Arts and crafts, as P. Hale says.
So just before Christmas I bought the daughter a used Camry. It’s in nice shape, and it was cheap enough, but I figured I might have to do some work to it. I just didn’t know how soon.
Just before she was due to go back to school the radiator cap failed, and it lost all the coolant, and hosed the head gasket. OK, high miles, a head gasket is a minor expense, no biggie. I also knew the old head might need valve stem seals, so a good time to do that. For the cost of doing so myself, I was able to buy a reman head and have someone else do all that work, and save myself some grief, and basically have a freshened engine.
The head people were slow as molasses in January.
What should have arrived in three days took the better part of five weeks. And when it did arrive, it went together very slowly, as the 3,847 vacuum lines and hoses and connectors were not easy to find and remember location after so much time. Thankfully, most everything is keyed, so I did get it all together, and it’s maiden voyage was last wednesday night. It started and ran perfectly, and I put five or six miles on it running around the neighborhood.
Yesterday the wife reminded me the cars were due for plates, and the Camry and Rav4 both needed emissions tests. So I ran the Rav4 through this morning, and drove the still spanky new Camry over this afternoon, in the miserable heat.
No problems, no overheating, everything ran fine. Passed through emissions with flying colors and then 500 yards out of the testing site the engine started racing. Apparently the cruise control linkage was sticky, and heat and not being used for a while didn’t help it. So after some dicking around I ended up in the parking lot of a restaurant where a kid loaned me some WD-40, and everything seems to be fine now. Well, except the windows don’t open, but that’s another clusterfuck for another day.
Old cars are like houses, there is always something needing fixin
The “very clean” PT cruiser I bought cheap for my daughter is still in the barn – if I list all that needed fixing and replacing we would flood the server. But, after all the skinned knuckles it is now a sweet running little car. 82 K miles so maybe a bit younger than yours. That said, my MIL’s Camry had 240K on it when she passe away and the teen who bought it 2 years ago is still driving it around town (easy to spot, black door handle on grey car. Do the maintenance and they run forever.
It’s good to be useful!
But I doubt it happened. Nothing happened without pictures.
Modern cars are so tightly engineered they do not have the margins hard use use. Maintained helps immensely. That or get older GM’s as they still seem to have the margin in them.
Used vehicles are a crap shoot unless you know their history.