Silly family car decisions

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Back in 1988, I was growing up in a family of 6 people - my step-sister and I, in our teens, and my two younger sisters, who were 3 and 4, along with our parents.

At that time, we had a 1978 Chev Malibu wagon that was on its last legs. It has been a lemon from day 1, and my dad had just gotten angrier and angrier with it over the years to the point where he DESPISED all domestic cars, and thought they were all junk.

My dad thought Toyota's were the best cars, and had wanted a 4WD Tercel wagon when they came out really badly. However, money was tight, so he had to wait until the Chev. basically died to replace it.

So, in December of 1988, he and my step-mom bring home a new family car...a 1989 Toyota Tercel 3-door hatchback. A complete stripper, it had a 4-speed trans. and radio delete. Only option on it was a rear wiper - t was the cheapest Toyota on the lot they could get. This was to be the family car for a family of 6. I'm not kidding.

I immediately went after my father about how this was going to work as a family car - we just didn't all fit. He countered that we didn't all go out as a family together that often, and when we had to, we would just have to make it work.

I was very vocal about what a poor choice this was, and explained there were lots of options that would work better than this in the price range...I think I used a Cavalier wagon as an example. This brought my dad to the boil, and I got an angry lecture on what junk American cars were, and how I just didn't understand that we needed a reliable car, and nothing was as reliable as a Toyota...etc...

Well, we lived with that as a family car for 5 years until he passed from cancer in late 1994. I will give it that it was reliable, even survived dropping all the oil after a bothched oil change and being driven around like that for a full day! I did some of my driver training on it, and it was a good little car to drive. Unfortunately, my step-mom wrecked it about a year after my dad passed with about 80k on it.

I still contend it was a silly, stubborn purchase choice by my dad...ah well!

Any of you have stories about family car purchases that just didn't make sense, either then or now?
 
I don't understand how people can say all American manufacturers are junk, when they've had a bad experience with only one manufacturer. That's like saying, "I had a Honda that blew an engine at 30k miles. That means that Subarus are junk!"
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I wish that making a bad car buying decision was the only thing happening right now....

My parents are considering buying the biggest house that they've ever owned... 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, with a living room AND family room, a kitchen AND a dining room...

Dad is 77 and Mom is 75, and of course, it is just the two of them. My Mother is handicapped from the results of years of Parkinson's Disease, and my Dad has heart issues.

They'll end up living in about 3 rooms of that house. My Dad thinks he's going to buy a self-propelled push mower, to mow the yard (at 77, with past cardiac issues, and trouble breathing at times due to allergies).

I'd MUCH rather them make a $25,000 bad decision, over the $250,000 bad decision that's looming.

I can't explain it. I really can't.
 
Originally Posted By: mrsilv04
I wish that making a bad car buying decision was the only thing happening right now....

My parents are considering buying the biggest house that they've ever owned... 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, with a living room AND family room, a kitchen AND a dining room...

Dad is 77 and Mom is 75, and of course, it is just the two of them. My Mother is handicapped from the results of years of Parkinson's Disease, and my Dad has heart issues.

They'll end up living in about 3 rooms of that house. My Dad thinks he's going to buy a self-propelled push mower, to mow the yard (at 77, with past cardiac issues, and trouble breathing at times due to allergies).

I'd MUCH rather them make a $25,000 bad decision, over the $250,000 bad decision that's looming.

I can't explain it. I really can't.


Do you think they want to leave it to you when they're gone?
 
Originally Posted By: Virtus_Probi
Do you think they want to leave it to you when they're gone?


I literally built my own house in 1996. I have no intentions of living anywhere else, and they should be well aware of that. I wouldn't want it.

Sorry... didn't mean to hijack the thread.

Back on topic... bad decisions are made all the time, at every car dealership on the face of this planet.

Sadly enough, some dealerships/salespeople do everything that they can, to enable all sorts of bad decisions.

Even if it means putting someone into a vehicle that is the absolutely worst option possible, the salesperson/dealership will do everything that they can, to make it happen.
 
Wow! Talk about second guessing decision from almost 30 years ago!

That said, the worst car I ever owned was an '82 Plymouth Reliant wagon. It started out using a quart of oil per 500 miles. The dealer (At my insistence) replaced the valve seals. That cured the oil consumption.....But the boots on the CV joints were gone at 40k. It is the only time I got rid of a car I bought new early. It was gone with 60k on the clock.

Your dad was right......U.S. built cars of that era were junk.
 
When i had the engine shop almost every time a toyota or Honda needed an engine the owner would say "no way its a Japanese car" it cant be true...There was a time when in the 80's they were really great cars today not so much anymore, average at best.
 
