem #2 is that we want a car that gets better mileage, but I love the versatility of the Jeep. Comparable vehicles are the Volvo XC70, Subaru outback, and a variety of small SUVs that are completely uninteresting to me. The Volvo is heavier and has less power, the Subaru is heavier and almost equal in power, but both get better mileage (about 28mpg on the highway). So if I decide to get a replacement car, it will likely be one of those two.

Problem #3 is that I may not want a true 'replacement' car, but rather give up all pretense of being an outdoorsy person and go for a road-only, sportsy, commuter-type car like a Mini cooper, an Audi wagon, or any of the VW family TDI diesel cars. They all get better than 30mpg (the mini and TDIs all get around 40mpg on the highway) and would save me money on the commute.

I don't want to spend more than $22k on a car is we decide to not fix the Jeep. I have good credit, but am averse to going into a lot of debt to buy a tool just to get me to work.

So, all of you who believed that I may possibly blog again after such a long absence, what do you think? Discuss in the comment section.