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 weirdly do not get very attached to cars as much as I love them as a concept, and I get weirdly obsessed with specific types of them.
They are all just transportation, projects, or foster cars. I have owned a lot of cars that were just pure transport; tools I use to live my life. The rest are a flavor of the week I either bought because of a specific fixation or because I knew it was a great deal, even if I was never going to do anything with it but pass it on.
The only two I ever felt sad about letting go were my M170, which was only a frame, and my ’70 Commando. That is only because I had plans for them, but external influences on my storage forced them to go before I had done anything with them.
My 2018 F150. Bought it bc I’m an idiot and lowered a Mustang that I daily drove on Michigan roads to the point where I hated how it rode, so naturally had to overcompensate and replace it with this giant, comfortable, boat of a truck.
Never was a truck guy but it looked cool and seemed practical enough. Ended up making countless memories in it from road trips across the country, picking up my pandemic puppy, and getting married.
Cried in it the day Vroom came to pick it up after paying stupid money for it in late 2021. Can’t wait to get another truck
The car hardest for me to let go was a 1977 Mercedes 280S W116 in pale green metallic. I bought it on a whim at an auction and had it towed to my house. The car had had originally been delivered to Kuwait, and had manual windows and green tartan cloth seats. I rebuilt the transmission in my apartment and it turned into my daily driver for the next 2 years.
When I first drove it I was a little disappointed… it felt solid as a bank vault, but was slow, leaned heavily in corners, and the ride was mediocre for such a large grand vehicle. Over time however, I began to understand the depth of thought and engineering that went into its design. Although it was slow to speed, it could cruise comfortably at 80mph all day. And once it took its initial lean in a corner it had a tenacious grip for a large car on fairly small tires.
The ride on a smooth surface may have seemed only average, but it felt the same on any surface. 50 mph on a badly beaten dirt road felt exactly like 50 mph on the interstate – It was like a crazy magic trick! Speed bumps and dips just vanished under it. I had a later W126 Mercedes for a while, and while it rode much better on normal streets, it entirely lacked the arrogant disdain the W116 had for bad surfaces.
Eventually its rusting rocker panels and changes in my life made it time to sell. I don’t regret that decision, it was the right choice – but it was hard to say goodbye and I still miss it.
There was only one….my 1987 Honda CRX Si. It was cheap, reliable, fun to drive and easy on gas from new. Plus roll up windows and no A/C. I figured I’d rather save the weight and horsepower so I just rolled down the windows. Alas, rust finally claimed my silver beauty. I was jacking it up to change to winter tires and the jack kept going up but the car didn’t…not a good sign. The really sad thing is that I replaced it with a Scion XA….not a terrible car at all, but just a car.
My ’72 AMC AMX, retrofitted with Pierre Cardin interior, I had to let go after I let the Massachusetts insurance lapse and to find out the CT insurance I needed to buy was going to be like $1500/year in 1989. I parked it on my brother in law’s property until he said it needed to go.
Learned to wrench on this car after towing it home in 1982 with no motor, and the transmission hanging from the Wiper mounts. I put a 6 cylinder from a hornet in it, I got for free, everything including the Exhaust fit, except the 6 Cyc oil filters leaked due to a Motor mount issue, I basically eliminated filter on a 180K mile motor.
Later rebuilt a 304, which failed when the cam came thru the Water pump jacket, and upgraded to a used 401. Did all the bodywork on it and painted it myself. I even did Dave Tracy stuff like changing an water pump in a hotel parking lot on the road from my job. They weren’t happy on how the towels looked when I was done.
I’ve thought about getting another one, they are still pretty cheap, so maybe someday.
1992 Miata – bought it in 2019 with 58k miles. It was my 2nd Miata. My first, a very similarly-spec’d Classic Red ’91 got mildly T-boned in the Right Front and I sold it as a parts car.
