Sorry for the huge post, kind of a long story.
So, back in November I agreed to buy my mother's old car.
Back story: My mother and I don't have the greatest relationship. She's a very judgmental person and doesn't approve of some of the choices I've made in life even though they're not a big deal- for example where I live and the fact that my fiancee doesn't have a college degree. She complains of missing me but then makes zero effort to visit, complains of not talking to me enough but then never calls, and I never feel welcome when I visit- I always have to sit outside the airport for 40 minutes waiting for her, I get to the house and my bed isn't made and there are storage boxes piled around it, there's no effort to make me comfortable when I'm there, etc. I'm not asking to be waited on hand and foot but it honestly feels pretty bad. These are just examples but I could elaborate more.
Anyway, I've been in a pretty tight financial situation for a while now, not critically bad, but money has been difficult for some time now and my mom is well aware of this fact. I didn't own my own car (we had one in the household but it's technically my fiancee's) and was paying a monthly fee to the company I work for to use one of their cars. I'm looking for a new job (aforementioned money issues) and in order to make the transition easier I wanted to rely on my current employer as little as possible, so it made sense to get my own car.
In November my mom decided to buy a new car and I told her I wanted her old one. It's a 15 year old Subaru Impreza. I've always liked that car and one of my worries on getting a cheaper car was finding something not rusted out (I'm in the Northeast), but she's lived in Florida with this car for the past 13 years so I knew I wouldn't have to worry about rust.
My mother and stepdad are the typical conservative "bootstrap" types and frown on what they consider to be "handouts." She told me she wanted me to buy the car from her and that she wanted $5000 for it, which is WAY more than the car is worth. I told her I'd give her no more than $2000 and she agreed, and she also agreed to let me make payments on it since I didn't have the cash to pay for it up front. She signed over the title and I registered it in my name, then when I flew down to visit for Christmas I drove the car back.
She'd led me to believe the car was damn near perfect, and being that she's my mother I took her on her word. Well, it turns out the car has issues. Upon bringing it home it needed $500 worth of work to pass our state inspection. A month later one of the brake calipers seized up and I basically had to replace the entire rear braking system, and the parking brake is still not quite right. The trunk leaks sometimes in heavy rain and now the car smells like mildew. There's a funky whining noise audible at high speed, while it's not an immediate concern it's really annoying and will probably require replacing the transmission to make it go away. The tires will need to be replaced this autumn before it starts snowing. To top if all off the paint is ruined because she used to park it under a pine tree and never bothered to wash the sap off.
I'm very familiar with cars and do my own repairs, and I understand a car of that age isn't going to be perfect. But I feel like I've been cheated by my own mother, and the icing on the cake is the amount of money she wanted for this car. I'd be much less upset if I wasn't having to pay her. It's causing friction between me and my fiancee as well- she resents this car and my mother and I can just feel the anger welling up in her every time anything related to this car comes up. I've contemplated just selling it to get it out of our lives, but of course I'd have to send my mother the money and I'd be back to square one- no money and no car.
Meanwhile, in my mom and stepdad's house... she bought him a $2000 watch for Christmas. They just bought a $2500 couch. They bought a new gas range and new refrigerator to the tune of over $5000. My stepfather also just bought a nearly-new car and put down $6000 cash on it. They are obviously NOT hurting for money and meanwhile my fiancee and I are still scraping by paycheck to paycheck. My mother took nearly three months to cash the first car payments I sent her so it seems like she doesn't even care about the money, and that feels like she's just rubbing salt in the wounds.
I want to confront her about this. I've already told her about all the work the car needed as it happened. She never apologized. All she ever said was "I had no idea" or "It didn't used to do that." It feels like she doesn't care. What I really want is to call her up, put my foot down, and tell her I am not paying any more money for this car. I own the title free and clear so it wouldn't cause any legal issues for car ownership, but I also don't want to drive the wedge that's between us in even deeper.
I told my fiancee I'd deal with this last week. I still haven't made the call and I don't really know what to do. She's getting frustrated with my lack of action. What should I do?
tl;dr: Mom isn't hurting for money, I am, she demanded money for her old car, car has lots of problems, I feel cheated and don't want to give her any more money. What should I do?
Submitted June 19, 2017 at 10:20PM by skfoto http://ift.tt/2siKCV3 relationships
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