Was fooling around with Blue Book/Black Book values for our trusty ’98 Subaru Outback with 270,000+ km on it. No answer — either too old or mileage too high for the online databases.

But based on the closest results I could get, it looks like we’d be lucky to get C$1,000-1,500 for it in trade-in value. That’s less than the annual insurance fee!

So seeing as it’s near “worthless” now, and it’ll continue to be worthless going forward, I think our ongoing strategy of keeping it well-maintained and running for as long as possible is a no-brainer.

At the rate that we put on mileage, we’ve got a good year, or even 18 months before the next major service, which will likely run $1,500+. That’s when a decision will have to be made.