My Values Are Probably Different Than Yours
We’ve all heard the axiom that you should spend money based on your values in life, and not so much on the rest. I was reminded of this the other day while putting my mountain bike in the back of my car to drive home from a nice training session. I’ll tell a short story.
Wash Gone Bad
Regular readers know I committed what could be perceived as a cardinal sin in the FIRE community by buying a new vehicle in 2014. I posted about it and why I did it despite being super-savvy with money and swearing I’d never buy a new vehicle. If anything I learned to never say never in life from the whole episode.
Being that my new Outback was under warranty for 5 years I was also taking it to a Subaru dealership for oil changes. I felt it was probably best to go to the dealership for any servicing just in case anything did go wrong they couldn’t blame another shop.
Well after my second or third oil change I noticed a scratch on my rear hatch door when I got home. It wasn’t huge and didn’t even penetrate down to the bare metal from what I could tell, but still. This was the first ever new vehicle in my life, it looked pristine, and now it had a scratch.
And it immediately hit me how it happened – the car washer. My dealership automatically runs you car through their washing station which is one of those huge complex drive through things with all the brushes and machines that I used to love going trough as a kid.
I had heard that those places can sometimes scratch a vehicle but I wouldn’t have known because for 20 years I only owned hoopties and the thought of caring about them enough to pay to get them washed was hilarious.
So I quickly searched online to see if anyone else had their car scratched from this dealership and did find a few folks say the same on Yelp. Now I had to tell them to fix it, and would they even believe me?
Can I Get A Human Please?
I called the dealership. This is a mega-massive dealership with an annoying fully automated phone system. When I finally got a human she put me on hold. Then I was hung up on. It had taken me probably over 5 annoying minutes of button pushing to even get to a human, and I had things to do. I thought “I don’t have time for this now, I’ll try back later”.
I never tried back.
For a few days after the incident every time I opened up the hatch to put something in I’d see the scratch and it would bug me a bit. But the thought of calling the stupid dealership seemed, well, painful.
I like learning things, so I went online and searched to see how easy it was to fix myself. I mean, if body shops do it why can’t I?
Turns out it’s really not that hard. This great video from some guy lays it out step by step (I have no affiliation with him). Watch him intentionally scratch a car and make it disappear. As long as it’s only on the clear coat – which mine was – it’s not all that hard.
So I decided I was going to get what I needed and fix it myself.
I Never Did
Yep, I never did. The scratch is still there to this day. I just never got the motivation to do it because I don’t care that much about how my damn car looks. It’s plain and simple. The appearance of my vehicle is just something that I don’t value that much in life.
A vehicle to me is a tool to get me from point A to point B. I want it to be functional and safe. The ability to play music is nice. Oh and it has to be able to carry a few bikes, or my kayak, or a few standup paddleboards. Good gas mileage is important. After that, well, whatever.
I don’t look at the public roads as a fashion runway.
a scratch, not mine… just let it go
I’ll admit that owning a new vehicle for the first time ever put me in the state of valuing it more than I normally value a vehicle. After all I paid over $23k for it. But it’s going to depreciate anyway.
And oh yeah, as I started racking up some high speed highway miles the inevitable dings and scratches from stones on the highway started to appear on the front. It’s impossible to stop that from happening.
So after I saw some of those dings on the front bumper the scratch on the hatchback from the dealership was no longer the only flaw. It was clear that my new vehicle was now a used vehicle, and like any other used vehicle it had scratches.
Big effing deal.
Values
In the end it’s about values. The fact that I kept procrastinating and never fixed the scratch showed that it’s not worth the money to get fixed or the time it would cost me to fix it myself. I simply have other things in life like exercising and cooking healthy meals that’d I’d rather be spending my time and money on.
There is still a teensy-weensy part of me that feels slighted when I see the scratch because the dealership is at fault for it and “should” fix it. But that ship has sailed. They didn’t buy a car wash to intentionally scratch peoples vehicles. It wasn’t intentional.
To me it falls in the “shit happens’ category and if it is happening too much perhaps they should get better brushes or figure out which gizmo in the wash is sometimes scratching vehicles. But that’s not my problem.
What Are Your Values?
About this blog post title. Yeah, a tad click-baity, I plead guilty. My blog has been dying so why not, haha. But I do think the majority of people care about scratches on their vehicle, and I don’t. So it’s also true.
