Owning multiple cars. How do you deal with it.

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My family has 3 cars currently and they are all parked on the street. I don't park the car in the garage since its small and only fits one car. Usually only one of the cars gets driven everyday. I drive mainly on weekends so I guess we could get by with just 1 car. 2 cars should work fine so there is always one other car when needed. Street cleaning used to be every week but they changed it to every other week instead so don't need to move the cars as much. I see quite a few others around my neighborhood have multiple cars and after street cleaning its musical chairs.

As for maintenance inventory I don't really stock up or store much of anything in my garage. I just buy stuff when I need it.
 
The most cars I owned was 4. At one point I had 5 cars on my property for the first 18 months my son was in the Navy. Moving them was a PITA since the driveway here is wide enough for 1 car and the Village doesn't allow parking on the street overnight. I currently own 3 vehicles, I've always had at least one MT in the fleet since the late 1970's. If things work out I might acquire a 2000 Buick Century which will put me back to 4 again.
 
Originally Posted By: lpcmidst128
My family has 3 cars currently and they are all parked on the street. I don't park the car in the garage since its small and only fits one car. Usually only one of the cars gets driven everyday. I drive mainly on weekends so I guess we could get by with just 1 car. 2 cars should work fine so there is always one other car when needed. Street cleaning used to be every week but they changed it to every other week instead so don't need to move the cars as much. I see quite a few others around my neighborhood have multiple cars and after street cleaning its musical chairs.

As for maintenance inventory I don't really stock up or store much of anything in my garage. I just buy stuff when I need it.


I know the feeling. There are more parking meters in spaces that never had them in the past plus the quarter will get you like 6 minutes?? Ridiculous!!!!
 
This thread is right up my alley. I have seven. All seven are paid off, all seven run, and currently all are parked and don't require any musical chairs...

There are five drivers in my family. The oldest two are in college, and will take 'their' vehicles with them when they go. Right now, they're home.

It helps immensely that Idaho has rock bottom insurance rates and registration fees. It costs about $30 to register a car for a year, and insurance for a car that a teen doesn't drive is usually less than $100 per six months. Anyway, like I say, all are paid for, all require liability insurance only, and I also depend heavily on blessings from heaven that they keep running, or that repairs are something I can do versus taking it in to somebody.
 
The problem with having multiple cars is that you don't get to drive each of them much. I'd feel bad about that, but maybe it's just my lifestyle. Right now I work from home, which means I only do a little bit of driving on weekends. If I had to put 3 different cars through their paces, I'd be doing nothing but driving all weekend.
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I Have 6 cars ,a boat, and 4 drivers. All are 2003 and older but all run and are used. They are all paid for. I have liability insurance on all but one to keep the insurance cost lower. I self insure the collision costs. We have never had an at fault accident. My 2 teen drivers would be very expensive except for the minimal insurance. It costs $2000 / year for all. Maintenance costs are relatively low because I pick vehicles that are reliable . Plus we are all good drivers that do not beat up our cars , except my daughter. That is why she paid for her car even though I own it with her.
I do all the repairs myself too. Yes it takes time and effort , but I think I come out ahead.
 
I own three and it is only with great restraint that I don't own several more. More than once I almost bought a Solstice (and if we weren't currently in a recession, I would have). I also turned down a shot at a really nice 1990 Turbo Grand Prix.

The kicker is the garage space. I don't want to leave the nice cars outside. Three it is for now.
 
I'd love to have many more vehicles, but parking is a major constraint and I'd have to tighten up financially if I wanted a second vehicle.

I did pull it off for a while a couple years back, even living in an apartment. I had a 2001 Ranger and 1995 Explorer. My resident parking sticker was in the Ranger, and I kept a guest hang tag in the Explorer. I mostly drove the Explorer, which kept it out of the parking lot for significant periods of time and kept the apartment management on their toes.

Right now parking would be a major pain in the [censored] because I have roommates. It barely works with three vehicles as it is. The cars (Civic and C230) can be finagled out of the driveway even if blocked in, but the Ranger is too long to get out if something else is parked behind it. To get around this, I always park off to the left side at end of the driveway, allowing both cars to be pulled in the driveway and leaving enough room so that nobody is blocked in. The C230 owner gets it and always parks accordingly, but the Civic owner is hit or miss. The Civic has been parked in ways that take up enough room for three cars.

If you can afford it, and you have room, I say go for another vehicle. I would.
 
We have seven cars at the moment, two of which are garage queens ('84 BMW 733i and '76 MGB I've owned since I was quite young), plus five cars we drive on a regular basis, which are noted in my sig.
Yeah, you do sometimes have to play car jockey, but overall, it works for us.
We have four people using cars every day, between my two college sons and my wife and me, so we always have a spare car available.
Having a bunch of cars on the road is helping me to work my stash down, though.
On the modern (although mostly aging) cars in my sig, maintainence and repairs have not been bad, and the Impreza and the two Accords even use the same oil filter.
Overall, I can deal with it.
 
I have 4 cars and the fifth wheel. A three car garage and Barn.
Parking is not an issue. Insurance is about 300 bucks a month.
The Buick and the Equinox see the most usage. They also get the best MPGs. The Trans Am is my summer cruzing car and the Truck is for dump runs, Lowes runs, and towing the 5th wheel.
I can use the same oil filters on all the cars(I don't), same transmission fluid and all get Mobil 1 10W-30. All get 92 Octane.
Easy Peasy. Maintenance has been minimal on all of them.
 
