My car died. Repair or get a different car?

[StephandOwen]

My car is a 2003 Dodge Stratus. It's in decent condition, about 115,000 miles. I've had it for 3 years. It has never given me any trouble at all and I keep up on routine stuff. If what happened today hadn't happened, the Blue Book value would be around $2000 (which is so disappointing when I think how much I paid....).

Anyway, so I was driving ds to school this morning and I hear a weird sound. I pulled off the road (we were on a side road, thankfully!) and get out to look. There is liquid POURING out of the underside of my car (front passenger side). Ugh. Called dp who came to pick us up and also called AAA. DP takes ds to school while I wait for AAA (I can't drive dp's car since it's a stick). AAA guy comes and hooks up my car. He said it's transmission fluid. He said I could get lucky and maybe just a line got busted (which is a cheaper fix) but I have a feeling the transmission is out.

A transmission is going to cost an arm and a leg. So the question is.... is it worth it to fix it? I really do love my car. It's a trustworthy car (we drive from KY to MI about 6 times per year and from KY to FL once a year). I've never had any trouble with it. This is my first real car (other than the first beater I had, but this is my first real NICE car) I worked my a$$ off to pay this thing off. But now my baby (car) is sick

I could afford a car payment if I had to, but I really really really don't want to. I only work pt (18 hours/week) and am in school ft. It will be a tight squeeze to get a newer car (heck, it'll be tight to pay off these d*mn repairs too, who am I kidding??). DP is also going to need a new car soon (our plan was to get him a car by the end of this year, pay that off and then start looking at a new car for me).

So.... if it is the transmission would you fix it or cut your losses and get a newer car?

[Katie T]

That would depend for me how much the repairs cost. If it would be cheaper to fix it than buy a new car it might me worth it. Thats a hard one though either way it doesn't sound fun.

[karkli]

If it's just a busted line and won't cost much to repair, I would definitely repair it rather than replace it.

If you need a new transmission, though, it will likely run you upwards of $2,000. In that case, I would take the $2,000 and buy a "new" (to me) car. Given that the one you have has 115k miles on it, you're obviously not afraid of driving an older, higher mileage vehicle. I would not go for something that would leave you with car payments, but neither would I put $2,000 into a car with 115k miles on it. You should be able to find something comparable to what you have now for less than it would cost to fix the Stratus.

Good luck! We dealt with a very similar situation earlier this year. (Engine went out in DH's 2002 Hyundai. $4k to fix, or buy something cheap, used, and actually running? We went with the latter. )

[Vaske]

I would repair it, even if I had to fix the whole transmission, because it has been a good car so far, and is likely to keep running for many more miles once it is fixed.

The blue book value only matters if you're thinking about trading or selling it. You know a lot more about your current car than you would about a new-to-you car with the same blue-book value, and you know that your car has been reliable and well-maintained. That information is worth something too. I would recommend that you put off replacing the car until you can afford a better car than what you already have, better enough to overcome that information gap.

Being free from car payments has opened up a lot of other possibilities for us.

[shayinme]

Originally Posted by Vaske

I would repair it, even if I had to fix the whole transmission, because it has been a good car so far, and is likely to keep running for many more miles once it is fixed.

The blue book value only matters if you're thinking about trading or selling it. You know a lot more about your current car than you would about a new-to-you car with the same blue-book value, and you know that your car has been reliable and well-maintained. That information is worth something too. I would recommend that you put off replacing the car until you can afford a better car than what you already have, better enough to overcome that information gap.

Being free from car payments has opened up a lot of other possibilities for us.

I totally agree with this. Sounds like this car even with a costly repair might still have a great deal of life left in it. Problem with a 2-3K car is that initially it might be a good deal but what happens if it ends up having issues too? This happened to us 2x in the past 3 years, we bought 2 cars and each time what they needed in repairs turned out to not make them very good deals at all. First time we got a 97 Nissan Sentra for $2700 from a friend, within a month it needed $800 worth of repairs, with a bit of work it did last 2 years but still wasn't great deal.

Last time we bought an older Volvo that turned out to be so bad that I too it back to the lot I bought it at. My own opinion as far as older cheap cars is that they can be a great deal if you or your partner are the type of folks who can and are willing to do the work on them, otherwise they become money pits quickly or leave you stuck on the side of the road.

Good luck!

[Amys1st]

As someone who just forked over $2300 to fix my transmission, I understand and know it sucks. Hugs...

We have a 02, have 64K miles on it and blue book about 8K. But its paid for, drives well, and has needed little or no repair over the last 8 years.

If the car is dependable, I would keep it, fix it (I know huge stretch, going thru it myself) but a car is a car and you need it.

or

see if you can find a comparable costing car. As we say, when stuff like this happens, welcome to being a grown up and we are 38! LOL

[StephandOwen]

Thanks everyone! Turns out not to be the transmission (WOO-HOO!!!!) and it was a relatively cheap fix (considering we were expecting around $2000)... it was less than $300, including labor.

I would not have bought a $2000 beater car if this car was done. I need something really reliable since we do drive it far distances often (kentucky to michigan around 6 times per year, plus other random trips). Most of the time dp is with us, but sometimes I do the drive alone with ds (and it's often at nighttime). I cannot afford to *not* have a good running car, ya know?

But, I got my car back tonight so I'm happy We'll test it out this weekend with a weekend trip we had planned!

[ErikaLeigh]

Glad it was something small!!