Okay so here goes,

The wife is trading in her 1998 R reg 1.8iS Mx5 in racing green for an audi convertible and is getting £1800 from the garage. The thing is - I love that little car and whilst the wheel arches are rusting a bit that car has been the most reliable thing ive ever known and it is lovely to go out for a spin in it with the roof down - its only done 58,000 miles! I keep thinking to myself Im going to miss the thing because I also have a VRS octavia tdi and great as that is, you cant beat an open top little sports car! (even if yes you do look like a hairdresser but the fun outweighs that) I can give her £1800 no probs, and have it as second car but then I will have 2 MOT's 2 insurances, 2 tax discs 2 service bills etc - what do you thnk? keep it or let her trade it in....? she will get the audi regardless so just wondrin whether to be a 3 car family or not

insuring and running a second car is not that bad, I did for 5 years. if you put a limited mileage on the MX5 and get a multicar policy, it shouldnt cost much to insure. if you can afford 2x taxes and mots then go for it.

Keep it!

If the car is in good nick its worth more than 1800 anyway!.

There are companys that specialise in sports car/second car insurance... my mx5 is only costing 300quid to insure for the year as my main car!

You say the arches are starting to rust (i guess you mean the rear ones) - the bad thing is it probably means the sills are rotting from the inside. its the most common killer of mk1 and mk2 '5s - if you can give a bit of outlay to get it sorted now, then you will have many more years of happy motoring, and also stick over 500quid worth of value onto the car