Should I buy back my old car?

Mstng93SSP said:

I went and looked at the car today, I was extremely sad to see the condition of the car. It is trashed. The good thing is no rust, but it needs everything....and I mean everything! I almost feel compelled to buy it and save it, but I would never give up my white coupe for this car. If I can somehow find the cash, I would grab it and make it a slow project. The positive points I found were it actually has some power, and shifts half decent, has almost no rust and has all the original body panels with vin stickers. Bad was interior, paint, half a$$ed trunk mount battery, engine compartment is disgusting, bad exhaust leak, broken header bolt. Car has 160k on it.

Chris

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Just keep in mind that it will require a healthy cash infusion to save the car. You should only do this if you want a project with:

A. No hope for return on investment.
B. The likelihood of it taking at least 2 years of your life.
C. You can justify having two Mustangs.

I am not being funny, this is basically what the car will take. I think the interior is often overlooked as being a big part of the expense to make right, but I can tell you from experience that a car that needs upholstery and seat foam, carpet, a headliner, and the various broken odds and ends in the interior is going to have about 1.5-2K in parts, plus your labor.

Plan to spend around 2-3K for decent paint work and underlying body damage/rust that isn't readily apparent. Trust me, you will find it somewhere on these cars when you start digging.

So, you have the initial purchase price +3.5-5K invested so far. Now, if you are doing the project yourself, and it is what you enjoy, it might be worth it, but you can see that you are closing in on the purchase price of an already clean car, and you haven't even touched the mechanicals.