Motormouth: Parting with a beloved car is such sweet sorrow

Selling a car that you love brings about mixed feelings, but sometimes the head has to override the heart.

[Story by guest columnist Ben Chia]

I bought my old car, a 2008 Mitsubishi Colt Plus, shortly after I started my previous job in 2024. At the time, I envisioned it to be a trusty companion that I could drive for as long as I feasibly could.

After all, I had roughly around four years or so until its COE’s expiry date came up in 2028, and I was hoping that it would at least stay with me until then.

It wasn’t long before I started to grow fond of it, and I started spending fairly considerable sums “modifying” it to make it better. 

I installed a few cool toys such as a fancy audio head unit with wireless Apple CarPlay connectivity, a high-end dashboard camera, and even a keyless engine push-start button system, which seemed a bit out of place for a basic hatchback, but was nevertheless quite a convenient feature.

I also did my very best to maintain my Colt in the best condition, which was not easy given its age. Said maintenance was made harder by the fact that the Colt Plus was never really a popular model in Singapore to begin with, so getting spare parts for it proved to be rather challenging, as I soon found out.

Over the course of ownership, I must have spent several thousand dollars on my Colt - both upgrades as well as necessary repairs. By and large, the car mostly functioned well, and I really did enjoy driving it, but it was still a vehicle that was approaching its 20th birthday after all, so it was inevitable that there would be things that needed fixing.

Life circumstances do change, however, and you end up having to make decisions that you may not necessarily like. 

In my case, having left my job at the end of 2025, it didn’t seem to make practical sense to hang on to the Mitsubishi much longer, given that it would end up mostly just sitting idle at home.

In theory, I could have kept the Colt if I really wanted to, but it would have been financially irresponsible, especially as the repair bills started to mount up as time went on. There wasn’t really one single large issue, but rather a litany of minor problems which had the possibility of becoming major if left unaddressed.

And so, I made the painful decision to let my Mitsubishi Colt go. I engaged an online car selling service, and they offered me a price that was, frankly, slightly lower than I expected. Realistically speaking, though, the likelihood of receiving a better price elsewhere was slim, so I decided to cut my losses and accept the offer.

On the day of the handover, it was hard not to feel emotional as I reflected on my journey with the Mitsubishi Colt Plus. 

Our time together was short but sweet, and I tried my best to give it a good life. Alas, I could not accompany the car till the end of its current COE cycle as I originally intended. All I could do was wish it well as we went our separate ways, bidding it a quiet goodbye while hoping that its next owner would treat it as well as I did. It certainly deserves no less.

The columnist's Mitsubishi Colt Plus before he minused it from his life.

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