How do people pay for their car repairs?

[Xath]

Well, I've never owned a Honda, but the only timing chain I had break was a 25+ year old Volvo. It's kinda a freak thing to happen to any car.

Not really. Timing Chains have an average life span of 80,000 miles. If you've only had one break, you're on the really lucky end of the spectrum, but they're one of the things that eveyone should have planned on their "expected maintenance" list. Because if yours snaps, especially at high velocity, you can expect a whole bunch of crap to happen to your engine. (as evidenced above).

But Joe, I would reccomend that you talk to another mechanic or call Car Talk, just to ask them what price they would deem reasonable for those types of repairs. It seems to me that unless you drive quite a few miles per day that this shouldn't have happened to you yet.

 

[Desdichado]

Even though the chain was expensive, it's the design that strikes me as weird. "Yeah, when the chain goes, it tends to tear up the engine." Now isn't this like putting a small bomb in the car and waiting for it to go? :\ I've had cars with timing belts before and when they broke, they didn't take parts of the engine with them.

Actually, that's a good point. In that Volvo it was a timing belt, not a timing chain.

 

[Desdichado]

Not really. Timing Chains have an average life span of 80,000 miles. If you've only had one break, you're on the really lucky end of the spectrum, but they're one of the things that eveyone should have planned on their "expected maintenance" list. Because if yours snaps, especially at high velocity, you can expect a whole bunch of crap to happen to your engine. (as evidenced above).

Really? I've never heard that. I'm a bit skeptical.

Then again, I'm hardly Mr. Goodwrench or anything either. Although I do have a 1984 Z-28 up on blocks in my front yard that I tinker with every weekend that the weather's good.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Not really. Timing Chains have an average life span of 80,000 miles. If you've only had one break, you're on the really lucky end of the spectrum, but they're one of the things that eveyone should have planned on their "expected maintenance" list. Because if yours snaps, especially at high velocity, you can expect a whole bunch of crap to happen to your engine. (as evidenced above).

But Joe, I would reccomend that you talk to another mechanic or call Car Talk, just to ask them what price they would deem reasonable for those types of repairs. It seems to me that unless you drive quite a few miles per day that this shouldn't have happened to you yet.

The initial mechanic quoted me $2K before even looking at it in detail. The initial price at a different Saturn dealer was $6K to in essence replace the engine. Yeah, I looked around a bit and all three of 'em said, "Yeah, it shouldn't have broke." Lot of good that does me though as it's not under warranty (3 years/32K miles).

 

[Dingleberry]

Timely thread: I dropped my 99 Accord off for an oil change today and just got a call from the garage recommending $1800 in additional repairs and maintenance (some of which I've been actively ignoring for a while). Luckily, about a grand of that will be covered by the extended warranty, but it's still a heckuva lot more cash than I was planning to lay out right before the holidays.

Time for a dip into the "rainy day" account!

 

[Warrior Poet]

Timely thread: I dropped my 99 Accord off for an oil change today and just got a call from the garage recommending $1800 in additional repairs and maintenance

Drag, Dude. Bleah.

Warrior Poet

 

[Kastil]

I've actually taken out a loan to pay for car bills in the past. ::knocks on wood:: Right now my husband's '66 Mustang has an oil leak somewhere and we're riding the tide until tax time to get it looked at. Fortunately my Ford F150 is still under warranty.

If all else fails ::dials phone:: Mom? You have any money I can borrow?

Oh yes.... 36 years old and sometimes my parents still bail me out but they know I'm good for it. As my husband says, it pays to be the good kid.

 

[Warrior Poet]

Right now my husband's '66 Mustang has an oil leak somewhere

See, this is the kind of thing that could be fixed at home with a few mechanics courses and a set of good tools. No fancy computer whizamadoodles in the '66 Mustang.

Not that I could, mind you. But I'd still like to take one of those courses some day . . . .

Warrior Poet

 

[BOZ]

if i had $3500 worth of repairs to do on my car, the vehicle would suddenly become more COST than VALUE. i can take the bus where i need to go for the most part, and when you figure in the cost of repairs like that it is way cheaper than driving.

 

[dorentir]

Check for a recall!

Contact Saturn and make sure there are no outstanding recalls on your car. I recently had my laptop's motherboard replaced for free because of a recall but no one at the repair shop that diagnosed the problem knew anything about the Apple recall. After calling Apple several times I finally got the ignoramuses at the repair shop to finally agree to refund the diagnosis fee as well --- all of that was covered by Apple. Problem often is that people at the service level don't know/don't care about recalls since it only makes extra work for them --- all the paperworks and headaches --- they'd rather just bill the guy in front of them. I had a very similar problem on a recall involving the oil pressure sensor in a VW Golf I owned. The VW people were very helpful. The guys at the VW dealership were stubborn and stupid as a box of rocks.
That level of engine damage for a car that isn't very old seems very strange -- although I'm no mechanical genius. I had the timing belt of my wife's 2000 car replaced in the last year as a part of scheduled maintenence -- and if I recall it cost $750.00 (and that price included other scheduled maintainence that I can't recall).