Nothing lasts forever. It’s a cruel part of life but your favorite pet, your beloved car, and the love of your life are not eternal. Sometimes, saying goodbye is not easy and you’re left digging through memories and thoughts. You never know how attached you’ll get to a few thousand pounds of metal, plastic, rubber, and glass. Then, you’ll sell a beloved car and you’ll feel weird about it. How hard was it to say goodbye to a car you loved?
Over the weekend I said goodbye to a car I considered to be one of the best used car purchases I’ve ever made. Back in 2021 when I worked at the old site, I bought a 2005 Volkswagen Touareg VR6. I was inspired by David Tracy’s adventures in the Lexus LX 470 that he owned for a sliver of time, and wanted to replicate the same experience on a fraction of the budget.
The Touareg I bought was full of problems, from crash damage to bald tires, a cracked windshield, and rust, but the bones were good.
The seller told me the vehicle “hesitated” at 50 mph, but the real issue wasn’t hard to figure out. Sometimes it shifted into 3rd gear with a hard slam. Diagnosis and research later revealed a bad transmission valve body, a common issue with early model-year Touaregs. The part alone would have cost me about half of what I paid for the SUV, so I decided to ignore it. Instead, I put on some new tires, fixed what crash damage I could, and then hit the road. I expected this broken Volkswagen SUV, a model already known for its unreliability, to let me down.
Amazingly, the Touareg then defied my expectations by driving nearly 20,000 miles. I drove it across the country to pick up my Honda Beat outside of Seattle. I then drove it the other way across the country to pick up a Suzuki Every at port in Baltimore. Then, I drove as far north as I could get into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to pick up my U-Haul CT13 project. The Touareg, which I named Sophia, later took on three Gambler 500 endurance rallies, rescued broken-down cars, towed motorcycles, and did all of the sorts of fleet work I was no longer willing to subject my Smarts to.
To be clear, the Touareg was objectively a crapbox. All four shocks were well past their expiration date. Even small bumps caused so much bouncing that my tools would get airtime. The only way to drive my Touareg was with a light foot because moderate to heavy acceleration caused violent shifting behavior. I couldn’t lock the doors because the security system was wonky. The transmission pan rusted out. The headliner began to fail, water got in through rust holes, and the unibody had a crumple from whatever happened in the past. There were so many problems with this Touareg that anyone else might have scrapped it, but I worked around its quirks and kept it on the road.
During my ownership, new issues cropped up. The power steering eventually became heavy. I never finished the diagnosis, but the remaining culprits were each as expensive as a new transmission valve body. Then I took the SUV off-roading with David Tracy in Michigan, where the SUV developed a power steering leak and a weak linkage. The fuel tank also sprang a leak, another known Touareg issue.
Recently, I started looking into fixing all of this stuff. Just the parts alone would have been able to buy me a decent Touareg V8. Why would I spend more than that to keep a base model, crashed, and rust bucket Touareg roadworthy? I made the hard decision to say goodbye to Sophia. Last night I sold her for $1,000. The sale was swift, with someone scooping it up only 2 hours after I posted it. Maybe I should have raised the price…
I don’t know why it was so hard seeing the Touareg drive away. It’s just a broken German SUV. Maybe it’s because I make a lot of my decisions based on emotion and memories. That SUV was beaten, but never wanted to quit. It drove across the country and back, then asked for more adventures. It towed through the Rockies, survived Washington D.C. traffic, and trials by Gambler 500. But, I fought my feelings and sent it to a new home. Godspeed, Sophia.
How about you? Are there any cars that made you tear up after you sold them? How hard is it to say goodbye to a car?
I was looking for a 4-door car to replace my ZX2, and my friend mentioned she had a spare car that doesn’t get used and I could just have it for free. I didn’t know what it was until I got there, but the stars had aligned and it turned out it was exactly the car I wanted, a 1998 Volvo V70 turbo wagon. Ideally it would have been a T5 with a 5-speed, but its was an automatic GLT. It ran, but it was …. rough. It had been mostly sitting for the last few years.
The first owner took it to about 230k and always had it dealership serviced. My friend did not do that. It was sitting at 267k with all the deferred maintenance you could ever ask for. Broken vacuum lines, misfires, brake noise, suspension noise, broken A/C, stuck HVAC blend doors, and an oil leak that would make the Exxon Valdez blush. Nearly all the oil leaked out in the 5-mile test drive. So of course I took it, and drove it home a few weeks later.
