Stupid...Fucking...Car...

[dunkelza]

For those who don't already know, karabean's Taurus blew a head gasket. The car is in Leverett with ichisan's and larryboy's mechanic, George. George figures that the car will cost $2000 or more to repair. Note that the trade-in value of the car is about $1200.

Anyway, this blows.

AND...

We still need to rent out the third floor apartment.

Comments

[taellosse]

Generally, if the trade-in value of a car is less than the cost of repairing the car, doesn't it make more sense to buy another car instead? Its what I've always done in the past when something like that happens. One doesn't always wind up with a better car than the previous, but it always has the advantage of working, where the prior one does not.

I'm really sorry it happened, though. Sucks when the car dies.

[vu13]

When the car is paid off, I usually go by how many months of car payments you're putting into it. Once I spent $550 to repair a car that was worth probably $500, but it didn't need anymore work for an entire year, much less then new car payment. Once you are talking about 2,000, that is 4 months of car payments, get's pretty tempting to buy a new car.

[mhaille]

What kind of car are you buying that it's $500/mo for the payment? Or are you including insurance in that calculation?

The metric I use is "Can I get a car that runs semi-reliably for the cost of the repair, and am I better off with the devil I know or a new and different devil?" For 2k, you can get a pretty solid beater- but if you already know the quirks of her car, it might or might not be worth it. Plus there's the cost of getting a new car on the road- registration, taxes, inspection.

[dunkelza]

Aye. That's what we're trying to noodle now.

My car still runs pretty well despite a winter in the backyard, but I don't know if it will pass inspection and it still needs to be reinsured and reregistered. :P

ahhh

[ichisan]

Yikes! On a good note it is fixable and a lote cheaper then buying a new vehicle... And going through the whole process of making payments for x amount of years.. If you guys need help just give us a holler!

Many hugs!

*hugs*

[lordavon]

I know how much that sucks. I'm sorry.

[wabres]

ickyness.

Head gaskets are a lot of work.
When i was trying to get Ragok fixed, one 'helpful' clearc recomended just dropping in a "low milage used engine." He seemed to think that would be easyer/cheaper than breaking teh existing engin apart.

Good luck guys.

[dunkelza]

Sadly, it's not the case. Apparently Fords are now so hard to work on that it's actually more expensive.

Hey, do you guys need an apartment? ;)

[retsuko]

Argh! That both sucks and blows. >:(