*&^%E#$^!!!!
I just got a call from my mechanic.
The good news is that my van passed the emissions component of its annual inspection.
The bad news is that I need a new axle, two new idler arms, one passenger side upper control arm, an alignment, a new tire, and some headlight work.
Grand total: $895.00
The van has 123,000 miles on it and a gasoline engine. My bet is that at about 180,000 the compression will start to die, and with the regular trips to get Sam, 180K is closer than it sounds. Never mind that the shitty mileage is killing me.
I think I have to start thinking about a new used car, preferably a 4-cylinder (for mileage sake) or a diesel (ditto, plus the engine will run for a million miles and can be converted to run on vegetable oil), and almost certainly a wagon (so my upright bass, which is as tall as me but doesn’t bend at the waist can fit inside).
It’d be a shame to spend my surplus stimulating the economy, so I think I’m going to sell the van for as much as I can, save up a few bucks over my next couple of paychecks, and buy an old Toyota, Honda, or Mazda.
Fuck. I really didn’t need this expense. $200.00 in repairs I could live with. Nearly $900.00? No way.
2 Responses to “*&^%E#$^!!!!”
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May 13th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Brendan-
I’d ditch the van sooner than later. I’ve found that American cars have an useful service life of 100k miles, then they get really expensive to run. I learned this from my Dad, who spent around 4K keeping a Chevy full size van on the road from 118k to 130k.
As for its replacement:
Reliable, economical, carrying capacity, cheap purchase- choose any two.
While an ideal car for all your wants (load carrying, biodiesel, fuel economy) would be a Mercedes 240 or 300 D wagon, good examples are getting crazy expensive. My friend Jay Matsueda is running a 300D sedan converted for frier fat and he’s getting better mileage than our Toyota Tercel.
May 14th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Fix the idler arm first, if you keep the van. I had the drivers side idler arm fall off of an old car many years ago. Its a good thing it was on a 25 mph side street. When the idler arm fell off, the left front wheel turned out sideways and the car came to a dead stop, right in the middle of the street. Something like that happening on the highway could be deadly.
My brother plays the upright bass, and that has always dictated the kind of car he drove. Now he is married, has two kids, three dogs and his bass. Besides his van, he likes Toyota and Honda. Maybe your onto something.