My ’92 was bought from a guy who had brought it up to MI from FL and very rarely drove it. I paid $5300 for it, so a pretty decent deal, even at the time. But I put so much work baselining it over the next few years including:
I’m sure there is a bunch I’m forgetting but that rust-free car was such a pleasure to learn how to wrench on. It really gave me the confidence to tackle larger projects in the future. I added around 15k miles ended up selling it for $9500 to free up some extra cash for my wedding in Jan 2023, so I did pretty well on it.
My other might be my ’95 Torch Red Corvette 6-Speed Targa with 63k. Bought it at the very beginning of COVID for like $9k with a profit-sharing check from work. Ended up moving from MI to SC during COVID and sold it off to free up some cash for a house in Nov 2020. Made a bit of profit off of it, but I miss that excellent mix of muscle car rumble and the sticky tires.
Now I am without an enthusiast cars currently but a boat in coastal SC fills the gap a bit. Still have the itch for a 986/987 Boxster/Cayman, 996 911, or a C5/C6 Vette at some point in the future.
“ Are there any cars that made you tear up after you sold them?”
None of them.
“How hard is it to say goodbye to a car?”
Not hard at all. And that’s because I mainly bought cheap beater cars for functional reasons. As long as I *liked* them, that was good enough. I haven’t had a car that I truly loved. And every car I’ve gotten rid of, it was either because it had become a worn-out money pit, rusted out or someone smashed into it causing it to get written off.
So I can’t say I’ve owned any cars I truly loved.
Though that might change with my next car purchase.
So far, the Golf II I had driven for six years at that point. I really liked that car. I had it for almost exactly six years, from April 1992 to April 1998. It was just good enough to be not underpowered, as its predecessor was, at 51 kW. We’ve been all over the place with that thing; it has been to the North Cape FFS. https://ibert.com/martin/cars/b-dl3969.html
I’ve had my current car for six years (it’s seven years old). I currently intend (but that may change) to drive it until I can no longer drive (safely), or until it falls apart. And it will totally hurt when I sell it; much more so when I sell it to a wrecker. It’s an Opel Adam. https://ibert.com/martin/cars/b-lh2354.html
It will be my 987 Cayman S. It has been pretty cheap to own, amazing to drive, every time I get an itch to sell, I go for a drive and remember why I still have it. I’ve had it for 8 years, the longest car I’ve owned, I’ll eventually sell it for something else because I have a new car itch.
2009 Pontiac Vibe. Just a great little car. I owned it in my 20s and early 30s, so a lot of milestones, road trips, and memories.
After I had my first kid in 2016, I let my mom convince me I needed something bigger and newer and safer. I still kind of regret it (the car sale, not the kid).
I’ve had a few hard goodbyes over the years…
1979 VW Scirocco: My first car. Succumbed to catastrophic structural rust, largely due to a bad collision repair long before I got it. I drove it (carefully) to the junkyard, got my $50 or whatever it was back then, and actually teared up a little.
1984 Chrysler Laser XE turbo: Bought for $550, had all kinds of electrical gremlins, but fun to drive, even with an automatic. Got mad and sold it to a friend of a friend after it refused to start and left me stranded. He later told me it was just the neutral-start safety switch going bad. I still kick myself for not checking that.
1984 Mazda B2000 Sundowner: 5 speed, dog-dish hubcaps, rope hooks on the side of the bed. Sold it when I moved back to Illinois to help out family. Delightful little truck, but impossible for my wheelchair-bound mother to get in and out of. Very reluctancly sold and replaced with a Buick LeSabre.
2002 Mazda Protege: Refrigerator-white, plain-jane, 5 speed. My first and only new car. Traded in after four years on a Ford Focus with an automatic, because of LA traffic. Dumb move. The Focus was OK, but it was nowhere near the car the Mazda was.
1991 Mazda Miata: Beat to hell, 250,000 miles on it. Fixed everything and had it running perfectly, but still looked scruffy. Didn’t care. Reluctantly sold in 2016 after eight wonderful years, for no other reason than I had just bought my MGB, and having two small sports cars was silly (or so I was told). I don’t regret selling it, but I did vet buyers pretty carefully, and refused to sell it to a kid after he threatened to weld the diff.
