Just a note. since you dirivng the vehicle under what would be considered "extreme duty". Similar to a taxi or police car. I'd take the service intervals that are in the manual and cut the mileage and time by 3/4. SO if it says to change a certain fluid at 30,000 miles. You should consider changing it at 7500-10000 miles.

The bad new is that even a '92 Accord is probably costing you over $0.50 per mile for the type of driving you do once you factor in all you expenses. So a 10 mile round trip for a delivery costs you around $5 in transportation expenses. Delivery drivers are generally underpaid and the hidden costs can be a killer. I generally tip fairly well knowing this. I should at least pass on what I saved by getting take-out.

 

You'd think that would be the case, but this car has been very good to me. I'd say between buying the car for 4000 dollars 4 years ago, and all the repairs i've had to make, i've put perhaps 7k into this car in that span. Most of that is me having let vital maintenance such as replacing the timing belt go far too long.

So the total cost of the vehicle including purchase and maintenance, we'll round up to 7k. I really don't think I've spent even that much. We'd also have to include the vehicle's depreciation in value. I'd say this car would fetch no more than 1500. that's a 5500 dollar difference. I bought the car at 102,000 and now has 168,000. That's 66,000 miles.

5500/66000 comes out to just over 8 cents a mile. That doesn't include gas, for which I get reimbursed nearly twice as much as I spend. Even if you took those numbers and tripled them, that's still 30 cents a mile, over 10 miles that's 3 dollars in cost, which is far beyond any worst case scenario. I deliver in a heavily urbanized area, so I'd say for every 10 miles I drive I take probably 4 or 5 runs on average. for 4 runs I would get at the moment 3.20 in gas/vehicle reimbursement, and then whatever tips I get for it. So even in that event i still take home 90% of my tip money as spending money.

Believe it or not, after sales taxes and gas expenses my net income was still a little over 30k last year, just on this job. Not bad for a "pizza boy" and his little grocery getter beater car.

That being said, good tippers such as yourself motoguy are a huge reason I'm still in this business. If I got 2 dollars or less all the time with the way gas prices are nowadays, I'd be finding another job. I promise you that every time I go to spend a few hundred to fix this vehicle, I crunch the numbers real hard.

 

any update?

 

Far as the power steering pump goes, i have one ready and will hopefully have time to do it thursday. gotta do an oil change anyways.