Driven Into The Ground...

A recent pic of the Saturn

My car is getting a little long in the tooth.  I recently documented its demise on this blog as well as its near miraculous rejuvenation.  It now has more than 250,000 miles on it, but I'm proud that it has held up as well as it has.  In fact, my car has even outlasted the company that built it (Saturn--a victim of the GM bankruptcy restructuring).

Yesterday, I notice (all of a sudden) a terrible grinding noise every time I had to apply the brakes.  I was actually worried about the safety of driving it any more than necessary, so this morning--after a quick trip to the courthouse--I dropped it off with my local mechanic.

You know your car is old when the mechanic looks at you funny and asks questions like: "Does it really have 250,000 miles on it?"  And you know in the back of his head he's thinking: "Are you really going to dump more money into this car?"

Well, yes, in fact, I am.  As crappy as it is to keep the car maintained (and pay for the maintenance), it's cheaper than making car payments every single month on a depreciating asset.  My car is very cheap to drive and I love that I don't have to worry about putting too many miles on it.  Someday, I will buy a new car, but it won't be until this one has been driven into the ground.  Literally.

Anyway, just got word from the mechanic.  As I suspected the brakes are shot.  The serpentine belt is cracked.  And (apparently) the air filter is dirty.  I can change the air filter myself and save $20 bucks.  When  a repair costs as much as this one does, it seems like the least I can do to mute the budgetary impact.

The other good news is that the last time that I had to have a complete brake job on this car was nearly 3 years (and about 85,000 miles) ago.  The rear brake drums lasted me even longer--150,000 miles and 5+ years.  My mechanic said that I can't really expect much more life out of them than that.

Que va...I'm just glad to have a reliable car that gets me where I need to go; doesn't look its age; and is (or at least should be) good as new in good working order.  I suspect that I'll be able to squeeze a few tens of thousands of miles out of this one before we have to part ways...Hope your cars are holding up a little better than mine is at the moment!