I looked at the timing belt and it looked like a dry desert riverbed so I made sure to replace that before it left my house again. Over the next few months I replaced: 1 oxygen sensor, distributor cap/rotor, plugs and wires, PCV system, several vacuum lines, 2 strut mounts, seized brake caliper, cam seals, all 4 tires, various fluids and filters, and brought the gas mileage up from about 8mpg to 20. The PCV systems on those are a bit of a nightmare and took me about 7 hours to replace, but it mostly fixed the oil leak. Even after all that, it was still a rickety POS.
I put about 15,000 miles on it, all while my wife telling me she hated the car, and my kids telling me they were embarrassed to be seen in it at the school drop-off. It was black so they called it The Hearse. It eventually developed a random stalling issue that could happen at any time, and I wasn’t able to figure out what it was, so I decided I was done with it and sold it for $700 and never saw it again.
It was my favorite car.
Now I miss the 1999 V70 I had when my kids were little. Clean lines, super comfortable seats, fit just about anything in the back, and an insatiable appetite for parts and shop time at the local indie Volvo garage. It got rear ended and the tailpipe melted the plastic bumper. The insurance company totalled it and we gave it to my sister in law who was in college. She drove it for another 2 years.
I would have been embarrassed by this as a kid. And now I know it’s an awesome car. Kids are so dumb!
Yep, I was embarrassed by my mom’s 2001 Volvo V70 T5 as a kid and teenager…but man, I’d love to have that car now!
I bought an ‘01 V70 T5 with a stick new, picked it up in Sweden. We loaded that wagon many times & took it on family adventures. Great trip car, comfy seats and a great stereo. I tended it, and it took care of us for 2 decades.
Nearing 270K miles, it’s my son’s now, though rust spots are beginning to claim it: it hasn’t been back for biannual (northeast) rust abatement lately and it’s a long drive from MI.
Amazing capacity to pretend it was a small truck. Heck, my son took our spare, full-size fridge to college in the back one year.
Many happy memories.
Pretty easy – a 2014 Mazda6 I traded.
I tend to change cars relatively often… I’ve owned 9 daily drivers in my 25 years of driving (not including my current car), and all but two were traded for something else within three years of getting it. One was written off, but I was looking for a replacement anyway, and the others either were bad purchase decisions or got boring.
I never tired of the Mazda6 though. Had that car for 8 of those 25 years, and there have been many days recently where I think I should have kept it longer. I really should have. It was dumb to get rid of it. It still represents the best looking mid-size sedan on the market, it was supremely reliable, efficient, and fun to drive. I just found images of the car on my computer this past weekend and I definitely miss it.
The Mrs. had a 2008 (6MT) that she kept for 12 years. If it weren’t for the random issue with the battery going dead at random intervals, we would still have it.
I have a 2016 Mazda6! Will have had it for nine years as of this October and I still love it. Bought it new on October 10, 2015. About to crest 80,000 miles (I work from home so not a lot of driving) and still a great car.
When I was in pre-school, my parents bought a 1970 Savannah Beige VW Beetle to replace my mother’s already rusted out red Corvair. At some point the car became my dad’s daily driver, and I have fond memories of the dog knowing he was home because of the squealing brakes and the distinctive VW clatter. The car was very reliable and we had a local mechanic that specialized in VWs to keep it running.
I learned to drive in giant Buick station wagon, then learned stick in my brother’s 67 Mustang, so driving the semi-automatic VW was NDB. When I was away at college in the late 80s, my dad had the opportunity to buy an Olds Cutlass for cheap, and I begged them to not let the VW go… so they gave it to me! That’s right; I rode to pre-school in the back cubby, then drove it to college.
In the final weeks of a long stint at school, I was in an accident where I was hit from behind, which in an old Bug equals “totaled”… I was heartbroken. I was just about to get out of college, get a job, earn some money, and take care of old girl. When my brother saw the photos of the car being towed away, he was mad at me because it didn’t look like much damage at all. I hope that it ended up on a lot and someone rescued it.
I miss my free Jeep.
Sold not too much, as generally it’s cause I have my eye on something else. I did wreck my ’96 Neon Coupe(manual!) and that still stings, was a great little car.
