Daddy Financials

Sorry for the lag time between posts, I've been joyriding in my new toy :) I've had my license for about 7-8 years now, but this is the first car that I have ever purchased. I have the insurance in my name, it is registered in my name, and every other piece of paper that had to be signed was in my name and no one else's :).

It feels good to be taking this step forward, but damn was it costly. Call me naive, call me a knucklehead, call me what you want, but I did not know there were so many costs involved with buying a car. The dealer told me when I was buying the car that the price did not include tax and tags. He was upfront about it, but I thought this would be about $100 total, at most.

Why does the DMV charge so much for license plates? Are these the same plates that are made by prisoners (are they still making these in prison?) And you get charged a transfer of title fee. To sign a piece of paper over to me and print out a new copy is $50. Are they trying to persuade people to take public transportation? By the way, the New York City MTA has proposed an increase to $3 ride for us strap hangers, not sure if it will go through but this may make gasoline cheaper than bus fare for the first time in my life.

So the registration, plates and title was $140 total, the insurance down payment was about $400, the taxes on the car were $160, inspection was $40, and of course I took it for an engine flush and cleaned the fuel injection for another $190. That is a pretty expensive weekend my friends. If your asking why the engine flush and clean the injectors if I just got the car from a dealer...I don't want to take any chances. It took me some time to save the money for the car and I plan to take care of this little puppy. The dealer gave me a 30 day warranty, after that it's all on me. Bad maintenance is a killer on many cars. Some people just drive until problems arise, they take no preventative measures. None of my readers of course :)

Seriously though, don't just change the oil and think that's all you have to do. Spend $50 bucks just to have a trusted mechanic look at the car every 20,000 to 30,000 miles, just to make sure everything is ok. If it's not, at least you know whats going on and what you have to fix. I still want to change all the spark plugs and spark plug wires, change the fuel filter and transmission fluid. These are relatively cheap fixes and should not cost more than $150-$200. This will happen over time as I don't want to overextend myself. I might also change the timing belt and water pump but these are a little bigger and of course more expensive.

I also have a friend who is a certified mechanic, he just doesn't have a garage. This will give me a chance to learn to do some stuff myself. Most guys would love to say at some point in their lives "I'm going out to do some work on the car", just feels good :)

If anyone else has any preventative measure I can take, please feel free to share.

Thanks for reading

I Love you Baby