When do you call it quits?

[Mide]

I wait until 3 expensive things go wrong then I start looking at an upgrade. 158k is kinda a lot though...

 

[Farang]

Like someone else said most of what you listed is maintenance, not repairs. Alternators die, rotors wear out, belts need replacing, and wheels get bumped out of alignment. Any time you buy a high mileage car for the that much, budget at least an additional $1,500 for repairs to get it into good operating condition.

Right now you've spent $3520 for the car to go 18k miles, or $0.20 per mile if it blew up tomorrow. More likely you'll get many thousands more miles out of it. Not a bad deal at all. You're basically driving a free car at this point.

 

[Hellotalkie]

Many posts...great!

One that stuck out was the exhaust comment. No its a stock exhaust, keeping it all stock!

Also the car came with 2 new front tires and ok rear ones.

Oil changes, well I've only done 3, so about 60 all together? The engine does burn oil, found out by waiting till the 7500 mark interval. Wont be doing that again! 3k when oil changes are to be done.

I would love to learn more on how to work on cars...but I really do not have the room for error, this is my only way of transportation to school, work, etc.
Plus my mechanic charges as low as 20 hour labor. Good stuff.

I replaced my passenger mirror when it got punched out, 15 dollars easy.

The only thing that is worrying me is I can feel the transmission shifting. I've heard that its normal for civic transmissions to have a little more than smooth shifts but hopefully its not a sign of it going out.

Other than that, the car is running great at the moment. Starts every time!

 

[Hellotalkie]

I wait until 3 expensive things go wrong then I start looking at an upgrade. 158k is kinda a lot though...

I thought so too but meh, I see a lot of civics around 220+ in the area or on CL

 

[jlee]

Many posts...great!

One that stuck out was the exhaust comment. No its a stock exhaust, keeping it all stock!

Also the car came with 2 new front tires and ok rear ones.

Oil changes, well I've only done 3, so about 60 all together? The engine does burn oil, found out by waiting till the 7500 mark interval. Wont be doing that again! 3k when oil changes are to be done.

I would love to learn more on how to work on cars...but I really do not have the room for error, this is my only way of transportation to school, work, etc.
Plus my mechanic charges as low as 20 hour labor. Good stuff.

I replaced my passenger mirror when it got punched out, 15 dollars easy.

The only thing that is worrying me is I can feel the transmission shifting. I've heard that its normal for civic transmissions to have a little more than smooth shifts but hopefully its not a sign of it going out.

Other than that, the car is running great at the moment. Starts every time!

You can add oil in between changes...check it every few weeks and add as necessary.

 

[JCH13]

The only thing that is worrying me is I can feel the transmission shifting. I've heard that its normal for civic transmissions to have a little more than smooth shifts but hopefully its not a sign of it going out.

You're probably due for a transmission fluid flush which may help quite a bit. Check out the service schedule.

 

[Hellotalkie]

What I've heard in the past was that a transmission flush is actually bad, especially not knowing if the transmission was serviced previously? Correct me if i'm wrong.

 

[JCH13]

What I've heard in the past was that a transmission flush is actually bad, especially not knowing if the transmission was serviced previously? Correct me if i'm wrong.

I have heard the same thing, that the transmission casing was actually corroded badly from the transmission fluid that was never changed, and doing the flush broke everything apart. I imagine this happens for much older vehicles, with crappy transmission fluid, that got ignored for a long, long time. I got the transmission fluid in my crown vic flushed about 20k overdue with no ill effect and much improvement in shifting smoothness. FWIW the service interval for my crown vic was at the first 100k, then every 60k after. I got the first flush at 120k and the car now has about 175k on it.

 

[Vic Vega]

On a car which has never had a tranny flush inspect the fluid before changing it. If the fluid is dark, dark brown and smells burnt (strong smell) leave it. The tranny will die at some point in the future but it will die a lot quicker if you change it, possibly immediately afterward. Chances are the torque converter is already toast.