Give me advice

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CrazYmonkeY159

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So I am in a situation. My mom has been tirelessly planning for me to get mobile for a while now (bless her soul) but shes in a bit of a bind and needs some input

My older brother is to buy a new car (on his own name), He is currently driving a Nissan Almera 1.6 (2005/6 model, The Hatchback) with 200 000km done. It is a very nice car to drive and still feels ok (its just that the drivers seat feels like it has been abused and isnt that comfortable for long drives). This car is fully payed off and belongs to us. besides insurance we aren't paying anything towards the car and to date, weve spent about R7000 in servicing and fixing little bits and bobs of the car (it has aged ofc)

Anyways my mom is thinking of just giving me the car to use for varsity runs, which I am ok with but here's the hook. this car is going to be a hand me down for my younger brother when he is eligible to get it. I feel that this may be an un-wise decision as the car will be (at that stage in time be) about 2 years older than it is now. and probably be quite an expensive machine to run.

So we have two options, sell the car now, use the money we get from the car as a deposit for a newer student car (hatchback) or just continue to use the Almera and give it as a "Hand Me Down" to my younger sibling? the third option may or may not be cheaper, its far more unpredictable as we dont know what issues may arise from this fairly old car.

Info: we got it for R60 000 at an auction in 2006 it had 70 000km on the clock. The car is registered under my dads name.

tldr; Sell old car for a new one, or keep old car and use it untill my brother inherits it.

PS I dont have a clue how much we could get for this car BTW
 
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go on the various car buying/selling sites and check what a similarly speced and mileage car'll go for (minus a couple grand though just to be reasonable). that'll give you a ballpark figure of what you can reasonably expect to get it for. I will say this though, dont sell it. if its still in good nick and you maintain it correctly it should be fine for your brother 2 years from now. hell the car is 5 years old. financing another car would be ridiculous imo.
 
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Not sure about Nissans in general, but my mom had an old '97 Polo - which to date has done over 350,000km, and is still going strong. It's being used as a spare runner should my mom or my sister be left without wheels for whatever reason.

The Polo has had a full service history and has never ever broken down - everything still works 100%.

For a varsity runner, if well maintained, I'd say the Almera has at least a number of good years left. The money you'd save from financing a new vehicle would easily cover the costs of running the Almera with some cash to spare.
 
If the car is going well, and basically costing you nothing, keep it. Your brother will then be inheriting a known factor and your mom isn't going to have to scratch around for more cash.

Buying another second hand car with a history that is totally unknown to you could be dangerous. Just keep the Almera and maintain it properly and it should continue giving you good service.
 
You already lost out on a lot in terns of value. After around 2 years, you won't lose out that much as opposed to buying a new car and seeing that car lose value. Nissans don't have high maintenance motors from what I know. I say keep it and run it to the ground. You can always get a second car whether its a cheapie or when finance is more.
 
I say keep the Nissan and hand it down later. Then maybe look at something smaller for yourself
 
Fazda said:
If the car is going well, and basically costing you nothing, keep it. Your brother will then be inheriting a known factor and your mom isn't going to have to scratch around for more cash.

Buying another second hand car with a history that is totally unknown to you could be dangerous. Just keep the Almera and maintain it properly and it should continue giving you good service.
Click to expand...

+1
 
if the car is not costing you anything, keep it...my friend had his hand-me-down sentra until he sold it with 381k km on the clock. and better an old car with familiar kilos on it, than a new 2nd hand car with far less, but hellish kilos on

just ensure, like everyone says, to maintain it properly
 
Keep the Nissan. I have quite a few Sentras with over 300,000km on the clock. The car has not given you any issues it seems so there is no reason to replace it. The only particular thing that comes to mind is gearbox issues, Nissans have been known to develop those with age but your car seems a pretty solid runner.
 
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