It should go without saying, but we at The Autopian love cars far, far more than is generally considered normal. However, when the button to publish Comment of the Day is pressed, this fantastic world of speed and sloth, fossil fuels and electricity, and tarmac and mud takes a rest, and we all go out into the real world. The part of real life that isn’t the miracle of being able to do what we love for a living. And life usually means compromise. Often times, life as an enthusiast is about trying to balance the joy of cars — finishing a job, nailing a heel-toe downshift, firing up the headlights with just the right song on the stereo — with the financial pains of cars and the other things you want to do in life.
In many parts of the world, insurance costs hundreds of dollars a month, fuel is expensive, and not all repairs are cheap. If you live in a major city, simply finding secure long-term parking can be both expensive and far from your dwelling, and then there’s the joy of registration fees and such.
Don’t get me wrong, cars are a brilliant hobby, but most people don’t define themselves by a singular hobby. There’s music to make, food to enjoy, sports to partake in, and even landscaping to do. Admittedly, I’m fairly light on cars compared to some of my co-workers, but even though cars run a thread through much of what I do, on many evenings out, it’s tangential. Cocktails, good nachos, concert tickets, the odd house party, these things all cost real money and take real time.
So, how do you balance cars with everything else you do? Maybe you have a housemate to give your fixed expenses some slack. Maybe you’ve put off buying that dream car because it would just be too much of a stretch. Maybe you’ve just given in and let cars be your everything. Whatever the case is, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
(Photo credits: Thomas Hundal)
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I balance my life/car life by leaning into the love for the minivan I daily. If your enthusiasm aligns with all things practical and efficient, then van is for you.
So that’s one itch that has been scratched. The desire to have something that’s a little less pragmatic has not though. Mostly I enjoy hanging out here, helping my friends who currently have project cars with some work here and there, etc. Someday I will break through and be able to justify the project car I desire (more than likely a Saab).
Until then, it’s reading the Autopian, occasionally taking a break to look wistfully out a window. A sigh. Then more Autopian.
I got into the Miata hobby about 4 years ago after wanting a weekend toy for many years. I paid cash for my ’95, which had some mechanical and upholstery needs but had excellent paint, no rust and was complete. My DD was purchased in 2013 and has been paid off since 2017. I was able to do all of the upholstery and interior work as well as simple mechanical work myself and sub out the more challenging jobs. Now I’m in the driving/maintaining/smiling part of owning an old sports car.
I keep about $3000 set aside for something going massively wrong just in case. I figure there are few things likely to break on an 85k mile Miata that will cost more than that. When it comes to working on my cars I know my limits. Things that could kill me or my car I’ll leave to the professionals… anything else I’m more than happy to attempt myself. Of course this leaves time for my other hobbies… building model cars, reading about cars, posting about cars on here, etc.
So no, I actually don’t do a great job balancing the automotive hobby with other aspects of my life. I’m actually at work right now semi-ignoring a Zoom call.
I set out to replace my engine on my Mazdaspeed Miata for around 3k. 6k later and that plan is out the window..admittedly though 75% of it was additional things I added and didn’t need..like a bigger turbo and whatnot. Woopsy
That’s easy. With a set of corner weight scales!
Oh wait, that’s not what you meant.
Definitely a challenge juggling my family, my job, my stand-up comedy life and my band with making time for my fleet. Especially since my kids haven’t been all that into cars.
Definitely gotta share my biggest win, though – Two of my kids are very on the autism spectrum. My 20-year-old daughter had shown no interest in driving… until I got my ’93 Miata. Explaining the car’s inner workings and it’s puppy-like reactions to your input for her excited about learning more and she is now hooked on everything Miata. She loves helping me work on it and she’s been great. I had to get the MSSS1 stereo out to send off for restoration and I couldn’t have done it without her. (She also helped me reign in a loose ignition switch on my 4-4-2).
