To Buy a New Car or not to Buy a New Car

I am facing the ultimate Green Bionic’s dilemma. Here’s another little anecdote. Earlier this week my car failed it’s emissions inspection and in my State this means that I cannot renew my registration. It has to pass!

However it seems as if the cost to repair my little beauty will be prohibitive. You see, my car is nigh on twelve years old and has nearly 200k miles on it. She still drives well and has no other real problems besides this emission difficulty. I mean we all have difficulties in life, don’t we? Does that mean we should just get thrown onto the scrap heap and forgotten?

So here’s my conundrum, I don’t want to buy a new car. Firstly I don’t want a car loan and end up being bogged down with car payments every month. Secondly, I love my car. I want to keep it forever if at all possible. And thirdly, I hardly drive my car so the emissions problem, although terrible, is minimal based on the amount of miles I drive in a year – less than three thousand.

I desperately want my car to be free from this poor emissions situation, however it is going to cost an arm and a leg to fix, shouldn’t I just move on and find a new tempter? It’s a funny one because you just wouldn’t believe that an environmentally aware person like me would even wrestle with such a decision. It’s usually what’s best for our earth that should be paramount. Of course that is at the crux of the matter and will ultimately end up being the prevailing factor. That doesn’t mean that I can’t feel slight miffed about having to make such a harrowing decision…what to do?