Adivce I could give my son please re his car!!

gilly41

Hi
My 20 year old son is going in to his 3rd year at Uni in September. When he turned 17 his grandparents, me exs parents, bought him a car(as you can imagine a 17 year old would be over the moon with this gift).OH and I knew nothing about it til they were going out to buy him it----and of course at first it was my sons pride and joy!!
Anyhow, over the last 3 years, various things have gone wrong with it and my son has realised that owning a car isnt all it is cracked up to be when you are a poor student!!
When he returned from Uni a few weeks ago he car broke down within days of him being home---he lives at his dads and decided to leave it in his back yard as he just could not afford to get it sorted. He is going to San Franciso in 10 days time to work for the rest of the summer and therefore he needs his money from his temping job to take with him.
Out of the blue, last week ,his dad, who has never in his life offered him anything said he would pay to get it repaired--obviously my son was over the moon and he took it in to get it looked at and to establish what the damage was to be money wise!!!!!!
To cut a long story very short it was to be £300 but my sons friend works at the garage and got it knocked down to £240----when son rang his dad he said he couldnt afford to pay it and he would go halves with him!!!
My son obvioulsy cant afford this before America and was just gooing to leave it in the yard til he came back until his dad offered to pay(it cost son £40 to have it put on this machine to sort out what was wrong with it!!!).
Every few months something seems to go wrong with it---I have advised him his best bet may be to get rid of it til he gets a full time job after uni!!(I mean get rid of the car and get another one when he finishes uni)
What would you advise he does?
Thanks for the advice

kuohu

What is the value of the car? (Or, what is the make, model, and year?).

Hard to offer advice without knowing the details, but regardless of the whole Uni/USA situation if you had a car that was breaking down every few months then you'd get rid, wouldn't you? I suspect that if the car is just a cheap runaround worth £500 anyway then paying £240 to put it right could be throwing good money after bad.

gilly41

Hi
It is a fiat something!!! X reg so not an old car!!
But it really does seem as if he is always paying out

---

the car is probs worth about £1500 but as it stands now a garage would probably only offer him about £500!!!
x

Littlemiss-lotsofdebt

Is it really only worth that much? Check out the value at https://www.parkers.co.uk. It may be worth selling if it is proving costly to keep but I would try and get a private buyer for it as you will get more money for it than from a garage.

CLAPTON

in reality poor students dont actually need a car and can't really afford one....no brainer really.