Huh… Basically, it looks like I need to buy stickshift Mazdas, and then just not sell them.
Just the ones I miss the most.
61 Peugeot 403
1987 Saab 900 turbo
1974 Saab 99 4dr (Orange!)
1982 BMW R100CS
69 VW Type 3 Variant.
64 Dart 270 with a big 64 painted on the front doors.
65 Chevy C20 with a 283.
My first actual car (my first two vehicles were suburban’s) was an E46 325Ci in alpine white. It only had 123,000 miles but it had six owners, I knew very little about cars at the time but i had wanted one for years, got it for $3,500. I came to find out that every control arm bushing and ball joint was shot, the shocks were shot, all the powertrain mounts were shot and it had clearly been in 3 accidents despite only showing one early in its life on the Carfax. Years of driving suburban’s had made me all too used to loose steering and suspension. A family friend taught me how to fix it when he realized how screwed I was, I learned how to fix everything on the car, rolling through forums, obtaining as much knowledge as I could. Learning to fix that car actually encouraged me to become a mechanic after getting tired of working in IT for 13 years. I owned that car for 6 years and 70,000 miles, I cleared every error light, I got every little thing working in the car, I actually got it to stop leaving puddles everywhere and it never left me stranded, even made it across the country a few times. While I was working for a dealership last year it blew its automatic transmission, at a time where I was working on 7 cars, 5 of which are mine. As much as I wanted to manual swap it and keep it going longer I just couldn’t make it make sense. I sold it with its blown transmission last year for $1500 to someone who needed a parts car. I miss it every day but I don’t regret selling my first car, we had taken each other as far as we could go.
My first brand new car (not “new to me”) was a Citrus Yellow 2000 Honda Insight. It was a blast to drive and I could get to work and back on a relatively long commute on a gallon of gas. Also attracted way more attention than I thought was ever possible. You can never go back, but if I would, I’d probably start here…
1993 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham.
Without a doubt it was my Miata. I had it through high school, fixed some major crash damage and installed a roll bar, and right before college, it had a harmonic damper keyway failure, necessitating a new crankshaft. I was devastated as I didn’t have enough time to fix it before moving out of state, and had to sell it to a friend for basically scrap value. He fixed it and drove for a few years after, but I don’t know what’s happened to it since. When he upgraded to a later 3-spoke steering wheel I had him send me the original 4-spoke. Speaking of, I need to mount that on my wall.
Grandfather’s 68 Beetle was tough, but I think my 87 XT was worse. I had to let it go as a certain local officer spread the word about it and I couldn’t drive it without being followed or pulled over. I bought it super cheap after a kid had failed to replace the timing belts: much of the engine was in the trunk. My first electronic fuel injection car. First really sharp little car I put together.
Time came, it literally took me & my bil 45 min to yank that engine from the car—from hood up to motor on the ground. We’d been around Subarus a few years by then. I couldn’t watch when the guy came to take the body away: too many memories.
My first VW bus,a ’64 Deluxe sunroof walkthru model. I had already sold my similar ’67 bus, my ’64 Baha bug, and the ’71 Honda CB 350, so all I had left was that bus and the second car I ever owned, a ’67 VW squareback (which I still have). But, we had just purchased a ’76 VW camper, were getting married, and leaving for about a year on a on-the-road honeymoon. I knew the bus would be worth more in the long run, but the squareback had more draw. I still miss that slow bus. As an aside, my now-spouse sold the ’71 Corvette convertible, which is not my story. It think at times, that one is missed by my spouse. However, it had been stolen in Indiana, serial number ground off, recovered, licensed in Washington where we were. We figured the odds of getting that licensed in California hovered around zero, thus selling as we knew that after our honeymoon we would be moving to CA at some point.
I had a 1999 Pontiac Grand Am GT1 coupe from April 2007 to August 2009. I was 17 when I got it.
