Love song for my car
If we're friends, and have talked about my car recently, I may have expressed the following theory to you: "My car is on it's last legs; every time I bring it in to get work done, they always do about $1000 worth of work and then remind me to have a whole bunch of other things looked at. What's happening is that the car is only worth maybe $1200, so they're trying to prevent me from totalling it by doing the repairs piecemeal. This way, they get to keep a constant cashflow via my repeat business, and I get to keep the car."
Well, throw that one out the window. Since picking a friend of a friend up from the airport at the end of fall break, I've been noticing engine noise on-and-off, particularly when there's some engine stress (big downshift, keeping it at highway speeds for a length of time), so I figured it was time to replace the timing belt--a repair that's honestly way overdue and follows the ~$1000 theory.
So yesterday, I didn't have to go into LA for my internship, so I figured it would be a good day to bring it in. Well, the estimate today started at $1300, then it jumped to $1800, and now it's sitting at $1900; they found a loose engine bearing along with the belt noise. Yeah. The Kelly Blue Book says that I can't get that much for it trade-in from a dealer, and I'm getting dangerously close to "private resale" value, especially given the paint damage...
Just as long as it holds up through the end of the internship this semester, I can manage... beyond that, my driving would honestly all be elective. Much as I love my car, it's old, and I have to be realistic. We've put god only knows how many miles on her since the end of last spring (in fact, this whole calendar year has been the most intense for the Subie since we bought her junior year of high school), and to some extent I associate the car very strongly with a kind of phase of my life. We've had some great times, and the car often sits in the background of good memories I still carry around. I haven't really started to think about what I'd get for a next car, and part of the teaching abroad next year plan involves being able to postpone that decision just a little longer.
Well, throw that one out the window. Since picking a friend of a friend up from the airport at the end of fall break, I've been noticing engine noise on-and-off, particularly when there's some engine stress (big downshift, keeping it at highway speeds for a length of time), so I figured it was time to replace the timing belt--a repair that's honestly way overdue and follows the ~$1000 theory.
So yesterday, I didn't have to go into LA for my internship, so I figured it would be a good day to bring it in. Well, the estimate today started at $1300, then it jumped to $1800, and now it's sitting at $1900; they found a loose engine bearing along with the belt noise. Yeah. The Kelly Blue Book says that I can't get that much for it trade-in from a dealer, and I'm getting dangerously close to "private resale" value, especially given the paint damage...
Just as long as it holds up through the end of the internship this semester, I can manage... beyond that, my driving would honestly all be elective. Much as I love my car, it's old, and I have to be realistic. We've put god only knows how many miles on her since the end of last spring (in fact, this whole calendar year has been the most intense for the Subie since we bought her junior year of high school), and to some extent I associate the car very strongly with a kind of phase of my life. We've had some great times, and the car often sits in the background of good memories I still carry around. I haven't really started to think about what I'd get for a next car, and part of the teaching abroad next year plan involves being able to postpone that decision just a little longer.
posted by sam at
3:23 PM
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