Definitely have some ‘dang should’ve kept that’ situations though, like selling my Volt during Covid as I was WFH, yay! Only have to turn around and get another car once it was over as I was no longer WFH!(boo!) Also before we moved down south we had an F150 that was in great shape except for the bed starting to rust, if we knew we’d be moving in another year we’d have just kept it.
1968 Chevelle More Door 75% complete 350 Vortec swap 4L60e bought for 1000$, spent a lot of time and energy on it making the Vortec swap work but just before getting it on the road my 1984 Chevy Daily blew the transmission and I had to get it rebuilt. Sold the Chevelle for 1600$ and rebuilt the trans. Now everyone wants 5k for their moredoors.. so amusingly I have a cheap 2 door Buick.
At this point I will have to be buried in my truck. Its a 1996 Tacoma- the small basic bench seat 4-banger variant. I bought it new off the lot a day after I graduated high school. It was all I could afford and I needed it because I had a lawn mowing and small engine repair business and used it to haul that stuff. 28 years and over 300,000 miles later I still own it. It runs like new and as I am also OCD, have changed the oil every 3,000 miles, kept up on the maintenance and had it repainted a few years ago. It feels like having an old trusty friend and I would bawl my eyes out if I ever had to get something else. Nobody makes a truck like this anyway. And now I am constantly getting asked if its for sale
My 2004 Mazda3. I got the car at a difficult time in my life; only a few months prior I had found out I was medically ineligible for military service and had to leave my ROTC program. This happened late in the Spring semester and left me scrambling to hold things together with my courses while also processing that my life had just taken a major detour from where I wanted to go.
I had the car for 9 years after that. My new path in life came together during that time. I drove it back to campus for the graduation ceremony (I graduated during the prior winter semester). I drove it to my 1st through 4th jobs. I drove it to the 1st date with my future wife and to the restaurant where I proposed. I brought our first dog back home in the car. We drove it to the hospital when it was time to induce labor, and a few days later the 3 of us drove home as a new family.
When we traded it in, I took a little extra time to appreciate the car and run my hand along the roof line. It had served me well. Cars would be nothing more than appliances if they weren’t so good at making themselves part of the memorable times in our lives. You think I remember the washing machine or fridge we had when we brought our newborn baby home?
The only car I miss is the 5 speed Honda Element I had. Got a little too confident and spun into three cars in a blizzard. Replaced it with a lifted 4×4 van that girls liked even less.
Bike-wise? Buell Ulysses. That is the one that got away. Mine ate stators, though, and they were getting hard to find since they were Buell-specific.
My husband had a Ulysses and got rid of it for a similar reason. It was years ago and he’s still sad about it sometimes. He still has his little Honda 1970s whatever in the garage. It was his first bike and therefore sacred and therefore I have to park my car in the driveway. 🙂
My 2004 Acura TSX (Honda Accord in other parts of the world). It was the first car I bought with my own money after I went back to college and finally got my professional career started. Several dating adventures and quite a few high speed night runs back to my former college to see an old flame. It was the car I drove away in when I was married. It was the car I drove my pregnant wife to the hospital in and the one I drove my daughter home in a couple days later.
Cannot say it was hugely well built, but warranty covered most of the issues. I changed many things that Honda should have upgraded, had they wanted to make an A-Spec+ version. Many Texas Hill Country weekend trips, though I couldn’t keep pace with the Corvettes, Supras, Evos or STIs, I could at least keep them in sight.
I missed that car even though I replaced it with a WRX.
2005 Mustang, got it new in 2005.
Was my ride in High School and University, had a lot of memories in that car.
Noticed that when it rained water would drip in on the passenger side dashboard. Then one day I took it through a carwash and the interior of the car started flooding with water into the passenger floorboard.
At that point I panicked being young dumb and stupid and instead of trying to figure out what was wrong with it, I cleaned it up real good and traded it in on a sunny day for a Nissan Altima of all things.
14 CTS V sport. Learned all I could about them and looked for the perfect one for a year while I stashed money away for a really nice down payment. Drove 1500 miles to go pick it up and bring it back. Over the next three months did a paint correction, leather restore, had it in for a bunch of warranty work at the dealer before it expired (two new turbos, new exhaust, new this, new that…). Probably spent a month in the dealer out of those 3 months I had it before someone smashed it and totaled it. I got a great deal on it, only had it a few months, and still lost like $5k on it. Insurance would not pay out any more even with a professional independent appraisal.
