I hate cars.

Well… it happened. Our car officially bit it. Well, not technically but it’s very, very close. I’m a little freaked out about it. We only have the one car and we HAVE to have it. I need it to commute to school.

Since August we’ve put $500 into it in repairs. This morning it had to go in and here’s what needs to be done:

-$800 to repair coolant and tranny fluid leaks (that’s right! It has $800 in leaks)

-$500-$600 for brake pads, calibers and rotors (that’s a guesstimate price)

-$600-$800 for 4 new tires since the current ones are basically bald and spin in the rain (not safe in the Ontario snow belt….and winter is fast approaching)

On top of that, something is definitely hanging under the car because when I hit a bump on the hwy I can here is bounce (kind of like squeaky bed springs) and there is a loud buzzing noise now (and I don’t think it’s the fan belt because it was just replaced in August). The body is starting to majorly rust and I don’t think we’ll get much more than this winter out of it before it starts to rot out unless we pay hundreds to fix it.

The car is 10 years old and a piece of crap. It’s been a problem since we bought it 3.5 years ago. In total we’ve put over $4k in repairs into it and now it’s just getting worse. Bub and I swore when it had to go in, in August that if it was going to cost more than $700 to repair we would just let it go and buy something else. It was only $400 at the time so we just paid for the repair. Then it was $100 two weeks ago and now this? We’re WAY over the limit we set if we do this work. I know that the brakes and the tires are just regular maintenance, but on top of everything else that needs to be done it’s too much. I mean EIGHT HUNDRED BUCKS WORTH OF LEAKS????? COME ON! And if we fix this stuff, what will happen next week, or month?

So I asked the mechanic to hold off on any repairs and told him that we were thinking of just getting rid of it and he basically told me it’s probably a good idea. And he would know because he’s spent so much time under it in the past few months.

We’ll talk to tonight but I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to find a way to buy something else. I think we’ll just pickup a used Civic or something else that size that will be good on gas, reliable and cheap on insurance. I’m freaked because a car payment will literally tap us dry but the current car is already doing that so what’s the lesser of two evils?
I’ll just really have to push Bub to finally get a better paying job or pickup a second part-time gig. We have to. I don’t want to sink financially. I hate cars.

Oh! p.s. I need an oil change too.

If only campus was close enough.