Maintaining a car isn’t cheap, but the price of repairs for some of today’s accessories could blow you (and your budget) away.

Example? Navigation screens that also contain your radio, climate controls, trip computer, etc. Say you hit the brakes one day, your kid’s baseball bat flies forward and …… SMASH!

“…you might say to yourself ‘okay I’m not going to fix it, I can do without the radio’, but the problem is it controls many other systems, so you go to get it fixed and maybe when the car was new it was a $2-thousand dollar option. To replace it might be 5 or 6 thousand dollars, and now you’re in trouble.”
-Terry Jackson, Bankrate.com Automotive Columnist

And that’s just one of many examples.

“…let’s say sensors in the bumper that monitor parking, there’s even some cars now that have radar cruise control and if you crash the front end of the car, where these sensors are, they are going to be horrifically expensive to replace.”
-Terry Jackson, Bankrate.com Automotive Columnist

Of course, if you can afford to buy a car like a $65,000 Corvette or the $80,000 Audi A8 (the kinds of cars with special sensors and radar cruise control), these high expenses may not bust your budget. But pity the poor person who buys these cars USED, then something high-tech goes haywire!

“…The replacement value, the repair value could exceed the value of the car, especially in the eyes of your insurance company.”
-Terry Jackson, Bankrate.com Automotive Columnist

Bottom line? While navigation is nice and sonar sensors sound sexy, today’s technology may be a ticking time-bomb, especially if you buy your cars used. So do some research, and avoid totaling your family’s finances.