I had a 1990 Econoline Sportsmobile camper van that I absolutely loved. One of our last trips in it was to look at colleges for our daughter, and I remember driving home at 60mph, sawing at the wheel because of buffeting crosswinds and thinking “once she’s in college it’s just two of us…do we really need this big thing? We use the bed, but it’s a struggle to climb up to it and we’re not getting younger. We use the fridge, but its smaller than a cooler. We have a stove, but don’t cook inside because we don’t want to ruin the interior…”. I realized that our time with it was ending and it needed someone else to love it like we did.
I have a ’98 if you’re so nostalgic you want another one.
The Hilton…that place has like 300 thread count sheets!
My first 500 Abarth. His name was Sex Dwarf (for the Soft Cell song) and he was my boy through and through. He suffered a rather traumatic death by roll-over at autocross almost 7 years ago now and I still miss him dearly. Every Fiat has a personality, and he was one of the ones that thrived on being smacked around. He was a joy to work on and modify as well, which was good as he was the car that taught me to turn wrenches. He also brought me into the Fiat community, which has become a huge part of my life. I’ll never stop being heartbroken over my sweet little Dwarf. </3
People buy cars based on needs and sell them based on memories. You had many fun memories and you value the car based on those. The buyer has none, unless from a previous similar car.
My worst? I bought my 2001 Isuzu Vehicross brand new in 2002 with 128 miles. Drove it all around the country. It was a bought to be a bought new drove it daily and is now a Classic one owner vehicle. Bent a rod got metal in the crankcase still starts and runs but not if i run it. Sparked for now until rebuild matching numbers, used motor, new motor, or sell parts. Haven’t decided.
The last new car I ever owned, my 1986 Saab 900 Turbo. Thirty years later, almost to the day that I picked it up at the factory in Sweden, I watched it pull off on a flatbed as a donation to the Kidney Foundation.
Together, we rolled through a dozen countries, sixteen states, six homes, nine serious girlfriends (and various other dalliances), two hurricanes, three floods, one tornado, and one macaw, all while accumulating over 500,000 miles.
Over the years Super Saab toted Christmas trees, a couch, a big screen TV (not today’s lightweight kind), a washing machine, firewood, and a goat (long story) with nary a complaint nor breakdown. It survived three collisions (head-on, rearend, and T-bone) and drove home from each leaving me without a scratch.
Alas, the floods spelled doom for the frame though that mighty motor still fired up every time, right to its final day.
When the truck departed with my Saab, I hurried out to my dock on the river and my last view of my trusty companion was as it passed over a bridge a half mile upstream. I did tear up as it left my life.
You teared up? So this whole thing was a bit of a… Saab story?
Haha. Yes, (sniff).
My 1989 Bronco II, V-6, Manual, 4×4. I loved that thing, but eventually I had to move on to something with more than one functioning door.
I have one hard one that was a forced goodbye and another not-as-hard one that was more sentimental.
First, the really hard one. My first RX-7 I got in 1999 when I was a senior in high school. I drove that car a lot around town, trips back and forth to college, and other road trips. I put about 90,000 miles on it from 1999 to late 2004. A few days before Christmas, it was stolen out of the parking lot at work. I quickly lost hope of it ever being found ad bought another RX-7 to replace it. A few days after I bought the new one, the Sheriff’s department called me and told me they found my vehicle…on fire in a field. It had been stripped of its engine and who knows what else before they tossed it in a field and burned it. They found a cell phone at the scene, but the arson investigator never informed me of any arrest. I think they mostly just wanted to rule me out as a suspect, maybe for some insurance scam. I was young and dumb and those cars were plentiful back then – I did not have comprehensive and collision on it.
The second one was my recently sold Mazda 6. I had that car since new and put almost 145k miles on it before I sold it. It was the most dependable thing I ever owned, only needing two new sets of tires, one set of front brakes, one spark plug change, several air filters, two batteries, and regular oil changes. Basically, all wear items and preventative maintenance. It remains the only new car I ever owned and was a great car.
My 1960 Cadillac project.
In hindsight, we were extremely naive about how much work it needed, and it didn’t help that we accidently hired a literal criminal to do the restoration work.
