Car Choices

["Rich Wagner" <drsavage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Kit wrote:

>In
>the next few months, my fiance and I are going to start looking for a
>new car for her...My problem is what do we get?  She likes the look of the
>164 (as do I, naturally) and like many of you, it would be nice to be a
>two Alfa family.  On the other hand, we might look at early Passat
>wagons for ski, bike, and doggy hauling ability.

Oh, Kit.  You need to ask?  Where did we go wrong raising you?  You must be
going through a bout of low biorythms or something.  In this case, thinking
with your heart is the correct thing to do.  Stop trying to be so blasted
objective.  The 164 is a beautiful, glorious vehicle, ESPECIALLY when
compared with the VW passat.  That's as far as you need to think.

Okay, okay, if you really have to be objective about this, I have heard bad
things about the Passat's maintanence costs.  As much as VW likes to claim
that its cars are cheap to maintain, they are not.  A few years back, I
ended up selling my beloved GTV6 because of financial stresses.  Some time
later, I bought a VW Golf.  As dependable as it was, I was soon ready to
hang myself, because I found out that maintaining the VW was only SLIGHTLY
more expensive than maintaining the Alfa.  Over the 190,000 miles that I
owned the VW, I spent $3,000 on maintanence (parts and labor).  And I
didn't keep it in absolute top condition, either.  For the most part, I did
only what I had to, to keep it running and dependable.  Since the only 164
you will find will be used, you will begin paying maintanence costs
immediately.  Don't let that sway you.  With a brand new VW, you won't
begin paying for maintanence for a little while.  But you will, eventually
have to, and I'm willing to bet that the costs per mile will be similar.  I
emplore you, don't make the same mistake I made.  Profit and learn from my
misfortune!  I won't ever make that mistake again.  If I'm going to pay the
same to own either car, you can bet I'll be driving the Alfa.  You should
too.


Rich
Montrose, CO
'82 GTV6 Balocco

------------------------------