The biggest win was she finally got interested in driving – specifically because of the Miata. She now looks forward to every Sunday when we go to a parking lot and practice finding the friction point on the clutch and knowing exactly how much gas to give it. Any of you with kids on the spectrum would understand how HUGE this is as a first step to driving a car and moving towards independence. I love that she is only interested in driving manual transmission as I believe it will greatly help her focus on driving.
So there you have it. Meanwhile, my Spitfire has had a flat tire for over a month and I haven’t done squat. Not that I need to drive a Triumph Spitfire in February.
So happy for you both of you. That’s great. Made my day. Thanks.
That is such a cool story.
This was great to read, I hope it gets COTD so more can hear the story too!
I only work on easy stuff, nothing that involves specialized tools or anything that will consume a lot of time. Trying to maintain a 10 car fleet is hard but I am pretty good separating family time and me time.
If the repair is going to take me a lot of hours but someone that knows what is doing it will do it fast, I would rather pay for the convenience. Time is money.
Can we get a rundown of the fleet?
From oldest to newest with some facts:
That’s quite a roster. May I ask why the Polestar 2 has been a disappointment? I see them on the used market for sub-Altima money and they seem very tempting.
Its been more at the dealer than any car I had in my lifetime. Back doors that lock permanently (I had to take my kids using the front doors, I ride on my own now), infotainment issues (you lose internet and a lot of functions don’t work). Car towed with a propulsion issue that involved a Module replacement that took weeks to be delivered. Rear brake pads replaced due to rust. Tires are almost gone with 15k miles. Appointments take a month in advance.
Dealership sends you to a Hertz location for loaners, another headache, Polestar is supposed to cover the bill but sometimes I get charges on my credit card that I had to fight. Not the best experience.
The car is fantastic when it works, car value dropped like a rock I am glad I leased this. I would not own this without a warranty.
Currently my cars are in storage as I’m living somewhere temporarily where having an automobile makes my life harder than relying on other transportation methods.
After a few years when I’m done with being here I’m going to seriously reevaluate my relationships with automobiles, by either moving to NH and only owning exclusively aluminum body and or aluminum chassis automobiles OR moving somewhere where the only street legal automobile I’d have is a Moped.
Poorly. I can pretty much guarantee that I spend more time here than I do wrenching and driving just for fun.
With the kid came we needed a reliable vehicle instead of 4 (significantly) less reliable. With no time or spare funds the others were just sitting and dying and most went to better homes, the Mazda 3 unfortunately went to a farm upstate.
We got out of the first family hauler and into a BMW 330e as our only vehicle. It’s a decent compromise between family hauler, efficient commuter and engaging to drive. So 3 or 4 times a year I autocross with it. Otherwise I try to enjoy the driving time I do get.
I spend most of my free time being dad and husband. But “me time” is a recognized, highly valued commodity in my home. Not just for me, but its something my wife takes for herself, and we are teaching to our family. So while some weeks its rather limited, my me time gets spent in the garage building cars. I am not a driver. I am a builder, a fabricator, a puzzle solver. I would rather be on the crew than in the drivers seat if we are talking racing (but I don’t race and don’t care to). For me, the hobby is about the journey from trash to vision. Owning the car afterward is just gravy.
Mid 60’s, have two fully paid off cars, still working and enjoying it. Kids are gone and I live my car fantasies through the Web and whenever the offspring that inherited my car jones needs my garage and tools for wrenching on one of his collection of german and jdm toys.
As much as I would like a fun car to play with I lack money and time. I have old motorcycles to play with and resolve to get more time riding and wrenching since my BMW is better after I finally got to some niggling issues. I work from home so I no longer have a 20 mile back road commute and most of my weekends involve human powered activities with bicycles, kayaks, and skis.
I do a lot of my mechanical work so when spring comes I will be back in the driveway servicing stuff and we also have some road trips planned.
I also car guy vicariously through my son’s fleet and expect interesting news in the fall when his HiAce arrives.
I’d love to double, maybe even triple the amount of time I currently get to dedicate to loving cars. Honestly I wish I’d considered something automotive related as a career option, but it’s a little late to pivot right now. Anyway, my solution for the last several years has been to have a fun daily and just try to enjoy routine driving as much as I can.
