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The biggest problem seems to be you are not properly maintaining your car. If you don't fix little things, they become big things. And big things are much more costly to fix. If you get a new car, the cycle will just repeat itself unless you take better care of it.
It sounds like you need a new mechanic. Check Yelp for honest, price competitive mechanics in your area. You can also go to YouTube and view videos on how to make auto repairs. There's a wealth of good information there. It'll give you an idea as to how easy/difficult a particular repair job may be.
The biggest problem seems to be you are not properly maintaining your car. If you don't fix little things, they become big things. And big things are much more costly to fix. If you get a new car, the cycle will just repeat itself unless you take better care of it.
Funny you posted this because I have never understood the proper maintenance argument. We did the proper maintenance, I'm not sure what maintenance can prevent brake calipers or struts from wearing out.
As for the mechanic I have a solid one, he talked me out of putting money in a Ranger a few years ago and told me to cut bait when he could have milked me for more repairs.
Last edited by DaveinMtAiry; 01-17-2018 at 06:05 AM..
Dave, at least on my Mazda (RX7), the ABS system is pass through. My pump has been intermittently failing for the past two years. Other than the fact that when it throws a code, the whole system is shutdown and ABS is not then available, It has absolutely NO affect on the brakes; either performance or feel wise. I can leave it in place in a failed condition forever and no one who drove the car would ever know it. In the 20 years I have had the car, I have ONLY triggered the ABS when I slammed on the brakes just to see if the ABS was doing anything.
As for the calipers. A repair kit will cost you about $3 for each caliper. And if you don't know what you are doing, you can easily learn doing this job. The hardest part for me is getting the brakes bled after reinstalling the calipers - but that is only because I do it all myself with no assistant to pump the pedal. A fully rebuilt caliper for my 7 (a rarer part) cost as little as $30 in some places.
Thanks for this. I am no mechanic, not a chance I was going to replace the calipers. As for the ABS I will need to drive the car to see if it's even safe, this is my wife's car and I'm not messing around with her safety obviously. When we drove it the first time the pedal went to the floor, then it could be pumped up. Mechanic is going to try to get the ABS to reset itself, if not I need to drive it to make a determination.
Thanks for the replies. No the Mazda 3 is not the bottom of the lineup the way a Versa or other cheap models are. And no I do not consider the car a risk of leaving my wife by the side of the road. I ran into this with an Altima years ago. A series of repairs made me think it was the end of the line at about the same mileage. I bit the bullet and got another 3 years and 50,000 miles out of it. In fact every Japanese car I have had has gone close to 200,000 with several going over. So I don't consider 160,000 the end of the line necessarily.
If the fall repair was $500 or so I would think maybe it's time. But again at $2,300 with brand new tires being half of it I just hesitate to cut bait now. And then there is the insurance increase of $400 if we change cars plus the additional cost to carry a newer car.
If depends on the individual car. Not where the major investors live, nor on the brand, or model. Any car will go 200,000 miles - unless it doesn't. Any car can fail at 160,000. There is no magic built into the marque on the hood or trunk lid. Sometimes you can put $2,800 into a car and get another five or more years with no troubles. Sometimes you put that into a car and need twice the the next month. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the brand, even the mileage does not necessarily dictate how it will do. We got almost 300,000 out of a Saturn ION - one of the cheapest crappiest cars ont he market when it was made. It was little trouble at all, until one day - bam, the plastic steering gear stripped out. Then it was done. We bought a toyota that barely made it three weeks before it died. We had an 18 year of Thunderbird get close to 200,000 miles when we sold it and it was still doing OK. Saw it on the road a few months ago we think. If that was the same car, it must have 250,000 or more miles by now. We had a Volvo do great for 260,000 plus miles then one day on the freeway the engine seized up and burst into flames. We have had Chevy express vans make 200,000 miles and die at about 120,000. I had a Honda that did not make it to 100,000 miles and another that made 220,000.