To me, it was nothing short of epic. The 3400 V6 with the “ram air” badging screamed power. It had twice the get-up-and-go as my first car (an anemic 1990s 4-cylinder automatic GM with a failing transmission) and looked the part. Again, I was 17.
I got my first speeding ticket in it and took it to both my junior and senior proms. The fact that it had every option a Grand Am could have and was meticulously maintained by its one and only prior owner was the cherry on top.
I sold it in August 2009 when I decided foolishly that I wanted something newer. Spent months wanting my Grand Am back, and would even occasionally see it around town – looking forlorn and mistreated compared to the immaculate condition it was kept in under my care.
According to CarFax, it made it to 2017-ish and over 250,000 miles before being totaled in an accident.
I used to say my 1996 Saab 900 Turbo, but now… I’m not so sure.
I miss my Suzuki SX4. I owned it for 9 years, and it was just simply an awesome car that was great to me. It was fun to drive, super useful to haul stuff, fit literally anywhere and the AWD system was genuinely great. I never have or I believe will, drive anything better in the snow.
The Saab makes me sad but I only had it for a year and a half. I owned the Suzuki for basically all of my 20’s. Lots of memories made. I wish I had kept it (instead of selling it for a tragically unreliable Hyundai Elantra Touring I replaced it with) and then kept it as a third car when I got the van. It would have made a good car to keep around as a fun, small beater.
I have two and each was hard for a different reason:
1991 Toyota Truck, standard cab. 200K, and 5 speed. Porsche seats. Show winner.
Rear ended at red light by Ford E350 Work Van. Able to drive it home, but inspection revealed bent rear frame rails and drive line issues.
So that sucked. Insurance guy still gave me about $1,500 over book for it though.
10 years later I still miss that truck.
It was the third car that I owned, but it was the first car that I wanted to own and it was a 1979 Mercury Cougar XR-7 and I was in love with the car! (｡♥‿♥｡)
I owned it for 1.5 years and I was driving home from work on the freeway doing only 40 – 45 MPH because there was 4″ of freshly fallen snow on the road. I was in the left lane of a 3 lane freeway, when a Lincoln Town Car, that was driving way too fast, spun out, hitting my car and thrusting me into the center concrete barrier! The front Driver side of my car took all of the impact and as a consequence the whole front left side of it was raised 6-8″ higher than the right side of the car, but the car kept running, (I couldn’t believe it) and I was able to drive it another 6 miles back home.
Anyway, the insurance company totaled it , and it was the end of my “Baby Lincoln”, as my uncle always used to call it, and it was the last time that I ever fell in love with a vehicle. I was so upset with its early demise that I went out and had a few too many Nips of Gin, so much so that I _:(´ཀ`」∠):_
( Oh! by the way , the driver of the Silver Town car that hit me, regained control of their car and kept driving, they never stopped to check on me or take responsibility for the accident) ۹( ÒہÓ )۶
I traded my ’06 Charger Daytona R/T on an ’08 Mitsu Evo X (GSR). I don’t miss the Charger as much as I miss the Evo. Did the Evo actively try to kill me every time I really leaned on the loud pedal? You bet’cha. Was it a total blast to drive hard in the twisties? You bet’cha. The Evo was totally bulletproof for 5 years of driving in all weather and handled snow like it wasn’t even there. I had to get rid of it to get something sensible to help move my daughter to college, enter the ’13 Ram 2500 (6.7 Cummins, 6MT, Megacab), but that’s another story altogether.
Despite the fact that the Evo was actively trying to kill me every time I stomped on the gas, I do miss that car.
Some cars I happily walked away from/some else’s problem.
Among the ones I didn’t want to let go but had too:
1969 Ford Ranger. First car from my grand father. I was in the middle to paint prep when the engine self destructed. Broke college me could not afford the fix. Sold to a great uncle and last I knew it was farm truck. I want to and don’t want to follow up on it.
1991 Ford Escort GT. Fun little car that had bunch or work done prior to my ownership. Gave it to my wife. Ended up trading it in as the cost to fix after 5 years of ownership was over the payment for another car.