Mostly Harmless

We have ways to make you Tock

Dateline: Roseville. My car is on its last legs. Engine problems. Bite me.

It was bad enough when I whacked a curb a month ago and gave it a permanent alignment problem. Nice for the resale value, I presume, but I could live with that. Also nice is the slow leak in the A/C which requires a yearly $80 recharge, I can live with that.

Now it’s burning oil, at an alarming rate, and has killed yet another catalytic converter. So… $500 to fix one of the CCs and _maybe_ a $2,000 valve job. Or worse. Potentially better (valve guides). It’ll cost hundreds to find out, I think. My mechanic did say there may be a point when I might want to consider “walking away” from the car, since I may end up paying thousands of dollars to fix a car worth thousands of dollars.

Update: Used engines are cheap. Rebuilt, not so much. Cheap means $900 - $1600. I could get an engine with 45k miles on it for $1,500. For $900 I’d get an engine that’s due for the 90k maintenance. I’m liking the idea of having an engine with 70k fewer miles on it.

My mechanic was figuring $4,500 for a rebuilt engine. At that point you’re spending the trade-in value of the car to make it worth… the trade-in value of the car. (One place I found on the ‘net won’t rebuild those engines ‘cuz the walls are too thin, so I don’t think rebuilt is an option anyway.)

According to Kelley Blue Book the mileage difference between 45k and 115k gets you a $1,300 improvement in resale value. The mileage diff. between 0k (e.g., rebuilt engine) and 115k gets you… a $1,300 improvement in resale value. I suppose it’s topping out the “low-mileage” parameter in there somewhere. The whole car doesn’t magically become 70k miles newer, of course, but one could argue that the lower mileage engine adds a lot of life to the car (esp. considering it’s F*ing dying currently).

So, the Plan o’ Several Hours Ago was “buy a new, used car this weekend.”

The Plan o’ The Moment is “used engine + new cat + leisurely investigate getting a newer car sometime in the future.” But I’m still going to check out ye old WRXeses this weekend.