But if you get scratches on your vehicle fixed that’s good. In no way am I saying that makes you a bad person. Some people don’t want a scratch on their car, I get it. I’m just a person who doesn’t care too much about that kind of stuff. I realize that compared to most Americans I’m a freak.
If you only care about scratches, however, because you’re worried what others will think about you if they see your scratched vehicle, then I’d suggest you might not really care about the scratches at all. You might care more about being judged. And that’s a totally different thing.
All I can say is try to be who you really are and not care what others think. Try to spend based on your values. I’m not perfect at this so I’m not being preachy. But I do try to live it.
Scratches and all.
I’ve owned two new cars in my life. And after inevitably getting scratches and dings on them no sooner than I drove off the lot and onto the interstate, I’ve come to realize that I just don’t value the car enough to worry about it like I used to. Like you said, the new car quickly becomes a used car. Great example though on determining where one’s values lie.
Yep, oh how quick a new car becomes used. Like right away, haha. Thanks for stopping by Chad!
i went for many years without even having any working a/c in my cars. that now seems like a luxury i surely enjoy. i bought my present car new about 8 years ago. i just let it be dirty and get dinged. however, with all the salt on our roads in western ny i did learn the value of taking it into a car was a couple of times every winter. it’s really about preserving all that metal underneath.
a couple of years ago we had to get rid of an otherwise perfectly functional car just because of all the rusted parts underneath.
Our city uses chemicals on the road now that supposedly don’t contribute to rust, but I’m sure are detrimental in other ways. Either way dumping tons of any chemical on our rds to only have it wash into our watersheds is yet another way our car culture is bad for humanity and the planet. And our wallets.
I appreciate your point on values but I think you just might be rationalizing your behavior. It certainly sounds to me based on your description that the reason you did not pursue a dealer repair was a combination of lacking determination and wanting to avoid confrontation. By not confronting the dealer you might well be sentencing some future customers to the same frustration you experienced. I have a scratch on my daily driver that a not too bright 20 something caused by closing the garage door on it. It was an innocent mistake so I did not seek to have him compensate me but I also have been too lazy to get it touched up after researching fixing it myself and deciding it was out of my wheelhouse. I could tell myself the same thing you did. It’s used, I’m not hung up on perfection, the car has other blemishes now, the car runs fine still, etc. I could tell myself that, but I prefer to tell myself the truth, I’m too darned lazy to go to the trouble to get it fixed. But that’s just me.
Uhh, no. I’m not rationalizing my behavior, I’m just not doing it because it doesn’t mean enough to me (value-based) to want to deal with the hassle and expense. That’s voting with my values. And you are doing the same. If you valued not having a scratch on your car enough you would also get it fixed and do whatever it took (time/money/hassle) to do so. But since your not doing that it shows that you don’t value having a scratch-free car that much.
I think we’re in violent agreement and I think it’s semantics – what you’re calling “rationalizing behavior” I’m calling “doing things according to what’s really important to me based on my values” We all do it every day 🙂
Love the term “violent agreement”. I agree that if a person really cares, they will work around any time or hassle concerns. Except in the case of my spouse (or similar personalities) who cares a lot about something and bugs ME to do it because he hates confrontations. Ugh.
Haha, confrontation avoiders often try to pass the hot potato
I really enjoy reading your blog and hope you continue with it. Your perspectives are interesting and valuable to me.
THANK YOU Wendy, that means a lot to me and I appreciate your readership!
As a fellow owner of a scratched-up vehicle that hasn’t tried to get the scratches fixed, I can relate. It’s just not that important to me. I certainly know a few people that think it *is* important, and they will gladly spent gobs of money trying to keep their car perfect. And that’s perfectly OK.
We all get to pick and choose where to spend our money. I’d rather choose to put my money into appreciating assets instead of into depreciating cars.
I agree Tako, I don’t think negatively of people who do care and spend money or time to get scratches fixed. We all have to make our own decisions about what we value. Just as those who say they don’t have time to exercise. We all have the same 24 hrs every day, if they really cared enough they’d fit it in.
We purchased our vehicle new in 2010. It looked great for a long time, but it’s really banged up now. We don’t have a garage anymore and we park it in the street. The fenders are all banged up. Someone keyed one side. A bike ran into the rear and a car backed up into the rear quarter panel. I stopped worrying about how it looks a long time ago. Most cars on the street are all banged up anyway. Maybe I’ll care more when we have a garage again. But yes, spend according to your priority. I agree 100%.
