SVreX wrote: When you are no longer willing to buy comprehensive insurance on it.
See, this is absolutely false economy, or at least in my case. Comprehensive is the cheapest part of insurance. Typically 1 cracked windshield will buy at least a year's worth of Comprehensive on a car, if not several years' worth. Liability is the expensive part, which you don't have a choice about. If you have to drop anything, drop Collision, not Comprehensive. It's more expensive and they will just total your car out anyway, if it's older. Comprehensive covers you for fire, storm damage, theft, vandalism, and a host of other possible damages that are far more likely than an actual crash.
On my '67 Le Mans, which is admittedly not currently tagged, Comprehensive coverage costs me a whopping $5 per year. $2.50 every 6 months. If the garage burns down while I'm working on it, or the giant sycamore in my yard decides to take the plunge, the nice man will give me a check for $5000. I'd be insane not to carry that.
Comprehensive costs me maybe $150 a year on my 11-year-old E46 daily. Last year I hit a deer, which busted the grille, lightly wrinkled the hood and roof, and absolutely destroyed the windshield. None of this would have been covered if I didn't carry Comprehensive on the car. As it was, the nice State Farm man looked at it and wrote me a check for $1800. I used $300 to get the windshield replaced, bought a jar of touch-up paint, and put the other $1495 back in the bank. One of these days I may splurge $50 and buy a used grille for it because the remaining screw flanges are giving up and it doesn't want to stay in place any more.
On the original topic, I say a car hits beater status when the cost of a decent set of tires for it exceeds 50% of the value of the vehicle.
