We recently sold one of our old cars. We had two cars with similar mileage, similar age and we may have sold the "wrong" car. Both were old, both were running great. We put both cars up for sale and decided whichever sold first, sold.
Exactly one week after selling the car, the car we kept had the "check engine" light come on. My husband took the car into a mechanic, and $400 later, we got the car back. The car came home yesterday, and today as my husband was driving into work, the $%&*#@ light came back on. I cannot express well enough my loathing and gritting my teeth feeling here.
Once things start going wrong like that, it really adds up. The car was just in this week! And while you can think - well it was just checked out, so it must just be a sensor... that is a dangerous game to play. It's not a good idea to ignore the check engine light, as tempting as it can be.
While hubby is convinced it's fine, and it's running just fine thank you very much, I am now nervous with it. My husband has to go on a work trip soon, about a 6 hour drive away. He will be gone for many days and driving back and forth on weekends. So now that we cannot trust the "old car" he will take the "new car" leaving me (and the kids) home with the "old car". And that makes me so nervous. It's still winter here, and the thought of being left with an old car that is on the verge of breaking down at any moment makes me want to scream. To top it off, the road side assistance is on the "new car" and somebody thought it was a good idea to not buy me a spousal card for CAA.. "I'll always be there to bail you out". Uh huh, not if you're 6 hours away! I'm definitely not blaming my husband here, don't get me wrong. The one and only time my old car ever broke down on me, he was able to come bail me out very quickly. We make decisions that sometimes are not the best. I just feel frustrated at the prospect of (a) not driving at all due to nervousness and (b) driving and breaking down somewhere with the two kids in the car in the middle of winter. It's a short term thing, and for the most part the worst case scenario is that hubby breaks down on the way to or from work, and I come and pick him up or CAA does it for him. And I do have friends that I could call to help me, or a taxi.. But that does leave the car on the side of the road to deal with.
Once you reach a point where you don't trust your car, it's not funny. Driving becomes a task that makes you hold your breath. You throw money at it because you can't afford to buy a new car and take on yet another monthly payment. And we're at least a few years away from being able to make another car payment. But at what point are you throwing good money after bad? And what can you do about it? What if the next car appointment is more money than the blue book value of the car? What then? Will we need to become a one car household??? If spring would just hurry up at least my husband would be able to bicycle in to work (God Bless him, he bikes 30 kms one way to work!) and my fears of breaking down would be alleviated greatly because at least then I can wait (maybe not 6 hours) but I will be in a much better situation to walk or wait for help. Before you judge us for having 2 vehicles, it must be clear that my husband works 30 kms away, and I have two young children who need to be taxied to doctor appointments, classes, grocery shopping, etc... If we have to go to one car, I will need to get everybody up very early, drive Daddy to work, come home and get everybody out to school, then go back at the end of the day. Which I guess may end up being the solution, but it adds 60 kms a day to our travels, meaning much more gas, and wear and tear on the new car.
Ah money pits, have I mentioned how much I hate them?
Thankfully when the light clicks on and off again, it really is just the sensor. A mechanic friend of mine said sometimes something gets caught in the engine (dirt and grime that naturally happens with old cars) and when it dislodges the sensor goes off.
ReplyDeleteHopefully that helps calm your fear of the car. Now if the light stays on, time to get it looked at. Do you have any friends that are mechanics? They are always good to have around!
Depending on wheter you hsve sn OBD1 or OBD2 car (on board diagnostics computer)can determine how cheep this problem could be. Don't quote me on this, but I think OBD2 came out standard at about 1993. So, if your car is older than 93, an OBD1 code breaker is only about 20 bucks. Unfortunatly, OBD2 code breakers are about 2-3hundred. The reason people invest in an OBD code breaker is because it's a lifelong investment no matter what type of car you have, only age dependent. It will tell you what is wrong with your car and save you a hundred bucks or so to have a shop tell you what the code is and it'll save you the shop time to have the shop look at your car. If you get one of these things, you can find out yourself what is wrong with the car by plugging it in and then you can take the car to the shop and tell them to fix that. It's a little expensive up front, but you could save thousands over a lifetime by getting taken by a mechanic.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I did not profread my work before posting, my bad, lol.
ReplyDeleteHi! thanks for the comments guys! It really is a frustrating experience! My hubby has just ordered a code scanner thingy. And we're gonna get that book that you can get with all the specifics and how to fix a certain car - can't recall the name at the moment. I think the answer is to try to run the old car as little as possible, and try to fix it more ourselves.. we simply can't afford (or want!) to keep feeding the mechanics wallet!!!
ReplyDeleteIf you have a problem, you might as well have fun with it. I just ordered an OBD-II to bluetooth dongle for $60, based on the standard ELM327 chip which can read 5 or 6 of the common standards.
ReplyDeleteWith this do-dad, I can read just about all the diagnostic information from the car, feed it realtime to my net book, and determine everything from check engine codes, to engine temperature, air intake, o2 sensor levels, real-time fuel consumption, and so on. All for $60.
So for $60 ... $20 less than a mechanics fee ... I can read the error code. If that doesn't pay off, then with the real time fuel consumption data, I can at least become an annoying hypermiler, and make my money back in fuel savings.
If life throws you a curve ball, that means the game's on. ;-)
For anyone interested, the Bluetooth gizmo can be used with tons of free software.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.16921