As I mentioned a couple days ago, the Green Beast needs work. Lots of it. After getting the details and doing research, Ben decided we might be able to repair the $1,500 worth of repairs for between $500 and $800 if we omit or put off some things and he does some of the work himself. A ray of hope!
Yesterday, the last day the Beast was legal, I was driving up to my mom's house. I took 1800 South in Bountiful, which is a bear of a hill. The van started seeming gutless. Then it started to shake like I was driving over washboard. The power continued to diminish, and as I turned onto 900 East, I lost all power. The engine would rev, but I would only drift backwards.
I turned it off and asked my mom to come get me. I made some more calls, and the people whose house I was in front of helped me push it closer to the curb and farther from the corner. We left it there until evening when Ben's dad helped tow it home. It will go in reverse, but no other gears will catch.
Broken transmission, anyone?
In summary:
$800 to repair lots of stuff ourselves
$175 for a new windshield
??? for a new/rebuilt/used transmission.
We bought it for $3,000 14 months ago, and we have already put almost $1,000 into it on repairs.
I wish so very much that we could get a new car, but it's just not an option. It's fix this or be down to one car. Also, Ben had his bike stolen recently, which makes that harder. And who wants to wander around with a stroller in the winter?
Even if we do fix it, with a 14-year-old car that has 200,000 miles on it, I just have to ask myself what will go wrong next and when. So far, if you average out what he have paid, it's still lower than a car payment for a new equivalent vehicle. But it still comes unexpectedly in lump sums, and we can't save up for a new car because we are constantly paying for the old one. Grrrrr...
There are 2 silver linings on this cloud of automotive doom: 1) We kept the blue van instead of the sedan, so at least we still have a car that holds our whole family, albeit a tight fit, and 2) At least we didn't have them repair the $1,500 and THEN have the transmission go out.
Any thoughts, hints, suggestions, encouragement, and empathy would be most heartily welcome. I'm really upset about this whole mess.
5 comments:
Wow, what a predicament indeed!
We're still driving around our older two door, which while it's still in great shape with only 75,000 mi on it (it's an 03), it's going to be a tight squeeze if we have another kid, not to mention almost impossible to get E in and out of it when preggo. But we're not in a position to get a car payment, either. So, I can totally relate. Every time something happens to our car (which hasn't been anything major in two years, fingers crossed) I just want to push it off a cliff and be done with it altogether, but it's not a practical solution :) So I just keep praying that something will come our way that will make it feasible to get a car with four doors.
I suggest you buck and do the one car thing until next year when you can get your Tax refund in February and then use that money to get a newer car. I know that puts a lot of strain and miles on you but having done this myself I know it's possible.
Oh man, I'm sorry! I TOTALLY know how depressing car troubles can be. Before Spencer was born we sold Kevin's truck (which ran just fine but guzzled gas) for a more "family friendly" vehicle. We used the cash to buy a used intrepid...6 months later the engine blew. We were without a car until tax season this year. It was hard, and I'd imagine it's very difficult with more kids than I have.
Best I can say is hang in there, though I know it can really hang over your head like a rain cloud.
I'm going to second saying try to wait until tax season when you can hopefully have the $ for another (as if there's not a better place for that money to go, right?).
Thanks for the comments! Thanks for the reminders about tax refunds. That's probably where it will go this year! And it's nice to know we're not the only ones to deal with this, although I already sort of knew that, it's nice to be reminded.
The Beast died?!? Didn't you tell it that you truly loved it before the last petal fell off its magical rose while the villagers were trying to burn down its castle?
Car trouble is the WORST trouble in the world. Our last car's engine had a habit of dying whenever we had to make a sharp curve or go over a little hill. Our neighborhood in Pittsburgh had lots of both, so driving around was more like a game of pinball.
It also had an overzealous windshield wiper that would, when running, fly off the windshield and wrap itself around the frame of the car door. Which meant that driving through the rain required rolling down the window and untangling the wiper over and over again.
I'll keep you and the Beast in my prayers . . . I hope you can get it up and running sometime soon!
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