There really is no rhyme or reason to it with old clunkers. It is pretty random. Some things can make a difference, like how well the car was cared for/maintained,but not always. When I worked for a Mechanic for a time, we had a five year old mustang come in with just under 100,000 miles. The oil had never been changed and it was like mud. we cleaned it up and my friend told me it came back years later with 175,000 miles on it. It had a blown head gasket and they decided to pay to fix it. No idea what happened from there.
I have a 02 Ford truck that I bought new and even though it has low miles for the year, under 90,000, it has had its issues due to living in the North East. The most recent repairs was a new gas tank that had rusted and then 2 days later the starter gave out. I keep the truck clean inside and out and people can't believe it is so old but it is.
The problem is replacing this truck with a new one option for option is about $60,000 and that comes down to one heck of a monthly payment so I plan on keeping this one until the wheels fall off.
Every month I don't have to make a payment or do a repair is a good month.
If you are attached to your car OP don't sell it but keep it going.
If the car is worrying you to the point where you are concerned you might break down whenever you drive it then it is time to go car shopping.
My wife has a 2005 Mazda 3 with 160,000 miles on it. I'm a firm believer in Japanese cars and this one has been very reliable. However last fall we needed 4 new tires and front end work, which wore out the tires, to the tune of $2,300.
Have no clue what this means.
You had the front end work done and purchased new tires for $2,300.00 ?
Time to find a local honest repair mechanic/shop.
Stop going to the dealer or those franchise chain repair stores that only want to replace parts.
My wife has a 2005 Mazda 3 with 160,000 miles on it. I'm a firm believer in Japanese cars and this one has been very reliable. However last fall we needed 4 new tires and front end work, which wore out the tires, to the tune of $2,300. Now her brake pedal went to the floor and the mechanic showed me the bad calipers. OK again a sign of age but not the end of the Earth, another $500. But when we picked it up the brakes were still soft and the mechanic is concerned we need an entire ABS system, they had the same problem with the same car and the fix was $1,400. He will keep the car to test drive to see if he can get it to re-set itself, apparently it picked up on the leaky caliper and is stuck in that adjustment.
So you see the problem here. Yes we have the money for another car but I wasn't planning on getting one this soon, it will mess up my plan. And after the $2,800 investment it is hard to just junk this one. I don't see a way to sell it obviously. I'm sure many will consider this next $1,400 as throwing good money after bad but I don't want to have to shop for a car right now and again we just invested so much already.
A final consideration is we locked into our auto insurance for a really low rate, the provision was we make no changes. So a new car will raise those rates about $400/year.
The time to cut bait is when you are looking at paying as much in repairs as you would be spending to buy a fairly decent used car, or put a down payment on a brand new one. You're talking about $4200 in repairs here.
My car is the same vintage as your wife's, PT Cruiser with 153K on it, and I'm not getting rid of it (yet) because I'm not dealing with repairs that would cost almost as much as buying a good used car.
Also, that is just stupid agreeing to no changes on the insurance. Things happen, cars develop repairs (like this car in question) that just aren't worth the expense to fix. I've never heard of such a thing, nor would I agree to such terms, especially since I've been in that scenario where I had to junk a car suddenly because it developed issues that were not justified in repairing, given the age of the car.
Funny you posted this because I have never understood the proper maintenance argument. We did the proper maintenance, I'm not sure what maintenance can prevent brake calipers or struts from wearing out.
They don't "prevent them from wearing out". Both items will wear out eventually, and quite frankly 12 years/160K is well beyond the expected useful life of both components, assuming they haven't been replaced in the past.
By Mazda's schedule, both are supposed to be inspected for leaks, damage, etc. during every visit to the shop for service. The regular inspections should alert the mechanic that these components are nearing the end of their lives which allows you to schedule their replacement to fit your budget. If they failed unexpectedly it sounds like the inspections weren't being done.
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