( 00.48 last night )

Kame, that's nothing - about 3 years ago the garage discovered, when investigating a water ingress problem, that the driver's door on my car was defective, probably since new - it was slightly bent and that meant there was a crack on the pillar under the paintwork along the midpoint of the window.

That meant a whole new door; that was in the region of a bit over £800 including matching the paint colour!  Probably more than the car's value, yes, but I still went ahead and had it done as it was less hassle than writing it off plus, being an older pre-electronics car it is very reliable and very economical on fuel.  I'm not going to surrender that easily in favour of anything more recent!

To do so wouldn't be worth it anyway - I do such a low mileage that it's more than likely that when this car does finally expire I'll simply stop driving; it would actually be a lot cheaper if I used a combination of public transport and taxis as it is without having to add in the cost of replacing the thing!