The Car That Wouldn't Go

For those who been following my Twitter and/or read KosherJellyFish's recent entry, you must have caught the above recently.

This is a story of my timber supplier whom a few months ago, pulled into my factory's parking lot with a spanking new Nissan Cefiro 2.5L Royal Edition. A car even more staydee than his own boss' who was driving a relatively more modest Spitland-made car. He even bragged that his boss had to borrowed his car to ferry some local officials when the latter were coming to visit recently.

Forward to last week where we met up for lunch and he was lamenting about selling his car. We are surprised when he dropped the bombshell coz selling a car barely a year-old is definitely looking at a loss of 30% or more of the orignal sum paid for.

He explained that he has been struggling to keep up with the upkeep of the car. The breaking point came at a time where he was stuck at the petrol station only to realised that he has no money for gas.

If I have taught KosherJellyFish the word "facepalm", here's another phrase to learn.

"Sudden Gush Of Shit To The Brain"
 

Now before, we start laughing at other people's misfortune, I suggest taking a look around us. How many of us are/were ever caught in the same situation?

I have seen friends driving fancy smancy cars when I couldn't figure for the life of me how he/she was able to afford a car of that price tag based on his/her salary? I have seen many folks take up maximum term car loans just so that the monthly installment is barely reachable. Makes me wonder why the need to struggle so hard? Can they just get a less expensive car?

I am not against buy expensive cars but please, buy within your range of affordability.

I used to drive a Beemer 320i back in the late 90s, where I took out a 7-year car loan of SGD 1,300 monthly payment. That seemed a bit excessive but if one takes into account my renumeration package that included a $400 car allowance, a $500 petrol allowance and unlimited parking allowance. The $1,300 price tag doesn't look too daunting, right?

Well, yes and no. I left that job a year later and gave up the car allowance and other goodies that came with it. That was when I felt the full impact of the car loan where I had no choice but to immediately downsize to a Toyota Corolla 1.6L and slash my month installment to half. But only after taking a $30,000 loss for disposing of the car prematurely.

Expensive gush of shit to my brain back then. *facepalm*

Image Credit: KosherJellyFish

- Voxeros

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