I fix 1 problem.....

[Zellie Crescent]

My car sucks, in less than 1 year I've needed to fix a lot of expensive shit. My transmission, my brakes, my battery, my tires, my air conditioner/heater, my shitty insurance (they were trying to really screw me over so I switched) and now my starter is dead. I know I should just junk it and get a new one but I seriously can't afford a new one right now, sorry if I'm being whiny. It's just when I finally seem to catch up/get a little bit ahead something happens and I'm stuck starting over again.

[wolfie]

What model year is the car, and what route did you buy it through (new, certified pre-owned from a new car dealer, used from new car dealer, used car dealer, private sale)? One problem, especially with older cars, is that they'll have a lot of "deferred maintenance" when they're sold. After all, who's going to change the timing belt before trading in their car?

Incidentally, the timing belt is one to watch out for. Unless you can find out when it was last changed (usually a sticker at the "front" of the engine with date and mileage it was done at), and it's still got time to go on the recommended interval, assume it's outdated ($400-$600 to change - and on some cars, some of the bolts that need to be removed to change it are "torque to yield", so those need replacement as well). If you don't want to go by the recommended change interval (usually on the order of 4 or 5 years, 80,000 to 100,000 kilometres - with it being time OR mileage, whichever comes first), it's good for about 1/10 of a second less than the life of the engine.

[bhskittykatt]

I feel your pain. Hubby's car died, so we got a "$450 Craigslist Special" truck and put some work into it. We figured for $450, we could still drop a fair amount of cash and have it be a good deal. We estimated about $1000 to get all the repairs done. All told, I think it was closer to $3000, since we found a few "surprises" several months after the purchase. The gamble did not pay off. I know we've replace the radiator, water pump, starter, carburetor, and fuel pump in that beast. We also burned through more than a few starter relays (that's a whole story in and of itself). At least now it's being a good girl. If I had known ahead of time what I was going to spend on it, though, I would have never let Hubs get it in the first place. For that money, we could have gotten something nicer.

And now, I need a new headgasket on my car. It will be $450 to have a friend replace it. Unfortunately, other stuff keeps cropping up (vet bills, and an old bill that has been dredged up from the grave by a collection agency to haunt us). So until then, I just keep burning through oil.

[Zellie Crescent]

My mistake I was looking at everything the transmission was 2 years ago, everything else was this year from June til now. It's a 2003 Ford Taurus and I got it from a couple who wanted to get rid of it the wife already had a truck and the husband needed to get a van, he said it was too late to take it back to the dealership and he just wanted to get rid of it. I've had it since 2004 and it's never given me any problems until the trans went last December.

[Andara Bledin]

Apparently that year (and several others) of Taurus has transmission issues. At least, that's what this car site says. Be thankful it's not a 2003.

^-.-^

[Zellie Crescent]

It was a 2003 model.

[protege]

What model year is the car, and what route did you buy it through (new, certified pre-owned from a new car dealer, used from new car dealer, used car dealer, private sale)? One problem, especially with older cars, is that they'll have a lot of "deferred maintenance" when they're sold. After all, who's going to change the timing belt before trading in their car?

True. When I disposed of my last car (an '00 Mazda), I didn't bother maintaining it at all. I already knew that it had failed its state inspection for the second time, and that I wasn't going to be getting much for it. By then, it had 127,000 miles on it. I'd already spent several hundred dollars on getting the timing belt and adjuster changed after the latter failed while driving home from work. About a week or so after getting that fixed, the exhaust fell off $1200 in parts and labor to fix that for an emissions test. Followed by another couple hundred bucks of oxygen sensors before the re-test. After the second failure, I decided that the car had to go. I wasn't about to dump more money into repairs which may, or may not fix the problem. Some other sucker could fix that damn car, I'd had enough. Last week or so that I had it, I didn't bother with maintaining it. Nor did I bother with the other problems that crept up. I couldn't see the point of spending money...which I wasn't going to get back...on a car I was getting rid of.

Anyway, I know what it's like, and yes...it sucks. Sorry to hear about the starter. You might want to check out the local scrapyards. There are plenty of Tauruses about that finding a good used item shouldn't be a problem. Had one go on a mid-80s Taurus my dad owned. The usual trick of hitting the starter body with a hammer didn't work...so it was off to the scrapyard for a replacement. Not just the starter either--its accompanying relay was shot as well. I should mention that this was the car that somehow managed to destroy its entire rear suspension, punch a hole in the top of the gas tank...as well as one of the doors falling off. No instruments on the dash, and if my brother had borrowed the heap, it usually broke down. Last time I saw it, the car was rotting in a field behind the local Saturn dealer.