AIBU to resist replacing our old cars despite my mother-in-law's comments?

3 cars plus a campervan it sounds like, even if one is currently off road!

I always have a 2 strikes and it’s out approach

there is obviously an increasing risk of a breakdown as a car ages ( although new cars have a high failure rate too ) but usually it’s slow

thise going on about risking life - don’t get in a car ever and especially not with a baby because of the distractions they cause . Far too dangerous

👆 This. One of the builders I work with just spent £17k on a new van (I'm guessing a couple of years old and he's the second owner) and the head gasket promptly went.

If you both WFH and hardly drive anywhere do you need 2 cars?

A few hundred quid here and there to keep an older car going is a bargain compared to a few hundred quid a month for a PCP deal on a car with an annual mileage limit that you then have to give back.

was it a belt that the handbook recommends maintenance/replacement of and you didn’t do it?

for example timing belts generally get changed at 75-85k miles. not all cars have them.

id ask the mechanic to look over both and see what all needs done now/soon and get rid of the car which needs the most/most expensive repairs and get rid of your other old car you no longer use too, and buy one newer car with a view to having it for a long time.

id use the newer car to take dc out in. it should have better safety standards and be more reliable. the other old car is fine for running around in without dc. You just dont want to be endangering your child. sitting in a car on a motorway is dangerous. you dont want to be doing that.

id then run both the old car and new car until they die.

having money in the bank is great but you want to be safe so it’s ok to be investing in dc’s safety. your own safety is fine.

We have just upgraded our old car which had so many issues and I wish we’d done it sooner. feels so much safer driving around with my 1 year old, lots of new safety features

None of her business. If she’s that bothered she can buy you a new car

This

First thought that came into my mind too after reading the OP. I’m going to +1 the leasing suggestion as something to look into for the future. I’m likely going to do it in the future.

I think there’s a happy medium on this.
People who always have new expensive cars but don’t save for the future are fools.

But not spending quite enough for current needs isn’t wise either. We’ve always saved but also aimed to have sensible reliable cars. We’ve budgeted to buy them outright and then keep them until before they’re likely to have problems.

We have actually been in the same situation recently, after a small repair, with a big one on the horizon, we bit the bullet; but have decided to lease rather than buy. In the past, we have always just kept our cars forever, but a couple of friends have been leasing for several years, and it seems to work well.

She doesn’t have the same opinion as you and idk why you expect her to. It might be none of her business but it’s human nature to talk to friends and family about what is going in in their lives and if my ds said his old banger had broken down and he had £100k in the bank and the repair was over 10% of the cost and probably 20% of the value of the car I think a more normal response is either “you should get rid of that car and get a better one” or “but it was a good deal and even with repair costs it’s still a cheap way to travel” rather than just sitting, bovine and opinionless. There isn’t anything wrong with having a normal conversation about car repairs with your own mother.
My dh has a car with 200k+ on it and imo a higher than acceptable level of unreliability (although he does bother to change the belt before of flys off on the motorway - he’s on his third) but he doesn’t want a different car. It’s fine, we don’t agree. I’m not going to substitute his opinion for mine because I’m right but he’s allowed to have his opinion. I think both my own brother and DHs brother have spent a stupid amount on cars. They don’t and it’s their money and their cars.
I’m a total stranger and idk why you would spend £3.5k on a car with 100k on it rather than buying a more basic lower mileage car but it’s up to you. Borrowing £3,5k of your parent when you have £100k in the bank is also weird imo but you don’t think so and isn’t it your opinion that matters? Chatting with your own mum about cars and money is also ok it seems. If your dh wants a better car and can afford it why are you “right”? He’s allowed to think that. It’s a fairly standard resting point in the cost/benefit juggling act. Maybe the “plan” of living with what others may think of as extreme frugality in order to have a very lengthy, frugal, retirement isn’t as appealing to him as it is to you, especially in the context that your current lifestyle involves borrowing from ILs and delaying getting your timing belt replaced.

Newer technology which helps keep your child safe is a good reason for a new car.

Ironically, all of that fancy new technology could also be an added reason for the car breaking down in the first place!

Breaking down is never fun; but it's even more infuriating when your car stops working purely because of a failure in some arbitrary accessory feature that wasn't even fitted to slightly older cars.

I think you have your balance wrong.
You need to keep more accessible money to fund your own cars etc without borrowing from family.
By borrowing from PIL (assuming 'our parents' includes them) you made your finances their business.
I'm also not convinced that buying quite such an old car makes good sense either.

I think you’ve been lucky! A belt snapping while driving can often total the engine so glad it’s was repairable.

I have an 14 year old high mileage car which I love, it’s been very reliable and regularly serviced but more things are going wrong and it’s inconvenient when that happens. It’s time to replace, replace on my terms rather than when it breaks again and it’s too expensive to repair!

None of her business.

Stop telling her so many details about your lives!

People are daft if they think a 10 year old car isn’t motorway worthy because of its age.

It's precisely because of people who throw up their hands in horror at such a 'dangerous antique' that you can buy really decent 10yo cars with 100K miles on the clock for a relatively great price.

I'd say that's also what drives the whole new car market: people who pay enormously over the odds for brand new, because they fear that something a few years old will be a deathtrap.

If it were 20 years and 200K miles on the clock, I'd be wary of buying it from a stranger - although many cars like that are still perfectly viable if you've owned it for a long time and you know its history. It really does depend on the individual car.

It is not the 1970s. 100k is naff all for a modern car, but you do need to replace belts according to the manufacturer's schedule. If the cause of the failure was that the schedule had been ignored then I wouldn't worry too much and crack on; the problem is fixed. If it was a failure out of the blue and it's a car known to be a bit dodgy like a Ford with a wet belt design, then maybe it is time to look elsewhere.

This'll give some MN'ers a fit of the vapours, but our main car is 12 years old, has done 170k miles, and still gets hammered hundreds of miles up and down the motorway on a regular basis. We're off to the Highlands next week, France a month after that, and I have every confidence it will take it in its stride.

Don’t understand why you bought a campervan and then needed to borrow to buy another vehicle?

My MIL would not have known how much money DH & I had in the bank, and she would have been asked to keep her opinions to herself, but given you are borrowing money from your own parents, it seems that you are more open with yours, and that’s fine.

First you need to pay your parents back , then put some money aside towards a newer car, with the latest safety features. Newer technology which helps keep your child safe is a good reason for a new car.

Take the irritation that it is your MIL that has raised the point out of it and think about whether you should be using some of your invested money to avoid unnecessary spending and also repay the debt you owe to your parents.

Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable owing my parents £3.5k when I had it available to repay regardless of what I would prefer that money to be set aside for. But that's me.

Once a car has 100k miles on the clock and starts breaking down it is likely to become a money pit so the smart thing to do is to buy a newer car as, in the long run, that will be the less costly thing to do. It makes good financial sense regardless of who suggested it.

New cars can break down too, I don’t think it’s that yours are inherently dangerous.

People are daft if they think a 10 year old car isn’t motorway worthy because of its age.

However, if you have older cars you absolutely must get them serviced. This might have avoided the snapped belt for example, my garage would have checked that for wear and tear.

My car is 11 years old and (touch wood!) has never broken down. It has some work at MOTs but nothing ground breaking.

I had a brand new company car which broke down twice on the motorway… so maybe my judgement is clouded!