If left to my own devices I’d have exponentially more money tied up in cars, but the wife doesn’t care about them in the slightest, they’re generally unwise investments, and they just can’t be a priority for me with a kid on the way. It’s why I’ve had two relatively cheap hot hatchbacks in a row. They basically give me enough driving pizazz to enjoy the mundane.
My commutes suck a little less, I don’t hate running errands as much, and my wife is happy because I have four doors and a hatch and we aren’t spending much for it. When I have time I go out on spirited drives on the weekends, attend the occasional Cars and Coffee, do a track day or two, and spend time detailing my car.
If I’m lucky I’ll get to do one of those activities every couple weeks. It ain’t much, but it’s something. I went out for a rip on some country roads this weekend and am in the process of getting registered for a high performance driving education day at the track I go to so I can get a little more instruction on how to suck less.
Anyway, I could be doing a whole lot worse. I wish I had more free time for my bullshit and a little more freedom to drive whatever the hell I want to, but life is about compromises. This is how it’ll be for the next 5-7 years at minimum. My next choice will be between adding a cheap, pure fun car to the collection and committing to driving the Kona N into the ground or using that chunk of money to buy a super daily of some sort.
My story is bittersweet. I do all my own wrenching, except for tires and warranty work. We had a kid a couple of years ago. The kid and weekend wrenching were tough to balance. So we switched to EVs to simplify life overall. Now it’s just tire rotations, cabin air filters, wiper blades and washer fluid top offs. No more worrying that the Hemi my wife used to drive was going to collapse a lifter and require a full weekend thrash session to swap out the cam and lifters.
Road tripping with an EV is a hell of a lot more pleasant if you need to stop every 1-3 hours to deal with toddler stuff.
My strategy, is to take days off for when I want to work on my cars. I will of course do simple things like oil changes and washing/detailing on afternoons and weekends. But if I’m tearing into something, I put in PTO to give me the time to do it correctly.
My house has adequate space to do most things, but I don’t have a lift (which may factor into a garage rebuild that is coming up in the next year or two) so things that require specialized equipment usually involve select friends and acquaintances.
The main thing, is that I do all this stuff because I like to do it. It’s a hobby. A passtime. If things get too onerous, or I get time-limited, I have no problem whatsoever in enlisting paid mechanics to complete things that I don’t have time for.
This has led to occasional issues, as even ASE certified mechanics will betimes not approach a job with my level of attention to detail. Nothing is perfect.
My car hobby is almost constantly on the backburner. Between being the sole provider for our family, having young kids and there being a constant list of things that take precedence over tinkering on my hobby there is very little I actually get to do with my vehicles. L
The Mustang I keep useable for the odd chance I can take it out or drive it to work but it could use a lot of love and attention. The D100 would probably pass an inspection but I haven’t bothered because, well, I simply won’t have an opportunity to use it so for now it just sits. It’s honestly a little depressing to think about and I end up staying away from articles of people working on stuff because it just makes me disappointed I can’t find time for my own.
That’s about my situation (except two breadwinners; no way to stay alive with two kids in Metro NYC otherwise). I have two old JDM cars and a Ford Focus Wagon for salty days or if one of the oldies is out of commission.
However, I often pass up on sleep to add car related content to Wikipedia. 125,000 edits…
Unrelated but still fun – I came across a well-kept-up Focus wagon yesterday (I’d forgotten they were designated as “ZXW” even!), and it made me think that they may in fact be the safest cars on the road to be around.
Key is that nobody driving one is some out of control jackass who’s going to put others in danger (either intentionally or not), but also they’re not prone to sudden catastrophic failure and they can keep up with any sane pace just fine.
Yeeeahhh, maybe – when I drive mine people look at me like I’m a methhead. I am also used to positive feedback from when I drive my RHD cars so it’s always a bit of a rude awakening. 🙂
One possible danger is that the rear suspension is weak; actually the entire rear section of the monocoque is not capable of handling the loads it can fit. Source: my example, plus a friend used to be responsible for a fleet of these for ConEd and they were all retired early.
