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Is It Worth Fixing?
Dear Bob,
I was on my way to my daughter's wedding on Friday. I just had a new radiator put in my '91 Dodge Dynasty. It was steaming, but my friend that put it in said to add coolant. When I was on the freeway, it started smoking under the hood. I stopped and added oil and coolant. It went another 200 feet and stopped completely and was smoking like crazy. A nice guy stopped and found a cracked hose, but of course, he could not fix it. This stranger drove my son and me to the wedding, and we left the car. Another friend went to look at it the next day, and fixed the hose. But, it would not stay running. The gauge showed it was overheating again. Some smoke came out of the tailpipe for a while, but then it quit. My friend said there was something else wrong. We were going to move it off the service drive, but it would not start at all. He said that I blew a head gasket.
We left the car there. I have MS and am divorced. I am having it towed to my house, but the cost of a new head gasket is out of my league. On the other hand, I just put two new tires on it, brakes, and a radiator. I don't know what to do and need some advice badly. I need a car, but surely there is a less expensive way to fix this car. Thank you for any advice.
Mary Ann
Mary Ann,
I'm sorry for your troubles. It sounds like you have a blown head gasket and/or a cracked cylinder head. More often than not, on older cars like yours, it simply is not worth the money to repair it. I had a similar issue with a customer that had an '89 Tempo that she just loved. She had the car for years and maintained it well. She was out starting a new life, and on the trip, the car started overheating and eventually quit. The estimates for repairs on that car were over $1500 and about $1000 more than the car was worth. In the end, she wound up donating the car to charity and took the tax deduction.
Sometimes, there are hard decisions that you need to make about a car. The hardest one is "Is it worth fixing?" In a case like this, I would usually say it is not. I am sure in your area you could find another car for less than the repair costs of this one. Although the replacement car might not be as well cared for as your old one, it is at least transportation. When times get better, you can always upgrade!
Good Luck!
Drive Safely!
Bob, The Auto Answer Man
If you have a question for Bob send it to: . He's able to answer many of them personally and we'll include the best questions in future issues of The Dollar Stretcher.
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