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If you don't fix it then you'll end having more expenses down the road. That cost seems to be in the average for a good job with top notch parts. If it's a classic it'd be worth it.
Yeah SD4020 I think I will... I dont like car payments I cant bear paying any more interest on it. he said he would do the 2 front tire rods and a 4 wheel alignement for $241 grand total. the strust are what cost more and ended up being 1100 for everything.
I have a 2000 Chevy Malibu that has 130,000 miles on it, found out that it needs 4 new struts. 2 tire rods and a 4 wheel alignment. cost is around $1100 is cheapest I could find in town. I dont want another payment but its another classic what should you do?
Its been a good car other than those problems.
At 12 model years old and 130,000 miles, you can expect major repair bills to pop up periodically and with increasing frequency. Plus, you're pretty much reached the bottom of the depreciation curve so it's not like you're maintaining asset value by continuing to maintain the car. You might as well have a car payment -- at least they're predictable.
Whenever I need work done on my car that is not urgent, I take it to a few different places. You would be surprised at the different diagnoses and costs you will get.
first thing i would do is get a second opinion as to the work needed. if all it is, is worn struts, and suspension parts, and i liked the car, then i would repair it. if i didnt like the car it would be gone.
If you're thinking about getting something different anyway I would definitely trade it or sell it before putting any money into it.
But if you're happy with the car, it's still reliable and in decent shape, and you've kept it up to date on repair and maintenance, and the only thing keeping everything from being completely hunky-dory is this $1100 worth of repairs, just ask yourself this: Can I buy a car as good as this one for $1100?
You can and should be getting better than factory struts all around, you don't necessarily need to be going with the cheapest price bid. Me, yeah, I would DIY but maybe you are not set up to do so.
Another point - this is not something that you have to fix TODAY. You need to get it taken care of, but if you drive conservatively, you can run it as is for a while.
This is not a job you will likely have to re-do as long as you own the car. But you will have to drive the car a good long while to get your money's worth out of the repair.
Really hard to say without looking at the car, if it's worth fixing or not. My hunch is that fixing the suspension will get you a good car with no payments for less money than you could otherwise, but if I were looking at the car I might say you don't want to throw good money after bad.
A lot of us are fortunate to have skills to do some home mechanical work and better yet, a safe place to do it, the time to do it, a spare vehicle to drive back to the parts store for the one thing you need and don't have, a friend to help....and so on. But I think more often than not we find our friends here can't do the work or simply prefer not to.
Assuming the op doesn't have the ability to do this, I'd say suck up the cost, get it done and roll for all the miles you can safely get out of the vehicle. There's no need for a new car payment, no need to get a used car payment for a vehicle that will probably be in the mileage range to need the same stuff soon anyhow. For your safety, and for ours, roll the pennies and get it fixed.
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