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Well, after 11 years and 160K miles, I have finally had to do a repair on the wife's '05 Escape that wasn't what I would classify under "normal maintenance".....
Had a coil go out on the rear bank, and since it is such a PIA to get to, I farmed the job out to a local shop that I have had good luck with over the years. Since this area of the engine is tough to reach, I decided to have them replace all (3) coils on that bank plus the PCV valve while it was open. I also elected to replace plugs all the way around, and threw some new COP boots on the front bank.
While it was in the shop, I also had them re-tap the oil pan to accept a larger drain plug, since the factory one was getting to the point where it was giving me concern every time I did an oil change.
In a perfect world I would have traded the car this year, but now that I have paid for this repair, I think I am going to do the front and rear brakes and throw a new set of tires on it and run it for another year or so. Not entirely crazy about putting this kind of money into a car that I will probably only run another 12-18 months, but on paper it works out far cheaper to do so than making a year's worth of new car payments. I also figure that having good rubber on it should make it easier to sell it when it comes time to next year.
Nice day today so wife and I are ready to hit the road...need to go to Lowes to pick up a few things for the yard. The closest Lowes is over 20 miles away!
When you factor in downtime..labor and parts and lack of dependability some vehicles are not worth keeping.
Yes -- that's what I am worried about, even though (other than two dead batteries) the vehicle has never given us the slightest cause for concern. I'm hoping that trying to squeeze one more year of use out of it will not result in a loss of confidence in the vehicle. I have maintained the thing religiously since new, so right now I am going to bet that will pay-off in the lack of any major repair expenses until we purchase the wife a new daily driver this time next year.
This coil repair kind of tipped my hand on the issue since my feeling was that we had to have it done anyways in order to sell it -- no one would give us anything in sale or trade for the vehicle if it wasn't even running well. I'm going to let the wife drive it a couple of weeks to see if any other concerns pop-up before I sink money into new brakes and tires. If anything comes to light, I may just bite the bullet and move onto a new Fusion or Escape a year earlier than I would like.....
Yes -- that's what I am worried about, even though (other than two dead batteries) the vehicle has never given us the slightest cause for concern. I'm hoping that trying to squeeze one more year of use out of it will not result in a loss of confidence in the vehicle. I have maintained the thing religiously since new, so right now I am going to bet that will pay-off in the lack of any major repair expenses until we purchase the wife a new daily driver this time next year.
This coil repair kind of tipped my hand on the issue since my feeling was that we had to have it done anyways in order to sell it -- no one would give us anything in sale or trade for the vehicle if it wasn't even running well. I'm going to let the wife drive it a couple of weeks to see if any other concerns pop-up before I sink money into new brakes and tires. If anything comes to light, I may just bite the bullet and move onto a new Fusion or Escape a year earlier than I would like.....
I'll trade you my 04 cavalier for your escape and add 1000 to my end, Deal?
I'll trade you my 04 cavalier for your escape and add 1000 to my end, Deal?
If I told my wife the replacement for her Escape was going to be a Cavalier I'd be hearing from her divorce attorney early the next day! She absolutely despises the one I already have -- I can't imagine what it would be like if we had two of them......
Of course, I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't already crossed my mind about possibly keeping her '05 Escape when we get her a new vehicle and running the thing as long as I can as my work vehicle until it finally give's up the ghost -- thus, the brakes and tires I stick into it now might have more value than I thought? Even if I only ran it another year, that would translate into an extra year (and probably another 30,000 miles) that I'd get out of the '97 Cavalier as my work vehicle.
Again, the key for me is to always run an extremely economical work vehicle so as much of my mileage reimbursement money as possible goes into my "toy car" fund -- I always say that the Cavalier spits money out at me every time I take it on a business trip, and the longer I can extend that gravy train the better.....
After stopping at Lowes this morning we continued south of Houma to Cocodrie and then to Pointe aux Chene. These are little fishing towns at the end of the road...my son in law built the houseboat but sold it to a man that finished it off. Not bad living in the some of the fishing camps on the water down there. Weather was perfect...low 70's!
