Setback
Remember the car I was raving about so enthusiastically the other day? The urgently, much needed vehicle with which I was going to take the roommates on joy rides, and install an in-dash DVD player, and take myself and the druid back to our hometowns for much nostalgic reminiscing?
Turns out that it is a nearly working vehicle, aside from a very broken clutch, a slightly leaky radiator, and brakes that need all sorts of replacing and tweaking to get to road-worthy condition. And some other stuff that could use attention. Did you know that a clutch is one of the more expensive items to completely replace on a vehicle?
To replace the major stuff, it would cost $1800. To replace stuff, repair hoses, drain and replace fluids, we were quoted $2100. The druid and I were onboard with this. Right up until the part that they told us they need money upfront to start. We discussed credit and payment options, but the manager couldn’t work with us.
I left there trying to hold back tears, and not quite succeeding. We left the car there, they were welcome to push it to a spot from which we could rescue it at a later time.
It’s a 1998 Ford with manual everything. It wouldn’t be rocket science for a mechanic to work on it. In fact, this mechanic said he could get the car running in a day. I was so excited about that part.
I’m stymied by the lack of money available to get this car back on the road.
I’m determined to remain in a positive mood about it. The druid knows a mechanic friend who’d work for beer, but we can neither get ahold of him, nor do we have money to give to the transit system to get us to the guy’s house just now to set up an arrangement.
We have a few options–selling it, giving the itemized list of things to replace to the buyer; keeping it until such time as we can round up enough money to either have this franchised shop take care of it (her, *sigh*), or afford another tow truck to get it to another shop. We’ve had a few offers already of about $150 to buy her. Uh, no. We could get more, parting it out.
But it’s a nearly working car, that requires only a clutch to begin working.
I have to figure out whether to be optimistic that I can save her, or how to begin emotionally letting her go.
I don’t want to let her go. I only just got her. I think it’d be a real shame to disassemble her for parts, or commit her to a scrapper.
But we still urgently need a vehicle. The lack of one jeopardizes daily the druid’s ability to work, and my ability to find an odd-job delivery kind of thing.
My heart is heavy…
I don’t know if comments to this post on its LJ version will be received by you there, so I’ll repeat it here.
I know you went to Mieneke. Is there a Midas in the area? About 8-10 years ago I had an urgent and very expensive car repair, was maxed on out on credit, and had no savings. To my surprise, the Midas dealer (it did a lot more than mufflers) arranged for an installment plan in which I wrote a series of post-dated checks for the installment amount and turned the checks over to them. The owner explained that they knew they had a lot of impoverished college students in the area (I was one of them), and had made this arrangement available to get them back on the road.
Maybe a Midas in your area would do the same.