You can try and climb every mountain, but eventually, you'll reach a peak that you can not tame. As with mountain climbing, so too, are car repairs and maintenance. You really want to try and do everything for your car yourself, but you just can't. Anyway, that's why god invented auto mechanics and what, are you trying to put those fine people out of a job? Of course not!
Earlier this week, I asked you about repair jobs attempted and failed. Some of you gave up on your cars, while others solidered through, switching mechanics and tactics until you could save your baby. All of you had a story to tell, so please enjoy scrolling through some of my favorite submissions. Happy wrenching!
Back in the 1980s I had a second-gen Camaro with the (obscure) 229-V6. One day, when it needed regular maintenance, I took it to our family mechanic. He replaced the spark plugs, and charged me $12.00, or $1.50 apiece–eight plugs for my six-cylinder car.
Which was bad enough. But then he told me that the car had a worn camshaft, which is why it wasn't firing on one cylinder. I don't remember him giving me an estimate on that repair, but after a while, driving it on five cylinders, something told me to replace the plugs he put in (on that engine, it was an ordeal–it required going underneath the car to reach some of them). I found that one of the plugs had its side electrode bent to actually touching the center electrode–so that the plug couldn't fire. When I re-gapped the plug, the car ran fine.
I found another mechanic.
From Joe Stricker
It was an old mustang I loved, and I thought "well that isn't too much rust"
From cwheels
Mine wasn't too much for me to handle. It was too much for my wallet.
Around this past new year, my E60 M5 (yes, a 6-speed) started acting up. I had had it for 5 years and it was at around 90k miles. After dropping a few thousand at the shop to take care of injectors and other things, I saw the blue cough of death in the rear-view mirror while sitting at a stoplight.
After digging around a bit, the shop found scoring on cylinder 1. A rebuild was necessary, and after shopping around, I decided to let it go.
I miss it.
From Jordan Sangerman
My last car, 2014 BMW 335 xdrive, loved it and the manual was super fun, had it for 10 years and 150k miles. Its one real flaw (common with other AWD BMWs) is the transfer case which starts to shudder under acceleration. It can go for a long time before finally giving up, and I had it replaced at 80k miles for a cost of just under $4k.
5-ish years later and I'm nearing 150k miles, the signs of upcoming failure are back. I really didn't want to give up the car, but had to be realistic. I didn't get a quote for a second replacement but after 5 years of inflation it was probably at least $5k, the car was worth $8k. That fix would have gotten me another 70-80k miles, so another 4-5 years of driving, but at that mileage what else would potentially come up (even though the powertrain was super reliable) that could make that investment a complete waste? And if I was prolonging my ownership for that much longer I'd want to do some other refreshes of parts that were showing their age i.e. faded exterior plastics and gummy interior rubber.
It just wasn't worth it and I ended up trading it in, but I still question whether I should have traded my convertible instead and kept the BMW as a weekend car. I love my current car no doubt, but that BMW was so perfect.
From Wantsamanuelalpharomero
I have replaced an alternator in a 2003 Dodge Grand Caravan. Same thing as the '05 T&C. I did it without lifting it and dropping the motor, and with my family waiting patiently to go home, a two hour drive. I had to invent tools to do it. I also replace the starter in that car, in the 3rd floor of a parking garage, in a freezing windy January evening. It was a nightmare. It took hours. But I did it. Worse was a steering column in a '97 Oldsmobile Achieva. It was too hard and too expensive, $1k for the part, $1k for labor, and that was 2010 money. That one ended that car's run. All this led me to get a job as a car salesman, fix my credit, fix my broken relationship with automobiles. Now I've gone through 6 Jeep Wranglers in a decade. Never going past 10k miles before swapping out, because I can. Spending my teenage years to mid 40s in junk cars has given me roadside auto repair PTSD.
From Papa Chris
I had a 2001 Audi A4 for about 10 years. Loved the thing and it was nearly pristine. Right around 100k miles the AC stopped working, and it was diagnosed as a leak in some component deep in the dash. I was looking at about a $3000 cost to repair it. (basically the entire dash had to come out). I was also starting to get an occasional CEL after fueling the car, so of course that gave me a little added concern. The book value of the car was about $6000 at the time, and I was also at the point where my eye was wandering to new cars anyway. So onto craigslist it went, and I sold it for $5500.
From BuddyS
The first brand new car I ever owned was an '02 Mitsubishi Mirage. I was living in a cheap apartment complex in Western PA (where our seasons can be described as Summer, Fall, Winter, and Still Winter), where the landlord's idea of plowing the parking lots was to create a path but pushing all the snow directly in front of the actual spaces. After 8 years of driving over little salty snow piles I was going to work one day and the car is much louder than normal, so I figure I have a hole in the exhaust. It turned out the everything from the manifold to the muffler was pretty badly corroded and headed replaced. I don't remember the exact quote to repair it, but it was around double what the car was actually worth at that point, so I sold it as scrap and used the money to buy a new Lancer.
From Mike Szekely
9th generation Honda Accord V6 has a starter issue where it slowly destroys the flywheel. They had to basically drop the engine to remove the gearbox and install a new flywheel and a new starter. The labor was more expensive than the part and both combined was nearly the same as buying the same car used. This is a known issue with Honda but they never issued a recall.
But I refuse to give up my V6!
From KP
2000 Subaru Outback
Driving to work one day the brakes went out. I stayed calm and downshifted through the gears (manual FTW) and eventually e-braked to a stop. Took it to a trusted shop where they proceeded to tell me my brake lines rusted through. Oh great. They then mentioned that the gas tank was held in solely by rust. It was at that point I cut my losses with the car and learned never to buy a car from up north (I did look over the car before buying, but it was late, and it was in a parking lot)
From bricktop252
Two months ago I sold my much-loved 2008 Volvo V70 wagon (197K miles and still solid, quiet, & smooth running) when the wipers & associated control switches based on the steering column went haywire, which would have been around $1500 to fix. I had a lot of fond memories attached to that car, but It was time.
From JimmieG