There are only 4 of us so almost any car would do, also it was pre car seat days so 2 door cars were fine as well.
One that got away though, was my Dad ordered a 1976 Nova 4spd 350ci but it didn't show up for months so ended up taking a 305ci auto off the lot as they had a cross country trip planned. It had rusted to scrap by 1985 though when they bought a new Corolla hatch which was a much better car.
 
My dad was out of work for quite a while when I was young, he stopped looking pretty quickly and expected mom to support us while he drank beer most of the day. She worked as a secretary or telemarketer during the day, a HoJo's waitress at night, and a waitress at a steakhouse on weekends. Oh, and she still had to cook and clean the house. We only had one running car at the time, and his big, broken down Merc still got the only garage spot, but only one person was driving to work.
Dad finally got a reasonable job workind 2nd shift cleaning up a school, but there was not enough money for 2 cars yet. Mom found a job as a secretary that she could walk to, but this was near Chicago and winters really sucked for her (at least she wasn't waitressing anymore). Once they had some savings, I heard dad telling mom that he found a '77 Mercury Comet that had been sitting new on a lot for a while that they could get cheap. Mom started yelling that they were buying that car, and dad tried to tell her that it had no power steering, which is why nobody would buy it. Mom just kept yelling that THEY WERE BUYING THAT CAR!
She wanted the new car after driving a '66 Comet for so long, and, my god, did that poor woman have a [censored] of a time steering that car. If she had to turn from a stop, she would grunt and moan as she fought with the wheel. Parking was horrendous. I was 6'2" and over 200lbs before I started driving it, and I had a horrible time with that thing. What made it worse was that the cheap steering wheel was hard to grip, but I'd think that any kind of cover for it would have been ripped off in now time.
They really should have waited until they had a few hundred more bucks to buy a better car for her, but she just was SO sick of walking to work. Often she would walk home, get me and my sister, walk us over to KFC for dinner because she was sick of cooking, and walk us home...must have been 4 or more miles all together.
Dad bought a used '70s Comet a few years later and that had power steering, but mom would not drive it because it had rust spots. She fought with that car until she died right after I went to college, I'm sure all that stress on her took its toll.
After mom died, dad treated himself and bought a lightly used Marquis. He acted like it was a Rolls, and I had to ask him if he heard that sound of air rushing out from somewhere around the steering column...he had gone a bit deaf and had no idea what I was talking about. He got the Marquis cheap because it had a defect that was obvious to most people that he was unaware of, but that thing worked until he had a stroke and couldn't drive anymore.
 
My dads idea of the perfect family car in 1985 or so was a used 1980 International Scout. My dad was a firm believer that anything with less than 8 cylinders was a waste of money. The scout got probably 8mpg, ate tires and was probably the dumbest vehicle on the road. It was too heavy to do any kind of real 4wheeling so basically just a rolling gas guzzler. Its death was the catalytic converter got stopped up and was glowing cherry red along with a massive transmission fluid leak..it caught on fire but dad put it halfway out..it never ran again and we were all glad.

After that he bought a chevy nova with a straight 6 cylinder and was convinced that it was a perfect designed car because every part was easy to change...so he stuck with novas for another 20 years..

My father always made good money but never spent it on a decent vehicle. I was always embarrased to go anywhere for the most part but he spent the money on the house and other things..I learned to work on all his junk cars and it made me who i am today.
 
Originally Posted By: IndyIan
There are only 4 of us so almost any car would do, also it was pre car seat days so 2 door cars were fine as well.
One that got away though, was my Dad ordered a 1976 Nova 4spd 350ci but it didn't show up for months so ended up taking a 305ci auto off the lot as they had a cross country trip planned. It had rusted to scrap by 1985 though when they bought a new Corolla hatch which was a much better car.


My dad gave me a '76 Nova 2 door when I graduated college, but it had the straight 6 250. I had a buddy in Dallas with a very similar Nova that had a 350, and he kept telling me that I could drop one of those in like nothing. I took notice of the fact that his car rarely ran (he had a little Toyota daily driver) and told him I was not putting any money of consequence into that car. Sold it to the son of a friend to use as a racer after I was rear ended and it was a little shaky on the road, the jerk hosed me over and flipped it for more than he had paid me. Taught me a lesson about being too nice, and my friend apologized for not telling me his son was pretty shady.
 
My family had a 1978 Ford Pinto for 4 kids. Believe it or not parents drove it 24 years! The frame finally rotted out. The sheet metal panels where very thick and stout. Was wrecked many time no problems.Maybe not the safest car and maybe we where lucky but familys are spoiled today wanting a huge tank to carry 2 kids or every kid a car. We did it for years on a pinto!
 
Let's see. Mom chose a '75 Cordoba because Ricardo Montalban was the spokesman. Probably the worst car she ever owned. As many miles up and down the "Dodge Boys" lift as it went down the road.

My wife chooses her car based on if she likes the tail lights.