I keep my wife in a car that is dependable and usually newer than mine. That keeps her happy. Since buying a larger camper a couple years ago, I have to daily the truck we use to tow it, which I kind of hate. I balance it with the MG, which I probably drive nearly as much in the summer as the truck. It lets me have something more engaging to drive and plenty of wrenching opportunities and the costs are pretty low overall, since I do all the work myself. The MG was about $5000 about 4 years ago and then the tire shop damaged some sheet metal while putting tires on it (after they lifted it exactly the way that I told them not to), so that insurance check pretty much paid for the car and I didn’t fix it since it wasn’t very noticeable. Classic car insurance is just a few hundred a year, registration is like $30, and it gets between 18-25 mpg. Usually around 20, since it’s mostly city driving. It’s by far my cheapest vehicle to operate.
The camper hobby actually takes a lot more time and effort. I don’t want to just have it sit there in the back-yard, so we try to use it at least 4-5 times a year. This means weekends away and no time to do other hobbies, but it does force me to relax and get away from all the projects and work. It has been enjoyable to just tow our hotel room behind us. This year we are doing an Eclipse Rally for nearly a week in Ohio under the path of the full eclipse, another over 4th of July where we can watch fireworks on the beach and then walk back to our camper. We’ll have a few more rallies with the Airstream club. It’s great to join a club like that because they plan everything for you, have group meals and potlucks, and make camping a social event rather than just being 10′ from another camper but never talking with them. We have our vintage camper club too, but haven’t done a rally with them in a few years because our vintage camper needs some love (another hobby!).
I also enjoy home renovating and a bit of woodworking, so there’s always a hobby waiting for my time. The theme is learning and doing everything you can yourself. That saves me a lot of money to spend on my hobbies.
Pretty blessed in my case. I buy and sell cars for a living, so no matter what, 10 hours of my day is based on cars. I surf this site and a few others on my lunch break. I have about 1 1/2 hours of commute time, which Is on beautiful backroads. When I get home, I always still have text messages and phone calls that involve work, and therefore cars, and occasionally I spend some time working on my vehicles, but for the most part, when I’m home, all car life is turned off. There’s the wife, the kids, the pets, and the garden, which are just as rewarding and demanding as my job.
It’s wierd, but somehow It feels like a perfect balance between the two when I really think about it.
This is a very happy story. Thanks for sharing it.
I try to make sure my life is about more than just cars. That’s why I also have an HMV Freeway, a three-wheeled moped, and an International pickup truck.
Thanks for asking Thomas. Like most of us, I’ve thought about that same thing most of my life. Cars like any serious hobby has 4 prime elements:
Money, time, space and interest.
Cars take big chunks of all of these. If you severely lack any, then you change activities such as building models, doing or collecting car-artwork, RC cars, read car magazines or just move on to something else.
It changes over lifetime too. Teens typically have no money or space but tons of time and interest. 20 year-olds would rather date and drink than mess with cars. Young adults with kids have no money or time. 50 year olds finally have money and space but maybe lost interest. 75 year olds are just hanging on to the few memories left.
I try to give our cars a proper wash and interior detail in the spring, but in the end, I sacrifice a lot of my interests because the kids come first. When they are grown or I have retired, the pendulum.may swing the other way.
That’s the neat part, I don’t!
I just paid the registration on 2 cars, mine and my son’s. It’s pretty cheap in my location. I’m now of the age and means, that saving to buy my dream car in cash has turned into saving for retirement LOL
Hopes and dreams, buy high and sell low…..
As Jay Leno said: “You can have one wife and many cars, or one car and many wives”.
My only compromises are owning vehicles that can be driven in winter and can carry my kids around. If I was childless and lived somewhere warm, I’d probably have no inhibitions whatsoever on what I bought.
I married someone who aids and abets my hobby in many ways, which is both good and bad.
I drive a paid off car that requires little maintenance, that’s how I balance it.