Z/Web

Well, all’s well that ends well, I suppose. With both vehicles dead my mindset has changed. I liked having two vehicles as one backed up the other, but after this bad experience — two dead cars in two days — I’m leary of older models. That means springing for new or barely used (i.e. under warranty), which costs a lot more money. Not what I wanted to do, but I decided if I’m going to do that, it’s best to just get one reliable vehicle. The thing is, I want something small and sporty and not too expensive, yet it needs to have enough cargo space to haul Grandpa’s wheelchair around (collapsing the wheelchair is a major pain and greatly increases the time it takes to go anywhere). In the past I’d looked at PT Crusiers and so now I went that route again — and this time I liked what I saw. Before I was comparing their gas mileage (29 hwy) to my Neon (44 hwy) and was not impressed. Compared to my Mazda MPV van, they don’t hold much cargo either. But as a replacement vehicle, the PT met my needs: it has cargo space but it still a smaller vehicle with reasonable gas mileage. I checked with my local dealer and they had a slightly used one with less than 18K miles and a low price — just what I was looking for. I got it with a seven-year Chrysler warranty. (It’s an interesting warranty — if I never use it, I get all my warranty money back!) It didn’t have cruise control, which I regretted never getting for my Neon, so I included adding that into the purchase price. I traded in both my junkers as well, so now I’m down to just one “new” car! (If you want to see a picture of it, click here.) This was not planned but the outcome isn’t terrible, though now I have to hassle with car payments. Ugh!

Well, I am bummed. Yesterday I drove the Neon to a repair place — barely made it without overheating — and the guy told me it was a blown head gasket. Apparently that’s expensive, at least $1000, and the car’s hardly worth that. And of course the problems could be even worse. I drove the Neon home, sort of — it took me an hour to go five miles as I had to stop every 200 feet and let the car cool. I didn’t quite make it, leaving the car a few blocks from my house as it was overheating on idle even after ten minutes of cooling time. I went back later that night and moved it. Cooled, it worked just fine. Meanwhile, I took the van down to have that alternator belt looked at. And this morning I got word that the van also has major trouble — to the tune of $1200+. So this afternoon I’m out two vehicles.