I dropped the mini-van off at the shop this morning. It’s still got a wobble, a nice ticking sound when you brake and now a grunching noise in the rear suspension.
I was guessing that it needed new axles at the least.
So I just got off the phone with the mechanic. He said it needed:
- New axles
- A new lower transmission mount
- New bushings for the swaybar
- New swaybar links – as they would most likely break when they removed them to put the new bushings in
- New rear brake drums, shoes and hardware
And then they would look for more problems.
So far it’s going to cost about $1663 to get it fixed. Yippie.
But I keep telling myself that it’s cheaper to pay ~$2000 every two years (which is what seems to be happening) than to be making car payments. And I actually believe that its true.
All our vehicles are paid for now (van, car, four motorcycles) so all we are doing now is paying for repairs. As long as they don’t suffer catastrophic failure, I think it’s well worth repairing them.
And as much as I hate the van, each time we talk about getting rid of it, the fact comes back up that we pretty much would end up getting another van.
So we keep this one. And I have to admit that it’s pretty good for hauling stuff in. It holds 4×8 sheet goods with no problems. And if you take both seats out, it hauls a lot of crap.
All in all, it could be worse.