The 2002 Camry has been a solid choice. The 2010 Nissan Altima has been almost as good.

Who am I to say her technique isn't sound?
 
Dad bought a 1986 Buick Riviera for 28k. Then when he wanted a new car after 5-6 years it was worth $3500 on trade in for a Buick Park Avenue. The salesman was a jerk. He bought a 1992 Toyota Camry V6 SE which he liked except for the stiff ride compared to the Riviera. He's had Camrys every since but never another SE model again.
 
My wife bought a Smart once, almost. She was dead-set on getting one, because "it was cute." Luckily she quickly changed her mind after she test drove one.
 
Originally Posted By: addyguy
Back in 1988, I was growing up in a family of 6 people - my step-sister and I, in our teens, and my two younger sisters, who were 3 and 4, along with our parents.

...

So, in December of 1988, he and my step-mom bring home a new family car...a 1989 Toyota Tercel 3-door hatchback. A complete stripper, it had a 4-speed trans. and radio delete. Only option on it was a rear wiper - t was the cheapest Toyota on the lot they could get. This was to be the family car for a family of 6. I'm not kidding.

I immediately went after my father about how this was going to work as a family car - we just didn't all fit. He countered that we didn't all go out as a family together that often, and when we had to, we would just have to make it work.



I agree OP, that decision (despite American cars not being as reliable) seems pretty silly to me too.

Growing up in the 80's as new immigrants to Canada, my dad bough a 73 145 wagon in green with stick. As a family of 6 (myself and older brother being under 10) this was the best we could afford as the Caravan/Voyager was just being launched and were too $$$ for us. This car (as well as following Volvo 245DL's) was great and met all of our family needs.

Often I would see other kids in the area we lived in, crammed in the backseats of Vegas/Nova's etc. I always wondered what logic the parents were thinking, even with smaller families of 4 or 5. You essentially NEEDED a car with more doors to accommodate more ppl.

Nowadays it seems as soon as you have at least one child, it qualifies you for owning an SUV...then again, the sizes of those car seats and "strollers" is MASSIVE! When I was a kid, a stroller could fold into the size of the average umbrella
 
In the mid-1990's I took my car enthusiasm a bit too far. At that time we owned 5 cars for the 2 of us. A DD for each (basic Ford sedans) and then 3 toys ('68 GTX 4 speed convertible, '69 GTX automatic, and '93 Trans AM 6 speed). We had a single bay garage so 4 of them had to be placed outside, often under cover/tarp. Got that under control a few years later as it was insane. These days, 2 cars only.

Interesting story about the 4 bedroom house for aging parents. I'm 15 years younger and I already realize that the time is fast approaching where I can't take care of our modest 1,000 ft2 2 bedroom cape on 1/4 acre. I couldn't imagine having to keep track of 2X to 3X the square footage. My dad took car of his large 5 bedroom home until he was 69. And that was quite a chore. There's never a guarantee of good health.
 
Originally Posted By: 69GTX
In the mid-1990's I took my car enthusiasm a bit too far. At that time we owned 5 cars for the 2 of us. A DD for each (basic Ford sedans) and then 3 toys ('68 GTX 4 speed convertible, '69 GTX automatic, and '93 Trans AM 6 speed). We had a single bay garage so 4 of them had to be placed outside, often under cover/tarp. Got that under control a few years later as it was insane. These days, 2 cars only.

Interesting story about the 4 bedroom house for aging parents. I'm 15 years younger and I already realize that the time is fast approaching where I can't take care of our modest 1,000 ft2 2 bedroom cape on 1/4 acre. I couldn't imagine having to keep track of 2X to 3X the square footage. My dad took car of his large 5 bedroom home until he was 69. And that was quite a chore. There's never a guarantee of good health.


I can barely stand 3 cars for 3 people with a 2 car garage! I usually volunteer to put my car out for bad weather because I'm an indulgent dad/hubby, but the daughter is normally outside. Huge PITA with our rolling lot and no room to add a bay due to wetlands right off the bottom of the driveway, the corner of our house sits exactly on the setback. Don't get me wrong, I love the brook and we knew what our limitations were when we built the house...the sound of rushing water is very calming for me, and it is always a little warmer in winter and a little cool in summer for our house by that water.

My inlaws retired down South and ended up amassing 20 acres with a good sized split right in the middle of it. At least they basically lived on one level, but taking care of the lot became a huge burden. The dad-in-law built a massive workshop, 50X20feet, and filled it with tools of all kinds...he barely went out there in his last 3-4 years. They were also cycling through cars pretty often, usually used with very low miles but they had Caddies, Lincolns, all big vehicles for 2 people. Plus a truck and even a moving van and RV (used once) for a while. I think retirees get bored and decide to "enjoy" their money by buying stuff, and also the decision making skills are maybe geting a little weak in some cases.
 
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