Up until an hour ago I had four cars and a motorcycle. Just sold my buick and am hot to buy some new project.

I like having at least one automatic, and at least one stick shift. Have not had a hard time finding stick shifts... even though I understand only a couple percent of new cars have them. I like having the automatic in case wife or I break an ankle/foot/kneecap and have to get around with one leg.
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Challenging is I like having a kid mover, road trip car, manure hauler, and MPG all in one. Closest thing was an olds silhouette minivan. I should just get a trailer and ball hitch; most cars can haul 1000 lbs. The trailer will last a lifetime.

I have two driveways. I did pave paradise and put in a parking lot.
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The first came with the house and we figured we'd leave it as the heating oil truck needs to back in to deliver. The other driveway leads to the garage which I built: nice house missing that important feature. Wife's DD gets to park here. In winter the MC rides the back wall of the garage and I can actually stuff two cars in as well.

Ironically, at times, wife gets home from work in her saturn and I hop in, as the motor is warm, and drive it to work myself! I keep my own saturn around as I love it and like having the radio presets and mirrors! With gas prices how they are I'm not dumping those two, no way.

Third vehicle is a pickup, now, but may trade out of that for a minivan. Am shopping for a fourth car, which gets to be "cool". Considered a 1983 delta 88 but it was in, gasp, poor condition.
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All my cars are low value beaters, albeit well maintained. Liability only insurance. My rip off state charges excise tax like a car is five years old even if it's fifteen. Standing fees (insurance, inspection, plates) to stay legal are only a couple hundred a year per car.

Now with the irony of having sold my buick, I have to drive my saturn, to pick up a tranny oil seal for my truck, which noone has in stock, and the truck is in pieces. Whew! Dodging a bullet!
 
Three cars (actually a pickup and 2 SUV's - I'm really evil..) in the fleet at the moment. Three car garage and a wide driveway that can hold seven more cars in a pinch, so space is not the issue. Two drivers, so there is always a spare or one to loan.

Newest is a 2004, and all are paid for. No Collision/Comp on the '97 or '88. Insurance is under $900 a year for all three, and eliminating either the 97 or 88 would only drop it under 700.

I'd have a hard time going back to two, and driving older,high milers is part of the reason for three - gives me time to make repairs.
 
We have 4 vehicles, all are paid for

96 chrysler caravan
97 isuzu rodeo
01 cummins diesel
04 toyota tacoma

00 30' 5th wheel
85 20' wellcraft boat

We own a huge lot and have plenty of room for parking, so there's no juggling.

It's actually great to have this many, and to also have them all running very well.

I drive a company truck which sits on the end of the lot except on friday afternoons and then I park it on the opposite side in front of the 5th wheel.


Oil is different for 2 out of the 4, same for 2, all of them use the same brand of filter.....boat is a completely different animal.
 
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single car family here; wife doesn't drive, so no point to it. I think that more people can get along with just one car. the costs to insure another, and register, are astronomical.
 
We have a "few" vehicles but most of them earn money so they don't count 'against' us, right? I don't finance them anymore so if it's in my driveway it's paid for.

While it's nice to have a stable it comes with a huge price to pay in time spent maintaining them. I have to keep a notebook on each one to avoid overlooking and/or duplication of service.

And it can be shockingly expensive when several all need tires at once, or something catastrophic happens to more than one!

But it's such a joy to match your day to the right one and take off and love the ride!
 
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We had three. My wife's vehicle, my vehicle, then we also had a Dodge Dakota as an extra. At the time, my wife had a rather repair-prone vehicle she was driving, so the third vehicle helped out A LOT. She would often get into mine, and I'd use the truck, while the van was at the dealer. We ended up trading the van and both primary vehicles have a perfect service record with us so far, so we sold the truck and I bought a 5x8 open-top utility trailer to replace it. All we used the truck for was for hauling, and the trailer serves as an excellent analog for that. Plus, the trailer doesn't really need tires, brakes, oil, insurance, etc.

We also have a 2-car garage and a 2-car wide driveway. In order for me to get my car into my side of the garage, I had to park the truck down at the front of the driveway and back in an S-curve around it. I'm not into parking my vehicles on the lawn or in the street, so it turned into more of a hassle than it was worth.
 
I currently have 5 vehicles parked at the house. Keeping them all maintained is the worst part. It seems like there's always something to do to one of them, especially since two of them are over 17 years old with well over 100k miles and are daily drivers.
 
We own two vehicles, my wife's 08 Explorer and my 2011 F 150 Ecoboost so I don't have to worry about moving one or the other to get out or registration.

Now we do own 4 atvs....three are kept in one shed and I have to remove two to get one out. My atv is kept in a bigger shed by itself along with a 75 Honda CB 500T. It can be a pain when my wife wants to ride her atv as I have to move two to get it out.

I use the same oil in all atvs so that's not a problem.
 
Originally Posted By: Craig in Canada
After reading a couple of pages of this, maybe I should start a thread "doesn't anyone else have just one car?"
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Yeah, no kidding.
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Welcome to the land of the free. We have multiple cars yet many of us are on food stamps. Life is good!
 
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