To keep my car?

[LewisAndClark]

I've had my driving licence revoked due to illness

'My' car is a four year old Ford. Google tells me it's worth between £6k-£7k.

DH's car is a twenty year old VW. It's not worth anything. We recently paid £500 to get it through an MOT. He loves it and thinks it's going to last another ten years. I hate it, I've only driven it twice and it's shocking, no power steering for a start.

Anyway, we were discussing what to do. I don't know when I'll get my licence back, it could be three months or it could be years, I have to be stable for three months and get it signed off by my consultant, and if I relapse I'll lose it again anyway.

Dh has suggested selling my car and keeping his. I think that's nuts. He's also suggested SORNing his and keeping it on our single car drive. Which also doesn't appeal to me. I suggested keeping it on his parents drive (they don't drive and in fact gave us the car when FIL stopped driving) but he says that's a pisstake and won't ask them.

I don't know why he won't consider getting rid of his car.

Mine is economical to run and I sure and lovely to drive. His is a money pit but because we got it for nothing he thinks it's a bargain.

If we sell mine and then his dies we're back to square one.

I don't know what to do for the best. Ideally I'd like to keep both cars because I want to drive again. Having said that, I need a car less now as ds2 starts school within walking distance. So we could scrap his and share mine.

Oh I don't know. AIBU to ask you to make the decision for me?

Keep your car. You obviously want to.

Yanbu - keep both. But I think you may be underestimating the overall costs of yours - yours is probably losing more in value each year than his is costing in repairs.

DH's logic is that mine's worth hard cash so it's better to sell it. I think that's quite wasteful as it cost us 10k new (it was a few months old when we bought it) and the idea was we'd keep it until it died. So it was a sort of investment. Selling it now negates that.

Selling it may negate the idea that it was an investment, but a car is a rapidly depreciating asset. Selling it would recoup some of the money that it will otherwise lose.

Could you give it 3 months, see where you are and then make the decision? In 3 months, or even 6, you will have an idea about the stability of your illness and your requirement for 2 cars after your DS starts school. You might not feel as torn then. Do you need the cash for anything else that is pushing you to decide now?

Your car has lost £1k per year in value, his costs £500 per year to keep going, from a purely financial perspective, it would make sense to sell. However, I could understand wanting to keep it in the hope that you'll be OK to drive before the end of the year, but that's not guaranteed.

Meh. If he wants hard cash tell him to go out and earn it.

Your car. Your choice.

It sounds as if he doesn't want to drive your car if it was the only one and you certainly don't want to drive his if was the only car - so keep both.

The funny thing is that he's been exclusively driving my car for the last month. So he definitely prefers mine.

He can be very black and white about stuff and is just thinking that if we get rid of one it should be the one worth something. And I think I'd we do that we'll only have to replace it when his dies.

Do you have an urgent need for money? If not, I'd keep yours for now. Otherwise you may sell it, get your licence back soon, and then find that you're stuck driving his car. If you then want to buy another car like your current one, you're likely to pay over the odds for a car whose history you don't know.

I understand your husband's POV - I'm the proud owner of a 20 y.o. Mercedes that's worth maaaybe £500, that my DH hates - but there's no need to sell yours.

Could you sell yours and scrap his then use the money to get a car your both happy with? It seems stupid to keep both but when you can't decide maybe it's better to get rid of both and start again