Owning a POS (i.e, a crappy car)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Huh.

When we get things together to get my father a new car (Toyota Prius), I may end up getting his old `92 Civic hatchback until it croaks for good. Hey, it’s a car. It goes places. It’s a standard, which means that none of my sibs know how to drive it (yet). This is all good - another available car is Good for a teenager.

But this car is special, and I don’t mean special in a good way, really. I mean special in a kind of “unique in ways which we’d rather not discuss outside the family” way. For starters, this car has about 190,000 miles on it. I say “about” not because I don’t remember the exact number on the odometer, but because we really can’t tell the exact mileage on it anymore. See, the speedometer doesn’t work about as often as it does, and has been this way for the past couple years now.

Next, this car has gone all of these 190,000 miles on the original clutch and transmission. That’s pretty spiffy, but it’s nearing the end of its rope. It doesn’t always engage the way you expect it to these days. That can be dealt with, but we don’t know if this clutch has 5,000 miles left on it or 20,000 miles. Or 50,000. Whatever, we just don’t know. In any case, once the clutch is gone, so is the car, because… (and here’s the kicker)…

Three out of the four cylinders in the engine are still working. Let’s do some math here. This engine generates 102 hp in complete working order. Divide by four and subtract one of the quarters, and you get about 76 hp. But that’s not all - there’s no way this engine was making 102 hp by the time one of the cylinders gave up in September. It’s just old, burns some oil, etc. Wear and tear and all that. So how much power is this engine actually putting out? I have no idea, but I think it’s somewhere in the high 60s to low 70s. That’s pretty low - about the same power put out by the engine in the base model of this car (70 hp), except this one runs rougher and isn’t geared for it. It’s pretty finicky to drive now because each gear has a very small range in which the torque is sufficient to move the car.

We would have gotten it fixed, but the car is not worth the 2000 odd dollars it would take to make the repair - effectively replacing the engine. When my dad gets his new car, I would even say just to get rid of the Civic, but for two things. First of all, I need a car, dangit. Right now I’m driving a minivan around. It’s a small minivan, but a minivan nonetheless. I don’t like the size. I also don’t like having to share it with my sister all the time.

Second of all, I have an emotional attachment to this car, as lame as that sounds. We’ve had it since I was seven, and it has served us well in that time. And dangit, I want to drive it!

Anyway, I’m thinking of things to do to make owning a “reliability challenged” vehicle (POS for you non-PC types ;)). My first two:

  1. Keep it on a short leash. No trips longer than it takes to get to Boston in light traffic, i.e., an hour and a quarter or so.

  2. Always, always, always carry a cellphone in the car in case it dies. Who wants to be stranded?

Any other things to keep in mind, regarding maintenance and care, actual driving tips, etc. are welcome and appreciated. Actually, that’s why I posted this thread. Tips and ideas would be wonderful! Thanks!

2

Ya shure it can’t run on 4 cylinders without a $2000 repair? Sounds like a rip-off to me.

3

That’s what the dealer said. That cylinder is more than just stuck, it’s REALLY fouled up. It would basically have to be re-bored, or whatever it was the guy called it.

4

Welcome to America, Coldie! Where car repairs can easily exceed the cost of the car! We hope you enjoy you’re stay.

Grelby the repair cost might be slightly lower if you took it some place other than the dealership, but I doubt if it’d be low enough to be worth doing the repair. In addition to carrying the things you mentioned, I would add:

  1. Oil, because sooner or later, you’ll be out driving when the oil light, or pressure gauge indicates that you’re low on oil.
  2. Water/antifreeze, in case the radiator gets low, the engine overheats, or goddess forbid, catches fire when you spill some oil as you’re adding it and it splashes onto the hot exhaust manifold and self-ignites. (Happened to me once, thankfully, I had a bottle of water handy.)
  3. Some simple hand tools, so if you throw a belt, blow a tire, it’s not a complete disaster.
  4. A decent hydraulic jack, and not that wretched mechanical one that comes with the car.
  5. A gas can, sooner or later, the gas gauge is going to quit working, you’ll be in a hurry, not think about it, and run out of gas. Gas stations tend not to have “loaner” cans anymore, and the 1 or 2 gallon models they sell (at vastly inflated prices), may not let you put in enough gas for fuel to reach the fuel pump. You can buy a cheap, plastic gas can for less than the gas that goes into it at Wal-Mart and other places.
  6. Warm clothes/blankets, in case you DO get stranded in the middle of winter and have to wait for someone to rescue you.
  7. Jumper cables.

