DWTK: Keeping vehicles not worth selling

[Deano]

So I've got three vehicles registered under my name; one my general run-around work car. Love it, wont part with it, economical and for the purposes of this discussion - irrelevant, except it's so small it can't carry jack - hence needing the second vehicle.

My CBR600 has had countless problems and I've put copious amounts of time, effort & energy into it, I've got a few spare parts lying around useless to other bikes (F4i seems to be rare) & it's got 40,000km's on the clock.

I've a rodeo ute which whilst the most sturdy and structurally sound vehicle you could find, I'm sure Mr. Poppo could sticky it for something, it's definitely nothing pretty to look at. It's 91, 2.8l T-Diesel, 240000km's on it, 4WD, but either the chassis or the bullbar has clobbered something and the bullbar is therefore bent at the base and I've had nil success in trying to straighten.

I'll never even come close to getting my money back on either of these suckers; I love the bike, it has a bit of sentimental value (was my brother-in-laws) but I'm over the repairs, I love the 4WD but every time I take it out I feel I'm taking a risk with the constabulary. Should I cut my losses, deregister it and let it die a natural death and trade the bike in, or sell the 4WD to a farm, or accept they're mine til they're dead?

[firewrench]

Start making the payments you would be spending on a new ride to an account. Run the old beast till it dies, hopefully, the account will have enough in it to purchase a shiney, newer ride for cash. At least you'll have a nice down payment
or
Donate the beast to charity, take the tax write off and consider that a good cash sale.

[potato]

donate the 600 to the m.a.d ride.

drop it at straightline2ten, we can spend time sifting thru its probs , sort them and have a wildcard raffle.

$ xx a ticket, money to the cause.

oops , better check with the chairman to see if we can do that sort of thing!

[Dragunov-21]

Do you have the patience/ability to part them out on ebay and have the unsaleable bits scrapped?

[xsnoiz]

Don't give up on the F4i, Scott can use mine to reference against. If not, I'm happy to turn it into a stunter

[T.G]

How much would you want for the ute?

[Deano]

How much would you want for the ute?

After I've just knocked the shit out of it on this forum? Haha truth be told I hadn't given it a moments thought - I think it would be "make me an offer"; why, you looking?

[JAFA]

After I've just knocked the shit out of it on this forum??

"One mans' junk is another mans' gold" or however the saying goes.

[T.G]

I just need somethin cheap and cheerful to transport a dirty on the weekends

Couldn't make an offer without havin a proper look, have you got any pics?

[Edog]

Deano, I'm in a bit of the same situation, I have 2 bikes and a 4WD.
The car is a '94 Patrol, engine good, but the gas system doesn't work so good making it expensive to run and only a small petrol tank (250km a tank is just plain annoying).
But I work away, use the bike for just about everything, and the old beast is reliable, so will keep her till she dies, gets canaried or I have more regular need of 4 wheels that demands something better.
Considering selling the 2nd bike to recoup some $$$ and save one set of rego and insurance. 3 vehicles when I'm home little more than a 3rd of the time seems a little excessive.

In your case I see a lot of shitbox cars getting around, if it isn't stranded on the side of a highway, or trailing loose parts on the road I doubt you'll get stickered. I'm less keen on the idea of riding a slightly dodgy bike with issues, then I am with a car, so if it were me and I had the $$$ I'd consider upgrading that first.

[Captain Starfish]

You kinda reach a point where you need to make a call.

Usually there is someone who will buy the gear (as you're already seeing) as long as you don't get greedy or sentimental about its value. The other option is to have them hanging around, making you feel guilty because you're not doing anything about them. So either fix 'em and use them or get rid of them and use the cash to get something you will use.

I had a VL commonhore on gas which gradually deteriorated in performance until one day it just wouldn't start. I called the local wrecker and he paid me $600 (2ndhand price at the time was about $7-8k) and towed it out of my life. Saw it at the shops a couple weeks later with new owners, so I called and asked what it was: spark plugs. Thousands blown on mechanics hunting down this shitty problem and it turned out to be $20 worth of plugs. Assuming that guys I'd paid to do this stuff had already checked the dumb stuff, I would not have found it. So rage at mechanics, no regrets about saying goodbye to the problems.

Plus I replaced it with an FJ1200 and my years of misery as "responsible, bikeless dad" came to an end as a result - yay!

[K1GxR]

if you want to let the cbr go cheap let me know..

[dirt_infected]

Any 4wd running, regoed and driveable is worth $1500 at least.

Not sure if that's good news or bad news to you, but you seem pretty pessimistic.

I know less about road bikes than I do about 4wds, but isn't the f4i a bit of a special, slightly collectorish item?

Both vehicles should allow you to trade for things that might suit better- you will get a pretty tidy 2wd ute for the price of your shitty 4wd one if you just need something to move shit, and you would get a slightly newer, more reliable bike for the price of your slightly older, less reliable collectorish one.