Mike, I know what a difficult decision this is. I have had to make it many times. I tend to keep my cars a long time until some little voice illogically says to me it is time to get a new car. It seems to me that if your car is the right type of car for you and satifies yours functional needs without being a safety hazard and a disgrace to your pride in the driveway, hang onto it until its trade in value is irrelevant. My old dad had two contraditory maxims: (1) "Keep the value in your car." Naturally, he was very popular with his dealership who encouraged him with this attitude when he stopped by every year to trade in the previous model. Despite being completely misguided, he did talk about (2) a "car owing you nothing" meaning that you had already had the worth out of it and anything else was a bonus.

I think that you are more in the second category provided the car does what you need. I would take the advice of the other posting and minimise your

repairs by judiciious consideration of whether ther fixes are really necessary. Then I would look at the cost over a year of leasing or buying a late model car and realize that even the entire cost of the repairs you have cited would be paid for by a 3 months or so of leasing and perhaps even less of depreciation if you paid cash. I cannot imagine that you can save money by looking at a new vehicle. For example, I have a 10 year old, top of the line, Acura Legend coupe. It runs and looks like new, uses no oil and has all the bells and whistles of a new luxury car except for state of the art air bags. It will go to my son next week, who is selling his more recent model Saturn, when I take delivery of a new Volvo XC. Am I buying the Volvo to save money on repairs to the Acura? No way. I could have the repair costs you mention several times a year and still be ahead of the yearly Volvo costs (or any other new car). It is that my needs have changed and the XC matches my requirements. Otherwise, I would keep the Acura until it was no longer serviceable. My advice is, then, if you like your car, it looks good to you and satifies your needs, to hang on to it and accept repair costs as being a relative bargain, while minimising discretionary repairs. Good luck.