Car Woes

Scion Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I could really use a new car.  The other day, I had to take my car to my mechanic yet again.  It seems like every three to four months something new goes wrong with the car and I need to take it for a repair.  It is just nickel and diming me to death.

Let me explain a little how I got my current car, which we got a couple years ago new.  At the time, I was driving a car that had well over 100,000 miles on it.  The check engine light was lit on that particular car.  Consequently,  it failed my state emissions test.  When I took it to my mechanic, there were a number of things wrong that was going to cost me well over $1000 to repair.

I did not have the money needed for the repairs.  I called my in-laws to see if they could lend us the money so that I could get the car fixed.  They told me that it was not worth it to repair the car and gave me the number of a guy to call.  My father in law had a friend who was a used car salesman at a small lot.  They graciously bought a sporty little red two door car for me to drive.

Needless to say, I was very thankful.  Still am.  Unfortunately, like a lot of used cars, it has had its share of problems.  On at least two occasions last year, I had to have some fairly expensive repairs done.  Earlier this year, I needed a major brake repair.  Which brings me to my latest to my repair adventure.

A couple weeks ago, I was heading home from work and I heard a little rattling in the front of the car.  When I got out of the car, I discovered a rubber insert for reducing noise in the frame of the fender that was loose and shaking.  I thought that it was what was making the noise.  As time went on and the insert was getting looser, the noise started getting louder.

Monday night, as I headed home from work, the noise was infinitely worse than it had been.  I was stuck in rush hour traffic and going fairly slowly.  When traffic eased and I accelerated to traffic speeds, all of a sudden there was a horrible vibration in the car.  The whole front end was shaking badly.  I turned on my hazards and reduced speed.

Thankfully, I was able to make it to my mechanic's garage and dropped the keys in the late night drop box.  When he called me the next day, he informed me that there was a problem with the wheel and that the studs for the lug nuts was damage.  He also said the wheel was about to fall off.  Thankfully, the repair was a relatively minor $200 tab.

Sadly, I do not have the money to get a new car.  I definitely can not afford a monthly car payment at this time.  I would definitely want to look at a wide variety of cars, especially those that get good gas mileage.  One brand that I would consider would be Scion.

I have to confess that I haven't always thought of Scion as a car that I would want to drive.  Some of the earlier models just were not attractive to me.  However, now they have several models that are very attractive.  I especially like their new limited edition cars.  They are quite sporty, and produced in very limited supply.  Let's face it, who wants to drive a car that is the same as all the others out there on the road.