OK, so I buy my 17 year old boy a model A, father/son project sedan for his 17th b'day. He was in the 11th grade and didn't think the sedan would get done soon enough for him to drive during his senior year in high school. So he says lets sell the sedan and look for a driver. I find a realy cool '62 Merc Meteor. A driver with a 289 & C4, brakes redone, lowered with 5 spokes and ready to drive which he liked. We make the deal and he gets the Merc. I'm stuck trying to sell the model A to get some of my $ back. NOW, he says he wants to sell the Merc to get a tuner car, something he can drive everyday. He currently drives a 1989 2wd Chevy Blazer lowered w/4.3 auto; cool little truck to haul his skate boards, snow boards, & soccer equipment. He works and makes good money but I don't want him going into a big debt and car payment now. Should I sell the Merc and give him SOME cash or tell him he can drive the Merc everyday?
Damn my father never bought me one car & you got your son two already? I say let him buy his own car & then he'll be more sure of what he wants & appreciate it more too. My2Sense
yes let him buy his own car!! best thing you can do to show him what life is going to be like for the rest of his life. responsibility!
The only way to learn and appreciate what you have is earn it yourself. Tell him to sell what he has and buy the (gasp) tuner himself.
whats wrong with having the blazer as a daily and work on the merc untill its up to daily status? I grew up having to pay for everything, with only my last name given to me and I learned alot along the way. Im also a youngin so im not some older fart saying how bad I had it. Im 22 and learned alot by driving, wrenching, and learning not to go in dept if I couldnt afford it. But thats just all my 2 cents, ur the kids dad do what you want.
{Tell him to sell what he has and buy the (gasp) tuner himself.} Different boards...different answers?
My father made me rebuild my first car so i would appreciate it - and I did. From there onwards i understood the value of having to work to keep a car and never got tied up in buying a new car and watching the depreciation flow down the gutter. Sometimes an older car bites me with an unforseen repair but I own all my cars - no ties to any finance company and its semms strange during the recession how other have traded down cars as they could not afford to keep their FLASH cars. So to answer your question - You've already given him a MERC and he has access to an everyday driver - what else does he want?? I know its hard not to but don't spoil him by giving him too much too quickly - let him understand that one car has to go before another arrives i.e. the "A" has to be sold before anything else happens
So why doesn't he sell the blazer to fund the "tuner" and still work on the Merc? Awful lot of options for a 17 year old. I think I would question whether he is really into the old cars or just thinks he is.
Give him a good smack for even considering a "tuner" car... I have always found it works well to not let Japanese cars park in my driveway.
Tell him he can sell the model A and use whatever to help get the stupid tuner car, and you're keeping the Merc for yourself. That way when he comes around, he can sell the tuner car and "buy" the Maerc off you. He'll come around. Just make sure you take him to some cool car shows..
This is very basic. You NEVER buy a teenager a running car. A project possibly, one that they will have to invest their own time and mony into. With no effort invested on their part there is no appreciation for what they have. And I don't think it matters if the child was raised to work for their own money to buy their own things. A car is just too big of a "step" in someones life ( for lack of a better word ) to be handed to them.
I'll lay on some of my sage advice,,my parents couldn't aford a second car much less by me one,,,so I worked to earn the money,,I paid my insurance,gas and other expenses. Fast foward to my twin daughters,,In 1985 I gave them a beautiful yellow mustang convertible,,by 1988 it think they had hit everything with in 2 miles of our house and totaled the car within a block of our driveway. They didn't take car of the car so the next car's they owned I made them pay for ,,know what?,,they started taking car of them,, Now I know all kids are not the same,,or I hope so,,but my girls didn't appreciate the belt tightening my wife and I did to try and give them what we never got. HRP
Too much of giving..without the earning. He needs to appreciate the value of a dollar. The biggest gift you can give your son, is his responsibility/independence/self worth..another words, have him buy his own damn car.
Let him make his own "MISTAKES".... Only way he will learn that he messed up!! Sounds like you are to good to him......"SPOILED"........
Tell him to make up his mind. Hes' still a kid and your kid at that and its up to you to help him not make a bad decision. I don't know what condition the merc is in but if it were mechanically sound I would be driving it everyday, but I am older. Its a little harder for kid always has been. They feel like they have to succumb to peer pressure this is maybe a good time to teach him that he has to be himself, leaders never succumb to peer pressure. Good Lord I'm starting to sound like my grandpaw. Somebody slap me.
Or he can just shut it and drive what he has, concentrate on his grades, get into a good university, graduate into a good paying profession, move out of daddy's house and buy his own place with a wicked awesome shop where he can start building YOU hot rods? I think it's really nice that you're taking care of your kid- would have loved to have that happen to me as a kid- but on the other hand, every guy I knew back then that had stuff handed to them - like cars and whatever - grew up to be total douche flops. I'm not sure if there's a correlation there or not. On the other hand, I'll probably spoil the hell out of my (now 12 day old) daughter
I worked my ass off for multiple summers to save up for my first car at 16. You learn a lot of good lessons by working for something and paying for it yourself. Advisable plan for anyone. If he wants to follow that plan, give him some constructive positive encouragement and guidance and let him buy whatever he wants with his own money.
