Is my car *trying* to piss me off on purpose, does it *want* me to sell it?....

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

okay, first off, it’s a '02 Dodge Neon base model, i realize it’s not meant to be a sports car or luxury car, it’s an economy car, and Dodge’s bare-bones, entry level car…

lately it’s been going out of it’s way to annoy me, around January (during the -30F month long cold snap), it failed to start, had to be jumped, and under hard acceleration it would buck and kick and the “check engine” light would flicker randomly…

diagnosis, bad catalytic converter, fixed under emmisions warranty, but i had to deal with craptacular performance for a week while the dealer ordered the part…

last Friday, the battery crapped out in the early summer heat (90’s or so, that’s hot here in New England, i knew that -30 weather didn’t help the battery any, should i have replaced the battery earlier as preventitive maint., yes, my fault again) so i had to go to Sears and get a die-hard installed ($75 out of pocket)

on Sunday i noticed a large dent in the rim of my right rear tire, probably hit a pothole or something, i was amazed the tire actually held air…

guess what happened today, yep, that tire went flat, now i need to get another rim and 4 new tires (my existing tires are getting excessively worn, and the right rear tire had a nail hole earlier in the curved point where the sidewall meets the tread that a local Vt tire shop patched (they insisted it would be safe, apparently sidewall patches aren’t safe at all…), so i’m looking about $300-400 for that job

i still have a couple years left on car payments as well, i figure i’m this far in, i may as well suck it up and run the car until the wheels fall off, it’s not like the Neon is known for it’s resale value…

this car’s getting awfully expensive for an “economy” car…

biking to work on my mountain bike is looking more and more tempting, just got to get in better shape (hey, round is a shape, right? :wink: ) so i can handle the 10 mile each way commute up and down some reasonably big hills…

2

A battery and tires are normal wear and tear for a car. As far as the rim goes, be more careful about potholes. And never get a sidewall patch, there’s too much pressure and flex there, it won’t ever hold.

It could have happened to you in any car.

3

i know batteries and tires are consumables, that i’m not disputing, what pisses me off is the timing of the failures, i sink $75 into a battery, that’s fine, but i wasn’t expecting to have to buy a rim and 4 new tires…

i knew i had about a season left on the tires and was going to get new ones next spring, now i have to get a rim (from the local junkyard, there’s no way in hell i’m spending $100 on a basic steel rim from my mechanic, i know when i’m getting screwed there, i can get a rim from the junkyard for $10, $20 with a tire on it…

i’m also going to scrap the stupid temp-a-spare and use one of my 3 good-ish tires on the car now as a spare, yes i’ll lose some cargo room in the trunk, but i never carry much back there anyway

i’ll be adding in a floor jack and full size spare to the trunk, cargo capacity be dammned…

4

I’ve been sure for months that, living near a river as I do, my car is convinced that if it acts up enough I’ll drive it into the river.

My sympathies.

5

I don’t know if they fixed this problem with the Neons yet, but when a seal goes, replace all the engine seals at the same time. See, the manufacturer’s knew that all the engine seals on Neons are bad, they just weren’t willing to, you know, fix the problem.

My '91 Sundance was doing the same thing last year. First the underbody exhaust pipes and muffler, then the battery, then the tires, then this, then that - all for a car that we are very close to trading in on something newer, once the money’s there. {Heavy sigh.}