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Hi guys.
Where do you draw the line when to junk or donate your car?
See, I have a ’95 Cavalier (203K miles) with a dead 5-speed manual transmission. I could fix it myself (I think) for about $2,000 including tool purchases. A new transmission is about $2,500. Those are dealer prices because I could not find anything aftermarket.
Of course labor is “free” – a labor of love.
The car is worth $200 (KBB) for a private seller if it was drive-able.
How do you guys judge?
I’m asking because I don’t want to throw something away when I don’t have to.
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If either the value of the car or one year of car payments is less than the cost of repairs than it’s time for another car.
If an automatic trans goes out in a car, rendering it totally undriveable (like an Acura I owned for 8 months), that is where i draw the line. Even my cougar with automatic trans problems still rolls down the road but shifts crappily. Of course due to someone side-swiping me, that car will soon be totaled by insurance. I do not WANT to part with it but that is a long story.
You couldn’t find a trans at a junkyard? Manuals are easier to replace than automatics cause they are smaller and lighter and easier to get to bolts etc.
Keep in mind there are likely other GM cars with the same trans. Pulling one from a junkyard tho is taking a chance because there are three things that land a car in the junkyard anyways – Bad engine, bad trans, or “total” wreck.
Count on a used trans at a junkyard setting you back between $80 to $200, depending on how crooked the owner is.
You could also do some homework and find out what the exact unit your car uses and start looking on ebay.Depending on what you can afford to spend on a newer car will determine if you should try to save this one or go for another.
If you can afford something for $4000 or more (even if you have to make payments) then maybe start shopping.
If your “new” car budget is but a couple grand, maybe think of saving the cavalier and here is why –Car shopping sucks. Some people overcharge for complete junk. You also do not know if a car has been rigged to cover up problems just long enough to to sell.
At least you know the cavalier with all it’s problems.
[quote=”Summer_Night” post=156962]
You couldn’t find a trans at a junkyard?
[/quote]Actually, no. And neither on eBay – plenty of automatics, though. When I pulled the configuration of my car from a website that I can’t remember to save my life right now, GM didn’t make many cars like mine.
The engine is pretty worn out too. Backing up means going through a cloud of blue smoke and I have to add about a quart of oil every 3,000 miles or so. It barely passes emissions. The tester worked with me and ran the tests at lower gears. I’d have four more years before I’m exempt.
So, I’m expecting I’d have to do an engine rebuild within a year.
Then do a lot of interior repairs.
And as the car gets older, parts are becoming harder to get.
It needs new tires, too.
And I’d be working on the thing in the dead of winter – outside.
I got real lucky that it died in my driveway and not 35 miles away at the airport where I was the day before. That’s the other thing, I don’t mind fixing the cars and getting in deep into a transmission or engine, but getting stuck – even with the free roadside assistance from my insurance company – is pretty stressful.
All said and done, I’m thinking I’d shell out $3,000 or so to get the car drivable again. $250/month for a year – not quite a car payment, but ….
Wow, I didn’t know it had that many problems. Yeah it might be time to start looking for something new. It wants to lay to rest.
You have the patience of a saint having kept it this long.In the meantime, there is a song that your car might relate to – Da Yoopers “Rusty Chevrolet”.
On the video at the beginning, there is a guy with a metal detector looking for his sex machine buried in the snow. When he plows out of the snow, I do not know what that thing is he is driving, but holy crap…It has a few problems –
hard to start, brakes, muffler, piston rings, tires, rust, door missing, frame bent, it smokes, parts rigged up by chicken wire, no heat, no dash lights, suspension, front left tire…On the good side – the very junkiest cars we own make for future laughs. Oh it sucks when things are falling apart but later we look back and it is hilarious.
This was “Stay Dirty” project car and main mode of transportation. I did alternators, valve cover gaskets, head gasket, alternator, clutch, brakes, fluid changes, hoses, belts, EGR, vacuum line repairs, gaskets, oil sending unit, electrical, catalytic converter, plugs, wires, coil testing, and there’s more.
And then there’s the work I mentioned above that’ll have to be done. I don’t mind doing the work; it’s the money. And I don’t want to flush money down the drain. This isn’t a ’65 Chevy Corvette but a ’95 Chevy Cavalier.
And it’s worth only a couple of hundred when it’s drivable. And if I spend a grand or more and I get hit, the insurance company is gonna total it no matter how little damage and give me a couple of hundred bucks. Good-bye transmission work and money!
From what I’ve seen around, 200,000 miles is pretty much the top end of most cars for their life.
I donated it yesterday and it’s going to be picked up in the next couple of days.It sounds like it’s time to send her to the scrap heap in the sky. For $3000 you could get into something far better made this century.
Rule of thumb is to take the cost of repairs and see if you could replace the vehicle for less. For 2 grand, you could probably do better than a 95 cavalier with 200K on it.
First I would call around to transmission shops and see what they would charge to rebuild the transmission. 5 speeds usually aren’t that expensive or difficult to fix. No way is it worth dropping 2K+ on that car. 20 years is a long time, and 200K miles are a lot of miles.
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