You have to be good at repairing cars, but probably not an actual mechanic. An actual mechanic may not make enough to afford the parts.
I had a truck that was less than reliable in the past. I had all the know-how and tools to fix everything myself, and even had the money to buy the parts. But I shed a single tear and then traded it in for a newer, more reliable car because, while I was making good money, I had been sitting in my driveway at 8:05am still trying to crank the engine over a few times too many. My boss wanted me there at 8, not 9:15 when I was able to get a ride from someone else.
And that's half the point of the article. If your job demands you be there on time, you can't own a clunker even if you can afford to fix it and know how to fix it.
My personal solution has been to own two clunkers, but my wife says it's a personal sickness on my part (I like clunkers).
I blame the fact that while I am not personally a redneck, I am descended from a very long line of rednecks and can't remember a time when we didn't own at least one car that didn't run.
And that's not even counting the beloved "donor" cars. :-)
Just think of it as "cloud transporting". One automobile instance goes down, fail back to another. You could start a new business like... maybe EngineYard? :)
That is almost exactly how I view it. I can buy two super cheap cars for less than one very reliable one, and when it's something that I can't fix cheaply or quickly enough I sell off the car and go buy another.
I also stick to the one pay check rule for cars, in that no car I buy should cost more than one paycheck, although I did make an exception for the van we use to haul the younguns around in.
You not only have HA cluster, you can also do some load-balancing - this way you have two cars with 30k miles on each instead of just one car with 60k :)
Just basic math - which one setup will depreciate faster?
My solution was to buy another clunker when I was in the financial position to be able to afford having two cars. It hasn't stopped running yet, the real challenge will be convincing the wife to let me keep it after it does stop running.
There's something relaxing about spending a weekend under a truck, putting it all back together, and driving it around knowing it's only alive because you saved it.
What shops charge and what mechanics get is two different things. My company charges $100+/h for my time, but I make far less than that.
Two friends who work as mechanics make $20/hr (senior-level) and $8/hr (junior level). Mechanics can make good money, just like programmers can make good money. But there are an awful lot of programmers out there making comparatively nothing.
I had a truck that was less than reliable in the past. I had all the know-how and tools to fix everything myself, and even had the money to buy the parts. But I shed a single tear and then traded it in for a newer, more reliable car because, while I was making good money, I had been sitting in my driveway at 8:05am still trying to crank the engine over a few times too many. My boss wanted me there at 8, not 9:15 when I was able to get a ride from someone else.
And that's half the point of the article. If your job demands you be there on time, you can't own a clunker even if you can afford to fix it and know how to fix it.