My car broke and now everything is ruined.

May 19, 2018 12:53 PM

I need to drive once a month or so, for a few days. What's my best option?

I live in NYC, but every 2-4 weeks, I go upstate to visit my family. I keep a car at their house to drive around and visit friends, go shopping, and work from my job's upstate office.

Suddenly, my beautiful little car broke down and it will cost $1400 to fix. We just did a $500 repair last month. It's a 2001 Hyundai with 100k miles on it. Everyone is telling me it's time to let it go. But now what?

Here are my options as I see them:
1. Pour another $1400 into an old, beat up car that could break down again at any minute. That sounds like a terrible idea.
2. Buy another beater that will be only marginally better AND run me at least $5k. I dont have that kind of money.
3. Buy a good car for $10k or up... yeah i REALLY don't have that kind of money.
4. Borrow my parents car whenever I need it.....but they only have one car between the two of them so that would be really difficult for everyone involved.
5. Rent a car every time I go upstate. There are no rental dealerships nearby so it would have to be zip car. That'll run $300 a weekend, I think. Which is also terrible. And I hate the idea of constantly, constantly renting. I've owned a car for over twenty years. I LOVE having a car :(
6. Uber, I guess. There isnt really any mass transit up there.
7. Leasing? Is it totally stupid to lease a car you only drive a couple days a month? Probably.

Are there any options I"m missing? What is the best option of the awful, impossible ones listed here? This is such a mess.

posted by silverstatue to Grab Bag (19 answers total)

My brother lives in NYC and sometimes, when visiting our parents in Boston, will take the train out of the city and rent a car in the suburbs. It's cheaper than it is in the city and he doesn't have to deal with traffic leaving the city. Is this an option? Maybe there's a rental place near a Metro North station?
posted by lunasol at 12:58 PM on May 19, 2018

I feel like you are the person 2500 dollar Craigslist beaters are made for.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 1:04 PM on May 19, 2018

Are there any carshare/autoshare options with membership tiers that make sense for you?
posted by lizifer at 1:11 PM on May 19, 2018

Have you gotten a second estimate on the car? I had a situation where a ~$3000 problem according to one mechanic turned out to be solvable for $700 by a second mechanic.
posted by alphanerd at 1:16 PM on May 19, 2018

Any used car is going to cost $5k. Even if you get it for $1000. $1400 isn't all that much to put into a car, really. Think - if you buy a car, it's anywhere from $200-$400/month payment, not including maintenance.

Maintenance of course early on is much less.. maybe $300/year, averaged.

Now, $1400 is about $100/month for the year. Sucky, but next year it should be less again.

But - it depends on the repair. That's what really makes the decision.

Around 100k miles, you're talking timing belts, head gasket and that kind of stuff. That ends up being pricey. BUT - they're a 100k/150k mile job. Get it done, it's done.

Now, Hyundai.. decent car, though more rickety towards the higher miles. If it was a Subaru or an Audi, then I wouldn't even ask - those you repair and they keep going.

So; few things -

On the start, I'd repair.
Find a reliable, well thought of local repair shop, not the dealer. Also, look for shops outside the City.. suburbs are going to be cheaper.
Make sure the local shop comes recommended. Google-fu.
$1400 - should be transmission, head gasket, or timing belt. If it's a bunch of different things, you can start to pick and choose what to do.
Not sure what the $500 repair was for, which would be good to know.

FYI; I have 4 cars (3 teenage boys) and 3 of them are over 150k miles.
posted by rich at 1:17 PM on May 19, 2018

Couple more potential options:

- Ask your office if they have/are willing to have a company car assigned to you when you're working upstate.
- Ask your parents if any of their neighbors might be willing to rent a spare/underused car to you for those weekends.
posted by Static Vagabond at 1:20 PM on May 19, 2018

The car never leaves upstate (New Paltz/Kingston area) so everyone I'm dealing with - mechanics, car rentals, etc, are all up there.

