Decision Time

Well, we dropped my truck off yesterday for the inspection I needed in order to get my truck registered with Maryland. It's bad. No way in it's current condition will it pass a safety inspection. It's no where near an emissions test. Here's some of the problems...........

Left tie rod bad
Ball joints bad
Brake lines all rotted
exhaust bad
Power Steering pressure hose
battery cables bad

All in all (including the a/c we had him check and he said the evaporator core is shot) will cost anywhere from $1500 to $2000 just to get it to pass inspection. SHIT !! The inspection was $66. If we take the truck to carmax, we won't get crap for it when they put it up on the rack and find all this stuff. So, I'm guessing we will fix enough of the stuff to get a better trade in or to sell it out right. There is no way I want to put all that money into it. Should we though since the truck is paid for? The truck is 8 years old and has almost 140,000 miles on it. Could we extend the life of the truck by keeping it and fixing this stuff? I'm sure we could. We don't need 2 trucks though. It's a big decision. What if we fix it enough to sell or trade in and buy a car then discover that we have to soak money into a car when things break on it? This is where we are at right now with this decision.

Any and all input will be taken into consideration.