I am a big believer in used cars. New cars depreciate so fast. Idiots still ding you in parking lots, hail storms tear up the body and paint, rocks fly and chip everything....
I will take a completely paid for, no interest, used car any day.
Right now I am driving a 97 vw golf. It was $3000.
Hubby is driving a car we got for FREE. He spent $150 replacing the interior of the driver's door and some of the instrument panel.
Quail--tak this with a grain of salt if you wish, but...... If it were me, I would not spend anything until you got that 7 pass. van running. If it has been sitting for a couple of years, what you think needs to be done to get it running, will just be the beginning. There is ALWAYS more that need to be done to get it road ready. so spend what you need on that first.
Once that is up and running, look at a truck if that is what you want. (makes sense--farms and trucks go together). Then buy one of them and get that road ready. /whenever looking at an older vehicle, you know that money needs to be spent for the safety.
I would seriously hate to see you spend all the nmoney onew vehicles and then not have any money left over to get them on the road etc.
Also,--didn't you say you didn't drive much anyways? why would you need three vehicles if you don't drive?
Again, as I said--take with a grain of salt, but those are my thoughts.
So last summer, in our plan to move to the country within the coming year we purchased a 4 wheel drive ford PU. Since we found such a good deal before we got our beamer sold we went for it. Then the economy crashed and we can't seem to get the beamer sold. So here we sit with an aging dinosaur remnant of past boom times..:/
at least they are both paid for. That beamer wont be worth even 2 cents to us in the mountains..
Did you get the Jeep Cherokee? My daughter has had 2, what a reliable vehicle! Her last one (can't remember the year) she got when it had a 150,000 miles on it, drove it for 6 years and last year traded it as part of a down payment on her mobile home!