The $500 repair last month was for the catalytic converter. This repair would be for the clutch and.... some other stuff I can't recall. Basically we thought it would just be a $700 clutch repair but when he went in, he found a whole host of other stuff wrong. This is a trusted mechanic my family has used for years, so we are confident he is giving us a good price.
posted by silverstatue at 1:25 PM on May 19, 2018

Ah, yeah - clutch.. so that's another one of those "new one every 50k-75k or 100k miles. Normal, long mileage wear and tear.

Catalytic converter.. another high-mileage car repair.

The other $700 of repairs.. well.. probably bits and bobs, but likely to help out. But if money is tight, ask him if any of it is critical.

Point is.. this is the thing of high mileage cars. Your choices are as you laid out.

Compare that with, over a year, you'll be paying probably $25-$50 a month for the car maintenance. (everything from new tires and oil changes to big repairs like clutch and other stuff).

Some years, you'll be paying more, some years you'll get away with just oil changes.

For what you describe - likely worth the repairs. You said 'suddenly' - so you haven't really been doing all that much for it. It's paid off, and has given you a few years of fee-free driving. Well, here is the tipping point. It'll probably cost you a few grand over the coming years to repair the normal stuff that happens at 100k miles-ish.

But - leasing will cost you just as much.
Zipcar will cost you more.
Buying a car will cost you more - but, well, new car!
Renting will cost you probably a little less or just as much.

Figure $500-$1000/year for the next couple years, then back to standard maintenance for another 3-4 years.. maybe 5. Start hitting 175k miles and maybe a little more.
posted by rich at 2:24 PM on May 19, 2018

Would your folks find it useful to have more than one car available to them occasionally and be willing to split the costs on a slightly better beater? If they've been getting along with one, probably not, but I'm just brainstorming.

Or do you have other family members or the friends you mention around who have a student off at college or someone stationed elsewhere who are home occasionally and would like to split the cost of a car so they'd have one when they're home too?
posted by joycehealy at 3:28 PM on May 19, 2018

Unless the car is rusting out or otherwise terminal I think I'd pay for the critical repairs (hopefully not all of them! get a second opinion even if you end up going back to your trusted mechanic to get the work done) and keep driving it.

You'll keep finding new issues, and you'll keep putting money in it—though probably not this much. But I'd much rather drive my beater for $1400 than somebody else's beater for $1400.
posted by Polycarp at 4:57 PM on May 19, 2018

Needing a new clutch is not a sign that your car is dying; clutches wear out just like brakes and tires, and just like catalytic converters for that matter. They're expected to wear out on a regular (if infrequent) basis. There's no reason to think that just because this car recently needed a new catalytic converter and clutch it's become a bottomless money pit, especially since it only gets driven what sounds like a couple hundred miles a month.

It's definitely entering "old car" territory, but that doesn't mean it's not worth keeping on the road. What I would do in your case is bite the bullet for this repair, try to put aside a thousand dollars or so over the next few months as an emergency fund (which can be rolled into a new car fund if you don't end up needing it), and then only do the minimum maintenance on it going forward—meaning just what needs to be done to keep it safe and operational.

Basically, you are now driving this car into the ground. Someday it's going to get to the point where you'll need another car, and you should start socking that money away now. But for the time being, this car can be repaired (it's more maintenance than repair, really) and kept going.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:22 PM on May 19, 2018

What you are experiencing is not unusual. With a high mileage car, just by chance, you will have two things break in a short interval and it shakes your confidence in the car. But a catalytic converter and a clutch are pretty standard and expected repairs. You just happened to have them back to back. It doesn't mean your car is about to fall apart. This is normal.

Go back to your trusted mechanic and have him give you an evaluation of future expected repairs. 100K miles isn't a lot. You can easily expect your car to go another 50K miles with no major repairs other than a possible timing belt. Ask him if you can put off any non-critical repairs other than the clutch.

$1400 to repair your known car is a much better deal than any possible replacement car. Especially for a car that you don't really put a lot of miles on. Don't lose confidence in this car just because of a couple of routine and expected repairs.
posted by JackFlash at 5:33 PM on May 19, 2018

Seconding JackFlash. Cars cost money to run. Parts wear out and you pay to replace them. That's just how cars are.

Everyone is telling me it's time to let it go.

