thinking about selling my maverick

I'm gonna chime in here from the viewpoint of a guy who only buys and drives used cars.

Whenever I buy a *newer* used car (like 1990+) I get nickel and dimed to death by the car because its in that phase of, every piece of me that can crap out is going to do so right now. Like the newest car I ever bought, a 2000 plymouth in 2007, it started nickel and diming me about 10 months after purchase and it was just a chain reaction until a main bearing collapsed in the engine.

One thing about a 40ish year old car that's been consistently driven is that someone has probably already gone through the pain of all the small stuff crapping out, and your left with repairs that, while they take a decent chunk of change, are usually more spaced out than having to work on your car every weekend (my dang Bronco was a good example of this).

It's like my wifes Honda, its a 92, about 250k miles on it and I got it cheap. But the best part was that the people sold it because they had gotten tired of fixing all this small stuff and now there is no more small stuff that needs fixing. Just stuff that we can plan for and save up for and repair when we want to repair it.

Same with my Comet. My 71 was the most reliable car I had ever owned, it had rolled over the odometer at least twice according to the guy I bought it from, and it always started and always drove. My current 74 Comet GT is my daily driver, and it's had a few hiccups here and there, and every now and then something breaks and I fix it, but it hasn't stranded me anywhere. And the major problems were all my fault anyway (I learned a valuable lesson about the side posts on batteries in cars...).

So long story short, an old car CAN be problematic, but newer used cars are almost always going to be a basket case unless you get really really lucky, and have enough initial capital to ensure a reasonable attrition rate on parts, and the higher insurance costs. (my wifes 92 Honda is $120 a month to insure on its own, my comet is 70, my 93 Bronco was $110 and that is not full coverage...)