Didn’t lose a ton of money on it, but having nothing to show for it at the end was pretty sad.
Knowing what I know now, it could have been an awesome cruiser but it didn’t shake out that way. I’d still like to own a nice one someday.
My 1982 toyota pick up truck was the only one I regret as it was, at the time, that I could not afford to repair. a solid front axle 8 ft box truck would be wonderful to have again.
That’s easy: my 1995 Jeep Cherokee that I sold in Dec 2022. I wrote about it here: https://www.theautopian.com/what-it-was-like-being-forced-by-the-government-to-give-up-my-dream-car-to-reduce-emissions/
Next would be my 1972 Mercedes 220. My grandmother bought it new and I bought it from her. Unfortunately, the automatic transmission was on its way out and I couldn’t afford to replace it (or have it rebuilt). On the plus side, my old Mercedes was sold to German friends who eventually moved the car from Brooklyn to Berlin and had it sorted out, so it at least it went to a good home.
1996 Ford Contour, with a tuned 2.5L Duratec V6. It was very hoonable, with torque-steer for days. But my penchant for taking it onto backroads at triple-digit speeds kept it hungry for CV axles, and then the frame started to fail. I sold it for $600 to someone who knew how to fix it and had the tools, and did so with lots of work, but it lasted him a year before other problems surfaced and it eventually got scrapped. That was a surprisingly quick and fun car.
I replaced it with a 1986 Mercedes 300 SDL purchased for $1,200, which while not quick to accelerate from 0-30 mph, was comparable above 30 mph, and got better fuel economy on the whole. AND it was much more tolerant of abuse and general automotive jackassery. I put hundreds of hours on this thing doing triple digits on empty backroads without issue. The Ford would have needed an overhaul after a mere 1-2 hours of such operating conditions.
The Benz has since been sold as well. I only have room to keep one project car, and that’s my 1969 Triumph GT6 EV conversion.
My Explorer. It was a 99 XLT in green with a gray lower stripe. The transmission was slipping, the fuel mileage was terrible, and the 4WD switch sometimes took a little bit of finessing to actually get it into/out of 4WD…but it was more comfortable than the Focus I got into and it looked good in that green. I’ve been tempted to get a Bronco Sport because it feels like it’s close to that Explorer. But I know it won’t be the same, and I know I’m not the same.
In retrospect, going from a Citation to a Cavalier coupe was also bad, but it didn’t feel tough at the time. It only felt like a mistake later, when hauling people and wishing I still had 4 doors (and realizing coupes aren’t always sporty didn’t help–it was my first coupe and I thought it would be engaging to drive–I know, I should have known better). But that wasn’t that the Citation was hard to get rid of, just a mistake in choosing a coupe that didn’t have the performance to justify itself.
Other than that, I’ve gotten rid of vehicles I didn’t enjoy or no longer felt right, so I haven’t had trouble getting rid of them.
That’s a tough one. Most of the time, I’ve let a car go because I had my fun with it or there was nothing more I could do for it. Because of that, two cars stand out –
1. My 1994 Trans Am: It threw a rod unexpectedly. It went out the same way it came into my life – obnoxiously. It was loud, fun and loud.
2. My 1991 Thunderbird SC: I splurged and got a rare, low mileage 5-speed car that was in show condition. I got to enjoy it for a month before someone rear-ended it. The whole experience made me not want to get a car like that again. Bad memories and some anxiety there.
A few honorable mentions:
My first car in high school was a Conquest/Starion and to this day my heart still stops whenever I see one. I just saw that one on Doug’s site sell for $15K last week and thought about it. I’ve bought die cast models over the years and even have a poster of one on my wall but I haven’t brought myself to buy another one. I still think it’s the most beautiful car but they were never the most reliable and now that parts aren’t available owning another one would just lead to heartache.
Still my favorite 80s non-supercar design ever, in the wide body form factor. Almost TOO good looking. Still want one and they’re not too expensive for a decent clean driver. Stock 2.6 indeed is kind of blah. Personally I’d opt for a similar weight LS/ T56 combo.
The 2.6 can be woken up with a few turbo mods but if I were to do any engine swap it’d be a 4G63.
4g63 is a solid option indeed. Low end torque and screaming LS power just speak to me more.
Either path is solid progression.