Postby Pfhorrest » Thu Jan 25, 2018 7:08 am UTC
Oh my god that sounds awful. I'm in the middle of the latest of a string of horrible car problems myself and I wish I had the skills you seem to have to be able to fix your own vehicles (and the financial resources to replace them as need be like that).
Just over two years ago, I rolled the 99 Oldsmobile Intrigue that had been my one and only car for almost five years prior (and best and most reliable car ever), driving in the mountains when the first snow here in my adult life hit and the roads iced over as soon as it turned dark. Crawled out of my overturned car miraculously unharmed into the snow miles from nowhere in the black of night just in time to hitch a ride from the only other car out there. Within a week or two, found and bought a 97 Cadillac DeVille, the most expensive vehicle I'd ever bought but it was in great condition with ridiculously low miles. Put my life on hold for four months to recover the expense of it.
Six months later (two months after catching up from the expense), at my first oil change, my mechanic did a full diagnostic on it as part of the oil change service and found a whole host of non-urgent problems that he recommended I slowly fix up, maybe one per oil change. Altogether they'd add another 50-75% onto the price of the car.
A year after that, right after getting one of those fixed, my air conditioner blower fan burned out, which I desperately need in the sweltering hot summers we get here, and because of some stupid design decisions on the part of GM that cost me another month of putting everything on hold to pay for that.
A month later, my service engine light comes on, and it turns out the next of those planned non-urgent repairs (spark plugs) had become urgent, so I needed to do that five months early, setting me back another month, now three months behind.
Not a week after getting it back from that, it starts intermittently not starting like the battery is dead, then I get a jump and it runs fine for another day or two and then won't start again. Took it in, battery checks out fine, alternator checks out fine, upon deeper investigation turns out one of the computers is shot, which is going to set me back another two months. Seeing how that's another 50% the purchase price, I ask him to check the engine first and make sure that the rest of the car is in good condition and I'm not about to blow a head gasket or something that would just total the whole car. He checks it out and says it's fine and I okay it. But when he puts the brand new computer in, that immediately fries too. Spends another two months (at no additional charge thankfully, and loaning me one of his personal cars meanwhile) checking over the entire electrical system wire by wire until he finds the fault, and fixes that, and installs a new computer. And details the whole car and changes all my fluids and generally gives it back to me like it's brand new.
Not a week after getting it back from that, my coolant level light comes on, right as I need to evacuate from the Thomas fire. I top off the coolant before leaving. No more coolant warning, but it gets warmer than I've ever seen it during the evacuation, but that was in stop and go traffic over a mountain pass with a car loaded down with all my worldly possessions, so that figures. Thankfully my mechanic is in the neighboring city I evacuated to. Took the car to him, he checks for leaks, tops off the coolant again, gives it back to me to test drive around at no charge still, coolant light eventually comes back on again, eventually he finds a leak in the radiator and replaces that, lets me drive it home before paying him and on the way home it overheats, like, bright flashing "STOP ENGINE NOW" warning kind of overheating, just three blocks from my house. The mechanic sends a tow truck to pick me up free of charge, spends another couple of days looking into it, and then as I'm hoping to head back home (un-evacuate) for the holidays, he concludes that I have a cracked engine block that's making the head gasket bolts come loose (and so let exhaust vent into the coolant system), apparently a chronic problem with this year-model, and that repair is going to set me back yet another six months, even after he gave me a credit for over half the cost of the electronics repair because he said the engine was fine before I okayed that.
I'm expecting that repair to be done around the end of this month. At least he's letting me borrow one of his own cars again meanwhile, and he's going to let me pay it off month by month with no interest since I'm already so far behind on my finances. But that still all adds up to basically a whole year of putting everything else in my life (that requires money) on hold just trying to get a reliable fucking car again.
I never should have gone for that drive in the mountains two years ago. Ironically, before deciding to do that, I was on my way to the bank to look into starting an investment account, something that has been seriously impeded by all this fucking car work ever since then.