Okay, first a little back story so you understand my situation and can help in my thought process...
My father retired at 55 in November, he was the COO of an Aerospace company in Wisconsin. He made a ton of money in that business but he wound up sacrificing a decade and a half with his kids and grand kids to do it. I think he started to feel a bit guilty so he took his retirement when he was eligible and decided to move to RI to be close to me and one of my brothers and our kids. up until recently I have only seen my father twice a year and spoken to him maybe twice a month for the last 15 years-ish... So it's kind of like we are friends now more than a parent/child relationship.
Anyway in March my brother needed some help sheet rocking his garage. I never, ever do this type of work and I never have. I have never lived in a place that didn't have either landlords or a condo association or that had a yard or anything like that. I do this purposely because I know that I have no clue how to fix shit and just prefer making a phone call when things go wrong. I own 2 tools, both screw drivers for replacing batteries in kids toys. I originally told my brother that I didn't want to help him but if it was an issue where he needed some money to have it done by a professional that I would help him out, my brother makes a decent living doing continuing education but he has a wife and a house and all that shit so it isn't that uncommon that money gets tight for him. Him and my father insisted that it wasn't a money issue it was about bonding or whatever, drinking beer, working on a project, all that type of stuff.
For most of the day I was pretty much the butt of all of the jokes because I had zero idea what I was doing, I couldn't figure out anything and had no experience doing what we were doing. They were genuinely shocked at how little I knew about doing work around the house. The topic quickly changed to if I could do my own oil change, which I cannot, if I can change a tire, which I never have, etc..
Fast forward 7 weeks to my birthday... My Dad calls me and asks me to come over he had a present for me. I am 32 years old and haven't gotten a present from my parents in years so I was kind of curious what it could be. I went to my Dads and he had a car for me... First off let me just say that I drive an 09 Passat that I bought at a dealership a few summers ago and have zero need for a car, also the condo that I live in only has 2 parking spaces available to me, generally one for me and one for a guest... anyway, the car is a 1994 Toyota Camry, he told me that it was a great project car for me to learn how to fix up. This was immediately something I had no interest in getting involved with, but I figured I would at least spend some time figuring out what had to be done to the car and what it would cost etc.. My Dad encouraged me to sell it once I was done, I have no idea what he paid for it but I would hate to sell it for less than he paid for it because my plan is to just give him back whatever it costs plus whatever I make on it.
I took the car to the garage that I go to, they went over it mechanically and told me the car was pretty solid. It has 195k on it but the only things it needs are an exhaust clamp to fix an annoying rattle and a passenger side power window switch. Other than that they said everything looked good. The one major issue the car has is the paint. It looks like all of the glossy part of the paint on the hood, roof and trunk peeled off and its a pretty big eye sore.
I have been thinking about my options... I called around to see what a paint job costs and most places are between 700 and 1k... I have no idea if I will ever get that back out of reselling the car, I did some searching around the internet and was actually intrigued by the idea of painting the car myself with rustoleum. I guess it's actually a pretty common thing and car people go nuts over it... Here is a video I found
Doing this would solve two problems, it would make the car look nicer and it would make my dad feel good that I actually did the work myself... The only problem is I have nowhere to do the work. Like I said, I live in a Condo complex, so I would have to borrow someones garage / Driveway to do it, also I am afraid I will get started and then say "fuck this bullshit" and the car is left looking worse than when I started.
Another option is to just try selling the car as it is, I have no idea what I should ask or could get for it and I really don't know if I want to just go ahead and sell it without putting any effort in to it because I think that would defeat the purpose my dad had in mind (even though I think its stupid)
A third option would be to have it shrink wrapped with Filthy Limper logos and Drive it when I go to the Casino's, I was leaning toward this but I don't know if the cost of the shrink wrapping plus the additional insurance etc is worth it, I have no idea what either would cost me yet.
Also I should note, I live in an 8 unit condo complex, I am the youngest person here, there are 16 parking spaces, all of them have cars less than 5 years old in them and right in the middle is my piece of shit car and it is kind of embarrassing.
So the question I have is what would you do? and what should I do? Any advice is appreciated
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Originally Posted by RealTalk
