I am venting. (Shitty car)

Ok, you be the judge.

You\'re a 16 year old guy and you buy a car manufactured in 1988, not-fuel injected, automatic transmission, and obtain your license on your sixteenth birthday. The car is in moderate shape, but you want it be somewhat presentable. So you buy it really nice tires, costs you about 400 dollars. You also are a big music guy, so you buy a system for about another 400 dollars. Then you put it through a routine maintenance check that runs at about 70 dollars. You\'re good to go, no more money to be spent, its just you and your car right? Wrong.

Only one month goes by and your car is having carburator problems. Ok, small letdown, you get it reparied for about 120 dollars.

One week goes by, same problem arises again. The auto mechanic goes back to work, but does not charge.

Next month, the weather is dropping, and the car turns out to be one of those cars that needs a good 5-10 minutes warming up in the morning in order for it to drive well. And then, more problems with the carburator arise.

So the mechanic basically says, you need a new carb, not a rebuilt one, but a new one fresh out of the box. *cash register noise*

More money.

Its now February, your driving home from swim practice, and what do you know? The car stalls at a red light. And now it can\'t even seem to maintain any kind of idle speed, it just flat out crashes and burns all the way down to 0 rpm.

My dad is tired of it, and I\'m just sick of it. With the money we\'ve drained into this car I could have gotten like a 2002 Civic or some shit. Should I just quit feeding this dead dud and get it off my hands, and get a new car? Or is this just a problem the mechanic really has no clue on how to fix?

I\'m so sick of this shit, I need my car, its like another appendage of my body.

Ugh.

man get rid of this car fast, it will only keep costing u money.
once u fix the carb. somethin else will get busted, and once u fix that another thing will get busted and so on . . .

1988 was not a good year for domestic cars, which I assume is what this is.    If any GM/Ford/Chrysler vehicle from 1988 is still running in 2003, I would consider it a miracle.  Their quality renaissance such as it was didn\'t start until the early 90\'s.  You should scrap it and by a Honda.  Sorry for the bad news.

[edit]
VS:  Here\'s another idea!  I\'m selling a 1995 Saturn SL1 for $2,500.  Dark Green, Auto, Air, cassette deck...  Well maintained.  Some minor cosmetic damage, but perfect mechanical condition.   Original owner, 64,000 miles, which is only about 7,500 per year.  

Let me know if you\'re interested.  I could deliver it to LV.  

do the repairs yourself, get it running decently and unload it on somebody \'AS IS\'

If you don\'t know shit about mechanics, just teach yourself with the help of google, it ain\'t rocket science.

I agree with omen...learn to do it yourself, or as much as possible yourself. Most repairs arent that hard and can be done in front of your house with at the most.. a $300 craftsman tool set.

As for some of your other comments...there is nothing a new carb wont fix that a rebuilt one wont.

Also relating, Id suggest stepping up to fuel injection ASAP for someone like yourself.

If the car is as bad as you make it to be, learning to repair it, even if you F\' up...wont be a big deal.

Core: I think he owns a honda.

Yeah, Cored, its a Honda Accord LX. To be honest with you guys, I\'m too lazy to ever try and sit down and figure something out, much less auto mechanics. And Cored, I\'ll seriously take note of your offer at the moment.

How much would it cost to transform it to fuel-injection?

EDIT: Okay, I talked to my dad. We\'ve decided to give it a final and deciding chance. He was working with it earlier in the garage, and it is safe to say he is a moderate mechanic, and the only thing he basically did was raise the idle speed. Doesn\'t really do much but make the car "surge" and burn excess gas... But tomorrow morning I\'m gonna drop it off to the mechanic; talk to him, explain the problem, and sit on my hands for the next few months.

Vapor I\'m in the same boat as you.  I bought a used 1990 Maxima in 99.  It was in great shape @ 117k and I quickly put in a lil stereo system.  Then I got involved at maxima.org and met a local guy who was wild over 3rd gen Max\'s.

He turboed his \'92 and I ended up buying his Cold-air intake & Y-pipe at a great price.  After the instant HP charge I got bitten by the bug.  It turns out he works at a parts shop, so I bought a performance tune-up kit, a custom catback with SS muffler, and got a timing advance.  I think this was what screwed the car. :surprised

At 172k the tranny started acting up (auto).  I would have a major problem then it would magically vanish a couple days later.  I visited a couple of mechanics, with 1 saying they wanted $3500 for a full rebuild.  I said screw that took the car back and the problem jsut went away.  I was like Grrrrrreat!!

2 months later, as I\'m about to drive to class the car would stall out when I would stop.  For some reason the tranny wouln\'t disengage from the engine.  I drove it ghetto-style the rest of the day: when I\'d get at a stop light I\'d put it in neutral so it wouldn\'t stall.  But when I had to go I\'d have to give it some gas before 1st gear caught, making the car jerk which I\'m sure looked sexy to people watching.

My fahja & I also got sick of it and decided it was time for another used Maxima.  So I stripped & sold the stereo and was lining up buyers for the performance parts.  We test drove several promising cars but decided to get the final verdict the Max was dead & took it to a tranny shop.  They held it for 3 days and couldn\'t find any problems.  Lol!  So I drove it home and yes the problem went away.

So now I\'m driving 30 miles to college both ways and I\'m waiting for the next problem to happen at the worst time.  I\'ll look into getting that expensive full-transmission flush at Jiffy Lube rather than doing nothing like before.  The worst part: I have to drive around listening to this POS boombox for my music fix.

Good luck with whatever you do Vapor.  You\'re an **hole on the forums, but I wish you the best.

j/k

cored- great price!  Do Saturn\'s have a low resale value or something?  Low mileage and only 1 owner, sounds good to me.  The Maximas we looked at seemed great, but I was shocked after the Carfax.  Talk about 2-3 owners, an auction here & there, and finally to a dealership with a sticker of $7k+. :rolleyes:

You shouldn\'t have wasted your time with a car that old. :crap:

I just got a Lexus IS300 loaner car since my ES is getting some work done it, it would be a good car for you @ around $25k.

I\'m getting a new car in a couple weeks, I\'m so excited!

Autotrader.com

Dump the problems you have now for some different problems. When buying used within the "affordable" range you have to pick between the lesser of two evils. Find a car with a great engine that has been taken care of then go from there. If there is a little rust, fix it later, at least rust and such won\'t keep the car from running.

Not only a great engine, but a manual transmission.  It will last longer and cost less to maintain in the long run.  It\'s also better on gas mileage.

http://www.cars.com tends to have more private sellers.

Originally posted by THX
Not only a great engine, but a manual transmission.  It will last longer and cost less to maintain in the long run.  It\'s also better on gas mileage.

http://www.cars.com tends to have more private sellers.

Yes, manual transmissions are great. In fact I had a Mercury Lynx that ran 300,000 miles before I gave it away and that had a manual trans that I ran for just under 100,000 miles myself. What a great car! I know it wasn\'t much but it ran forever!

[Kurt Angle]

99%of people drive manual transmission cars here in the UK. I have never driven an auto.

Get one of these instead.

or you could always get a horse...but you live in the desert so a camel might be a better choice.

try this site, akbarsusedcamels.com