There are people who are unwilling to deal with this reality, and they are the ones who periodically spend ten to fifty times what it costs to replace worn parts on a car for a year on buying a new one that they hope they won't have to think about for three years.

That level of ignorance and superstition is really common, but also really expensive. I recommend you avoid it, and just keep replacing worn out parts on your beautiful little Hyundai until it threatens to become structurally unsound.

an old, beat up car that could break down again at any minute

The way you keep a car reliable is by checking the manufacturer's instruction manual (get one online if you don't have one in the car) to find out the replacement interval for each wear item (like tyres and clutches and brake pads and timing belts and whatnot) and replacing those items at the specified intervals instead of just running them until they fail. This will also help you budget for the car's ongoing maintenance costs.

The way you keep total costs down is to understand what's expensive. The single most expensive thing will be your mechanic's time. So if you need something done that involves getting the whole engine out of the car, pick then to replace all the wear items due to be replaced within the next 20,000 miles that would also need the engine to come out. For example, if the engine needs to come out to get the cylinder head rebuilt, replace the timing belt and water pump at the same time, even if they're only half way through their recommended service life.

A mechanic you trust is a valuable resource. Let your mechanic know that your intention is to keep this car working and reliable for as long as possible, then take their advice on pre-emptive maintenance. This will cost a little more overall than just putting everything off for as long as possible and fixing it when it breaks, but that's the price of reliability, and it's a way lower price than you'd pay to buy replacement cars every five years.
posted by flabdablet at 6:43 PM on May 19, 2018

I'd much rather drive my beater for $1400 than somebody else's beater for $1400

especially if I knew that my beater's clutch and catalytic converter were both going to be good for another hundred thousand miles.
posted by flabdablet at 6:46 PM on May 19, 2018

Perhaps look more into renting. This may not be possible in the nyc area but by me in Los Angeles you can rent a car for around 21 dollars a day. Perhaps you could rent a car somewhere outside the city and drive up to your family? I assume you are paying for a train ride anyway. So if you rent a car not far from the city and drive it up to your family it might be cost effective. Also there are new services out there were you can rent cars from individual people.. almost like air b and b but for cars. It's worth looking in to all rental options. Buying a car that gets used once or twice a month...might not make sense.
posted by ljs30 at 7:43 PM on May 19, 2018

In a somewhat similar situation I've decided to drive mine into the ground. A friend of mine said, "ask the mechanic if it's still worth fixing, and if they say no, then get a new car." It's not going to be cheap for you, no, but if you're only driving it occasionally...

Well. My car's this old. If I spend $1000 on it every few months for fixes, vs. having to get a car loan and then spend a guaranteed $500 every month plus whatever in fixes since I can't afford a new or even newish car, the $1000 is seeming cheaper to me.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:32 PM on May 19, 2018

I've decided....drum roll... to fix my old car! I spoke with the mechanic again and he said, like a few of you mentioned, the things that are breaking (the clutch and timing belt) often fail around the 100k mark, and if I fix them, then they'll last me another 50k at least. So I'm going to do it. I feel much better about this decision now.Thank you so much, everyone!
posted by silverstatue at 5:45 PM on May 20, 2018

The timing belt is a long-service wear item you should definitely budget to replace before it's built up enough running hours to fail. Timing belts will be fine if you run them for only as long as you're supposed to, but if you just let them them run forever without replacing them they will certainly fail eventually. They give no warning signs of impending failure, and when they do fail, the opening and closing of your engine's cylinder head valves loses its designed timing relationship with the rise and fall of the pistons.

In an interference engine like the one in your Hyundai, this can result in valves actually hitting the top of the pistons, which damages pistons and bends valve stems and results in way more expense than that involved in a possibly premature timing belt replacement.
posted by flabdablet at 7:09 AM on May 21, 2018

And if you need to have the engine taken out of the car for any other reason - like replacing a clutch, say - then getting the timing belt and water pump replaced at the same time is a no-brainer. It might cost you an extra hundred or two on the day, but that's better than paying that extra hundred or two and whatever it costs to get the engine in and out later just to do the timing belt and water pump.
posted by flabdablet at 7:16 AM on May 21, 2018