(no subject)

[crashcart9]

AGH MY FAMILY AND CARS WTAF.

• About three weeks ago, got my car inspected and had to have $500 of work done replacing the entire exhaust system. The very next trip, the check engine light came on.


• Two weeks ago, the gold Camry has to have a whole new water pump; I'm not sure how much that cost, but Google tells me like $300.


• Last week, Dad traded in my awesome red car (sadface -- I loved that thing -- but he says it was on its way out) plus ~$7000 for a newer, silvery Camry.


• The middle of this week, my mother slips on the road while it's raining and totals the gold Camry on the way to work. (Not sure if we're even going to try to fix it -- going to be like $5000 of repairs and the car's maybe worth just that much.)


• This afternoon on my car (by hand, because bonding with my dad by fixing cars ftw): changed oil, replaced oil and air filters, replaced spark plugs and spark plug tube seals and valve cover gasket and everything in that, and basically spent way more time with my head either in the hood or under the engine than I ever wanted. ~$100 plus several hours of our labor, though that's technically free.
  
  
• And it turns out after that giant exhaust system overhaul, suddenly something's wrong with my muffler (natural conclusion from that and the check engine light: whoever "fixed" my car is a moron), and also my transmission is kind of sketch (and this is totally my fault; umm, apparently I didn't check the transmission fluid when I should have and it was pm completely dry), and basically this car should last another 50,000 miles but there's no way.


• So after all this money and with however many thousand still needing to be put in to the van and my car, now we're down to
  
  • my car, which is on the opposite side of the state as my parents and needs a muffler repair and possibly a new transmission soon and the check engine light is still on for no apparent reason
  • the smashed gold Camry on the chance they decide to sink $5000 into fixing it (Mom says no, Dad says maybe, so it's probably 30:70 fix it/trash it at this point)
  • the van, which definitely needs its transmission probably entirely rebuilt because it slips terribly, which is going to be another ~$2000
  • and the new Camry, which we're still paying off
  • -- basically my parents have one working car + one that ~sort of works at this point

And so I may have to buy a new car in the next year or so, because the family obviously doesn't have another one to lend me if this one goes out (and there's probably going to come a point soon on it when it's not worth fixing). And because Dad used all his sick days and thus didn't donate any into the sick day pool last year (even though he barely used any from the pool since some bitch who just broke her ankle took an entire month off right before he got diagnosed), he gets docked every day he doesn't work. Which means even before the however much we've put into cars in the past month, we've been kind of anticipating things getting financially sketch, depending on how long Dad's out for chemo and such. Fixing the smashed car will literally wipe out their savings, which isn't cool because we know the health insurance is awesome for radiation, but who knows if it's different for chemo or if they'll refuse to cover a re-biopsy or whatever....

So instead of getting up early tomorrow and going to a car place, I really want to just see if I can figure out what's wrong with my muffler by myself, at least, because I feel like since it's just . . . umm, loose or something? I can maybe just, idk, tighten it back on, and save someodd hundred dollars?

BASICALLY AAAAGH I HAVE NO MONEY MY PARENTS HAVE NO MONEY WE DO NOT NEED THIS RIGHT NOW.