I’d also recommend getting a factory service manual, they’re expensive, but waaaaaaay better than the crappy Chilton’s or Haynes manuals which may NOT be available for your car! I’d also recommend learning from someone who knows how to work on cars, how to do basic things like: changing the oil, the belts, hoses, tires, lights, battery, and how to jumpstart a car. You’ll need to do all of these things sooner or later, and if you don’t know how, you’ll have to learn how to do them at the worst possible time, and under the worst possible conditions, and you will screw it up and end up in worse shape than you were before.

Tuckerfan– Proud owner of POS cars since 1985!

5

I have 1991 Subaru Justy. It was given to me. I spent $300 on a transmission (FWD) and got it working somewhat. The brakes work but the pedal doesn’t. In other words, the pedal doesn’t go down more than about 2 inches. Another thing is that it has to idle around 2000 rpm or it will stall. Both those problems are being worked on by the students at South Carroll High School.

But I don’t want to get rid of this car for a bunch of reasons:

1st and 2nd of all-- last year i made a movie with my friend debuting the Justy. Now it is notorious in southern carroll county.

3rd of all–it is only 3 cylinders and 3 valves. It has run without oil and made the engine seize, it’s run with the temp gauge maxed b/c a bad thermostatout.

4th and 5th of all–it’s ugly!!! Headlights are taped in with duck tape, the grill cracked after rear-ending an SUV so it’s laying in the back seat. The hood is smashed up (SUV again). tires are bald due to peeling out/handbraking. About 75 Subway bags and assorted fast food wrappers are laying in the back seat along with it’s old battery, old thermostat, 1 of the shattered headlights, the grille, and a rusty spare tire jack.

But I just can’t get enough of this car!! I want to make it fast, but retain it’s ugliness.

6

Muldoon, that’s the scariest vehicle I’ve ever heard of in my life! You are a very twisted individual. In a good way, of course.

Yeesh, and I thought my little Civic was bad off…

Tuckerfan, thanks for your suggestions. I had forgotten about oil, but that is a concern with this car. It doesn’t gulp it down, but it definitely is burning it. Your point about the gas guage is also rather worrying, because the odometer is unreliable. Normally I would reset the trip odometer every time I filled up and just fill the tank again at 300 miles, but when the trip odometer doesn’t always work, that’s not going to work too well either. Hopefully the gas guage won’t break. Oh, and the actual repair cost was around $1850 - I was rounding.

The hardest part of this is knowing that this car will die, and possibly fairly soon, despite all I do. We simply can’t afford to replace the clutch when it goes, and so the car will be done. That makes me sad. But I’ll take good care of it in its last days, if I do end up driving it…

7

Looks aside, a minivan is the perfect vehicle for a teenager. You can pile tone of people into it for road trips, and carry lots o’ stuff.

If it were me, I’d drive that rather than the Civic, since it seems like it’s just a matter of time before you’re really stranded, or put into an unsafe situation.

I also had to share a car with my brother. It builds character, and planning and scheduling skills.

8

In L.A. we have a publication called the Recycler. They always have shops that are selling used Japanese engines for a reasonable price. I’ve heard that in Japan they have some sort of law that requires engines to be junked after 30,000 miles. I have no idea if this is true (no way it would ever happen here), but for whatever reason there are a lot of used Japanese engines about. If you have something similar back there in Massachusetts, you might look into it.

I understand the emotional attachment. I’ve just bought a replacement for my first car, which I sold back in the late 1980s. I’m going to have to tow it down from Yosemite, find a place to park it, and pay lots of money to restore it. It would have been simpler if I had just kept the one I had and maintained it over the years. On the other hand, a '92 Civic isn’t a “classic”. You’d have to have an unbelievably strong attachment to keep it – but their your emotions and I won’t second-guess them.

The logical thing to do would be a cost/benefit analysis. What can you get for the same amount of money it will cost to repair the Honda? (That cost being after you’ve explored other options than taking it to the dealer.) You might be able to find another '92 Civic or something better for less money. Or…

With the big rear area, a minivan can be perfect for carrying only one passenger of the gender of your choice. :wink:

But anyway, see if there are any Japanese-engine importers in your area.

9

TIme to learn how cars run. :wink: So we can determine two things here:

  1. There’s something wrong that a dealership wants to charge you 2 grand for.
  2. You have a second vehicle (mini-van)

So. Now you should figure out what’s wrong with that fourth cylinder.

Do you have emissions tests in your area? Does the car pass emissions? If so, there can’t possibly be much wrong with that cylinder.

