In October, I paid the last payment on my car. I made 52 monthly payments, 8 months ahead of the loan. I was very happy to have finished paying it off and be able to know that the entire car was owned by me-- not by the bank, and that I could really start saving money.
Earlier this week, I was driving around and found that my car wouldn't shift into the highway gear. Today, I found out that I need a new transmission. I was quoted $3,750.00 to replace it. The trade-in value on my car is ~$3600.00. It's worth about $5000 to a private buyer.
I do have some time to decide what to do-- I can actually still drive my car around, it just takes higer engine speeds on the highway--I'm burning gas about twice as fast as I usually do.
Interesting to note that I recently had the transmission serviced. I was pressured by the dealer to have my transmission flushed, since it was at it's recommended mileage. I had it done mid-way through January, just before my trip to Michigan. Today I was shocked to read this about transmission flushes. Turns out, this probably caused the transmission to fail. My car has 115000 miles on it.
I feel like I want to puke.
I called my dad back home. He talked to the dealership who I bought the car from, and they quoted $2600 for the replacement. Turns out the (rebuilt) transmission costs them about $1900.
Hmmmm. I don't need to pay someone $1000 to fuck me in the ass. I'm pretty sure I could find someone to do if for free on Craigslist. The crooks at Village Chevrolet in Wayzata will never get my business again.
I've mulled selling it and buying another *much more reasonably priced* car, but I think I'm going to fix it. Except I'm going to make the rats fight for their fucking cheese. I'm going to fax a "request for quote" to just about every shop in town, and see who wants to compete for my business.
Anyways, this all totally shoots a hole in the trip to Norway that I was planning for June. I was budgeting $3500 for that trip.
