Major Prolem/ Decision To Make---- Help!!!!!

[Puckman27]

k, i got my car looked at, and i got bad news.

It needs a new Left Front Wheel Bearing (~$400 w/ labor), a new ABS Harness and wiring (~$300 w/ labor), and new Lower Intake Manifold Gaskets (~$800 w/ labor) for a grand total of $1500.

i'm contemplating either selling the car, where the most i'd probably get for it now is maybe $3000 if i'm lucky, or beg like mad to get some money (or take out a loan) so i can pay for the repairs.

In March I paid $1200 for a new valve body in the transmission, so i don't know if its worth keeping anymore.

What do you guys think?? Fix or sell?? Ideas, opinions, etc, anything that can help me out

thanks

[Red99GAGT]

How many miles on the car? What kind of driving do you do? I.E. daily driver? beater? etc...

If you answer those questions we might be able to stear you in the right direction

[Puckman27]

75,169 miles

pretty much daily driver half of the year (summer, school breaks)

drive it to school every now and then during the school year (~380 miles from Chicago to Ohio State)

[Neckro211]

Hell that's a keeper. I have 175,000 miles on mine and it rans damn good. I've had to put some money into it but I expect it to run on this engine up to 225,000-250,000 miles before I replace it. You don't have any people to help do the repairs or at least hook you up with a deal?

[Gimli]

Yeah, I would also suggest you shop around to find a better deal. These prices look like dealer quotes to me. Find a nice local garage where the guy will cut you a deal. That's a lot of work you're having done there and they should be able to cut the cost down at least 20-30%.

[matts]

how close is it to being paid off? if its anywhere close i would hang on to it too. i have 208000 miles on my truck and i still drive it daily, although it has officially seen better days, lol. so your motor is just getting broke in good. :D look at it this way. we'll say you owe 2500(?) you'll probably have that paid off in a year or two. why would you want to go commit yourself to another 3-6 yrs. of car payments? after you get it paid off, just take about half of what you were paying a month and put it in a savings account just for such emergencies.

[Puckman27]

the car is paid off, but i don't have the money right now to pay for the repairs. i don't know if i want to pay for all this by getting a loan or sumthin and then have the car sit in a parking lot for months at a time at school.

yeah they are prices from a dealer, but i don't really know if i can trust a gas station or whatever to do this kind of work.

[kubiache]

Not necessarily a gas station man. There are plenty of "Bob's Auto Shop" type shops than are plenty qualified. The work that you need done isn't really all that hard anyway, just time consuming.

[Bandit]

I have to agree with what others have said. I know several master mechanics that can't stand dealing with the general BS you find in most dealerships and work out of their backyards or have their own shops. I know a couple personally with over 20 years experiance. I would never go to a dealer for just about anything. (some things require crazy expensive tools that most guys don't just have laying around...) You can get a hub and bearing from lake chevrolet for 187.09 plus shipping. I know guys who would do that job for 40 bucks. After shipping a labor, you might be looking at 250, maybe 260 dollars. That's a fine bit less than 400.

The kicker is, I wouldn't buy a car that needed that kind of work unless I could get an amazing deal on it. The annoyance of repairing it is worth almost as much as the repairs themselves. So unless you can find a real sucker, don't expect to get much for it.

[Puckman27]

thanks for all of the help guys, but i keep running in to more bad luck.

i just found out my license has been suspended because of two tickets i got 6 months ago. since i'm under 21 and the nature of the tickets, well one of them, i can't get a permit to drive to school or work or anywhere. this state is f*ed up. if you get a ticket in the state, you can take a class and it'll be taken off of your record. but if you get one outside of the state, you're screwed.

i can't drive after the 15th, so i'm gonna get my car in as good of condition as i can and then go to carmax or sumthin.

this reeeeaaaaaaallly sucks :cuss: :angry: :tears: :microwav:

thanks for the help though, if anyone would like to buy an air intake let me know.