Vannautical engineer
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2021
- Messages
- 155
- Reaction score
- 16
How do people feel about the amount of money they're willing to put into repairs on a nicely built out vehicle as compared to a normal every day car?
I'm facing a little bit of a dilemma because I made the choice to put a lot of time and effort into building out a van that is not in spectacular mechanical shape.
I started this as just a project to pass the time while there was nothing to do this winter because of the pandemic, but as I've gotten further into the build and I now have over 350 hours of work put into it, and it's probably going to be around 500 when I'm done, I'm realizing that I'm probably going to be pretty attached to this van.
Only problem is that the 2011 Transit Connect I bought to do this build has almost 150,000mi on it, and has a significant amount of rust on the rocker panels. The drivetrain seems ok though, it drives fine, and any mechanical work except for body work I can do myself for cheap. If I really thought about how much time and effort it was going to take to build it into what I wanted it to be, I probably would have held out for a better van. But the van was a pretty good deal, and I was just thinking about it as a fun project, not something I would get this personally invested in.
With any normal 9 year old Transit Connect with 150k on it, I think most people would probably just let the rocker panels rust away, figuring that the van would be headed to the junkyard by the time the rust got bad enough to really be a problem. But I'm seriously considering taking it to a body shop sometime after I'm done with the build. Even though I know it would be silly to put that kind of money into a normal cargo van, maybe having so much time and effort put into the rest of the van makes it worth it to have some of the body issues fixed? I know new rockers will probably run a couple thousand bucks.
I know ultimately it comes down to how much I think is worth it to spend on it, but I guess I'm just wondering how other people look at putting money into vehicles they've spent some time and effort building out compared to a normal vehicle.
I'm facing a little bit of a dilemma because I made the choice to put a lot of time and effort into building out a van that is not in spectacular mechanical shape.
I started this as just a project to pass the time while there was nothing to do this winter because of the pandemic, but as I've gotten further into the build and I now have over 350 hours of work put into it, and it's probably going to be around 500 when I'm done, I'm realizing that I'm probably going to be pretty attached to this van.
Only problem is that the 2011 Transit Connect I bought to do this build has almost 150,000mi on it, and has a significant amount of rust on the rocker panels. The drivetrain seems ok though, it drives fine, and any mechanical work except for body work I can do myself for cheap. If I really thought about how much time and effort it was going to take to build it into what I wanted it to be, I probably would have held out for a better van. But the van was a pretty good deal, and I was just thinking about it as a fun project, not something I would get this personally invested in.
With any normal 9 year old Transit Connect with 150k on it, I think most people would probably just let the rocker panels rust away, figuring that the van would be headed to the junkyard by the time the rust got bad enough to really be a problem. But I'm seriously considering taking it to a body shop sometime after I'm done with the build. Even though I know it would be silly to put that kind of money into a normal cargo van, maybe having so much time and effort put into the rest of the van makes it worth it to have some of the body issues fixed? I know new rockers will probably run a couple thousand bucks.
I know ultimately it comes down to how much I think is worth it to spend on it, but I guess I'm just wondering how other people look at putting money into vehicles they've spent some time and effort building out compared to a normal vehicle.