I’ve never had a garage either and I guess that’s partly contributed to me just not caring. The amount of bird crap that gets on my car from just sitting outside is pretty amazing. If I try to clean it off it’s there again in a few hours.
In the grand scheme of things, a scratch is negligible. Now if you have a huge scrape that you saw every day and it bothered you, that’s different. Cars don’t live on a shelf, they move around and are subject to the elements of the earth, so this happens.
I’m a little Type A and would buff that out, but honestly there are better ways to spend precious time. Which is why most of us get our oil and fluids changed at the shop rather than spending time doing it on our own.
Exactly. And A small part of me who likes to learn and DIY would like to fix it just to show that I have that skill. But I still just don’t care enough, haha
Small world, Dave. I have duct tape on our 2018 Subaru Outback (wheel well fender) where my wife hit a railroad tie. We also tore a 12″ gash in the back seat ceiling liner when we made the dumb decision to haul a fence roll in the Outback instead of waiting until I had my truck. The tear is still there, and probably will be for the many years we plan on owning the vehicle. Don’t even ask about my F250. We’ve used it for 3 years to haul all of our Freedom For Fido supplies, it’s taken a beating. I bought it new as my retirement gift to myself, but couldn’t care less about the dings. They’re just cars, after all…. (and I hope that click-bait title revives your blog traffic. Wink)
Sounds like your Outback and truck have lots of character. Look at it this way, you’ll never get them mixed up with other vehicles in a massive parking lot!
Another vote for not worrying about the scratch. It really is about what one values. The first new car my wife and I bought took a road hazard (piece of something metal) to the front bottom of the front bumper about a mile after leaving the dealership. Left a white scrape of the dark blue plastic about 3″ x 8″. Had the scratched car for ~5 years until it was rear-ended at a stop light and totaled.
Yikes, that’s bad luck. But as others have said cars are meant to be driven and it’s impossible to keep them pristine, if you try you’ll just be wasting time and money
Thank goodness the personal finance crowd taught me not to overly value cars and to only buy/drive what you will need. Switching to a used 2010 Hyundai SUV in 2014 was the best thing we did. Myself just like you finally clued in to having something just to get me places dependably and being a good quality vehicle. The amount of dings and scratches from driving logging roads to get to hikes and trailheads is crazy now, think overgrown alders lining the old roads 🙂 Anyhow, 270,000km now it and we are looking at vehicles soon to replace it gets too old. I don’t really want to do new but used prices are crazy these days and a hybrid seems like a smart decision.
Thanks for always blogging for us to join in on your conversations.
I almost bought a Hyundai Santa Fe years ago, the 10 year full warranty was a huge selling point. And 270k miles is huge, well done! I’ve been to Vancouver Island and I’ve been on some of those rough roads to get to trailheads. No way to keep a car looking new out there!
I just bought a 14 yr old Honda b/c it only has 90K miles on it and the single owner took it to the dealer that they bought it from for all servicing (same dealer that I bought it from) so I have all the records of what’s been done to it. The bumpers looks like sh*t but I live in downtown Denver with only street parking so I really don’t care. Now I won’t notice when someone scrapes the bumper and be annoyed:) 40+ miles to the gallon, holds my bike and my paddleboard and my camping gear and gets me from A to B to Z. Total win. I wish I could say I’ve always made such good car decisions;)
And, why is blog dying? We love it, so it can’t possibly be dying…
That Honda should last another decade or more as long as you take care of the engine and drivetrain. They build great engines. As for my blog, my traffic has been tanking for a long time, I’ll probably post about it at some point. THANK YOU for the kind words Andrea and for being a regular reader, I do appreciate it very much!
Same. I even went so far as to buy touch up paint to repair a few scratches on my Prius. I thought, I SHOULD fix it. But I realized, I just…don’t care.
I hope you’ll continue blogging, even if your blog numbers are down. I know our time is finite on this beautiful blue rock so I understand if you give it up. But I hope you don’t! You’re one of my favorite blogs and I look forward to reading every week, even if I don’t comment often. I really enjoy reading about your entrepreneurship and outdoor adventures and hope to read about your experience when you finally pull the plug.
Wow LC, thanks a ton for this comment, it’s so uplifting to know I do have some readers who enjoy my musings. I appreciate your readership!