Yah, I got a friend who bought his son a car.... and then bought it back from him when he didn't want it anymore... WHAT???!!! Nothing like paying for a car twice. Hard to bite my lip on that one... Kid still doesn't get it at 26 cause they have done everything for him.
let him buy and pay for his own ! maybe then he will precieate it.Or he can take the shoe leather express lol!
I wasn't allowed to buy anything until I had money for it, gas for a couple months, money to fix it up, and insurance money for 6 months. All had to be inhand before I got the car. I had $300 left to buy a car. I won't shame myself by naming the thing but it lasted 3 months. I got some money back from insurance and learned to make better decisions when it came to cars in the future. I would have loved a freebie, but then I'd be a different man today.
drive it he needs to learn how to fix it as he goes. I did the same thing in high school my dad and I bought my 51 and he would help me with some things bust most of the time it was me doing it. I will always have that thing its been a big part of my life.
I'm gonna have to fall in line here and agree with everyone... I bought every car I ever had... And trust me, until someone has to really work hard for it, they won't appreciate it... CASE IN POINT... Still to this day, every car my wife has had, has had dents, scratches, and other imperfections due to hitting mailboxes and every other object that won't run for its life to get out of the way... But she has never had to actually work hard to buy and keep up a car for her own... Before me, she bummed rides... then I started buying... My little brother had his first two cars handed to him... one totaled, and second had motor replaced after he let it run out of oil... now second motor knocks.... It sucks, but its true... IF you let him sell something other than his blazer to buy another car, you will be making a mistake... You worked hard to buy that model A and Merc, so don't for a second let them get sold to move forward with a tuner, or any other car man... If you sell one of them and he gets a tuner, what do you have when he's done with it? A import thats been abused, and lost the one thing it had going for it... its no longer a good commuter car... Keep the old stuff laying around, hopefully one day he will want to build on them with you... and trust me, the way people are crushing stuff these day's... keep them long enough, you won't loose your money...
let him buy his own car. helping him out isnt bad, but dont make the purchase. also, let him mess with tuner cars if he wants. i was raised in a all chevy, all v8 house, and when it came time to get my own cars i went into imports, it was cheap and a lot of fun. i made a lot of great friends and had a lot of fun. now that we are all in our late twenties, the same friends are now back into v8s, and we can afford to do them right now that we have decent jobs.
Sounds like he's no longer a 17 year old. At 18 he should be standing on his own 2 feet, making his own decisions and supporting himself. At least that's what my parents thought when I was 18 and graduated from school and it worked for me. If you keep "helping" with cash and cars, he's never gonna grow up and be responsible. I say repop the merc if he's not interested or let him find his own gas money for it. Driving a slammed blazer should be plenty good enough. The only car my folks ever bought me was a $100 55 ford for graduation after the tranny went out on my 56 Olds ragtop [couldn't find anyone to fix it] that I paid for myself.. And I felt VERY fortunate!
Not sure I agree with all this advice. Too many things come into play on how you raise your kids, economic situation, Geographical area, responsibility of the kid and much more. When my sister turned 16 she was allowed to drive mom's 66 Mustang most of the time. (this was in 1970). She was a 4.0 student who was involved in many extracurricular activities. My folks were teachers and didn't always have the time to drive her everywhere she needed to go because of there own after school activities. If she had been required to get a job to pay for a car, she would not have had all the life activities that made her a better student and got her into UCI with a scholarship. When she went to college they gave her the car and she got a part time job to pay for gas etc. She didn't wreck or abuse the car because she was brought up to respect what was given to her and treat it right - good parenting. When I turned 15 1/2 my dad bought me a used Motorcycle (a Honda CB160, this was in 1971) to ride to school etc. They couldn't afford another car so this is what I got. I was happy as can be and again treated it with respect. I was told if my grades slipped or I got in trouble, I would be back to walking. Never walked again. I didn't get a car until I graduated HS, my dad gave me his project Triumph Spitfire which I finished, drove for the summer and then sold to buy a newer car. I had respect for these vehicles again because of good parenting. My point to these two little stories is it isn't always the best scenario to force a kid to work if it makes it tougher for them to get ahead in life at that age. In our case it allowed us to concentrate on school work and other activities that got us into college and on the track to a decent life. This doesn't always work for every family and every kid, like I said too may circumstances, but I get really tired of people putting down parents who help their kids saying they are spoiling them or whatever when they have no clue of how the child and family handle the situation. Having said all that, I can't see this kid needing two, much less three cars, and I think you need to teach him something about making decisions and sticking with them, instead of him expecting you to buy him a new Oompa Loompa every time he changes his mind. If the model A was intended to be a father/son project car and that didn't work out, either build it for yourself or move on - same with the Merc. JMHO
I purchased a 1987 olds cutlas 442 for a 16 year old daughte in 1999 with 88k on it she is now 23 same car now has 144k and she has scrubbed the paint to primer in spots washing it, SHE wont part with it. SCHOOL THEM YOUNG its just training a dog!!
Let him buy the new car. Im 20 and buy/pay for all my own stuff including my college so ive learned to apreciate my cash. I have a problem with colecting cars an every time i get a new one i always seem to forget how much my insurance payment is going to goe up.
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