Step 1: Figure out which cylinder it is. Go to Napa and buy an insulated plug wire puller(*). With car running, pull each plugwire, note the behavior, and replace. When you get to one that makes no difference when you pull it, you’ve isolated the problem.

Step 2: Figure out WHY it’s not running. It can only be one of three things: Spark, Air, or Fuel.

Step 3: while you were at Napa, you should also buy plugwires, plugs, and whatever replaceable components your distributor has (if it’s got a distributor, if it does, that’ll be cap, and rotor), here’s where Tuckerfan’s suggestion of a factory manual REALLY helps.

Step 2b (yeah, they’re out of order, consider #3 an aside): Pull the plug and look at it, is it an ugly black blob (very likely)? replace all plugs and wires (keeping the order the same) and start the car. Does it run better? Good. Run it for 5 minutes then shut it off. Pull that plug again. NOW how does that plug look? IF it’s tan, there’s nothing else wrong with the car. If it isn’t, refer to that service manual.

At this point, you may want to check your engine compression. Checker/Autozone/pepboys will often rent you specialized tools for free (plus deposit), go get a compression tester and follow that shop manual on how to check compression. If compression is low, the motor will need a rebuild.

By the time you’ve done this, you should determine if the problem is electrical (plugs, wires), fuel related (plug pulled out is odd colored or spotless – no fuel is making it to that cylinder – replace the fuel injector and retest), or compression related (major surgery there, but not impossible if you find a mentor, and not unexpected in a 190,000 mile car)

Total cost to you to do all this will be less than $300 ($100 for manual, $XXX for plugs and wires) and will teach you stuff you can use on other cars in the future.

Best case scenario, you might end up fixing the motor!

Worst Scenario: IF you can get help pulling and rebuilding the motor, by doing it yourself you can do the motor AND replace the clutch for not much more than you would have paid the dealership to just diagnose your missing cylinder. Then you’re ready for ANOTHER 200,000 miles.

10

To get the maximum life out of the clutch, make sure it is properly adjusted. On cars with adjustable clutches (which should include yours), the most common cause of premature failure is misadjustment. Average clutch life is around 150K, so it’s unlikely yours will go very much farther, but the adjustment is simple and cheap. It should at least be checked.

Unless you have reason to believe the dealer is really incompetent or really dishonest, I don’t see any benefit in spending money to verify the engine diagnosis. What you describe is quite plausible, and they’d have to be pretty stupid to try to sell you 2000 worth of something you don’t need if they could fix it for 200 or less.

11

sniglet99, it’s probably compression if those four things are all that could be wrong. But hell yes, I’d love to be able to fix it. Might even be able to find someone who can help me, now that I think of it. Too bad I literally have no money at the moment, but that will come later. I also think I remember something about the valves being mentioned. In any case, I can give you one of the root causes of this, if not the actual problem: my dad was very lazy about changing the oil. He added it when necessary, though often late, but seldom changed it.

Yes, I know.

Anyway, I have reason to believe then that there is serious fouling in this cylinder because of that. And whether that means it’s screwed up the valves or the problem is with compression, I don’t know, but it definitely was expensive. This dealer isn’t particularly great, but they aren’t total rip-offs. But I think I’ll bring it by someone I know who breathes cars, he might be able to help. I’m hoping that this thing really can be fixed, and that this cylinder isn’t just completely destroyed.

Mr. Moto, it’s only my sister for now, and it’s not so bad. When my other two siblings of the same age get their licenses, things may get interesting.

Also, you’re right about the minivan, but there are a couple problems there. First, its rear area isn’t that big ;), even with the seats folded down, second, have you ever tried hauling five people in a minivan with 170 horsepower? This minivan is powered by a four cylinder engine. It’s great when it’s just me and one other person, but add a couple or three more and it’s pretty iffy.

Okay, that last is a pretty bad argument given the current state of the Civic engine, granted… dare I make the argument that I just like cars better? I don’t dislike minivans for that, they do their job well. I happen to like them better than most SUVs. But I prefer driving cars, due to the smaller size.

Johnny L.A., replacing the whole engine is something I’d prefer to avoid, both from the financial perspective and from the practical one. Replacing an engine is a huge job, and one I don’t want to take a chance on. And maybe I could find another working DX engine from this generation of the Civic, and maybe I couldn’t. In any case, I’ll do what seems appropriate. All this basically relies on my father giving me free discretion with the car when he’s done with it. Hopefully, since it’s basically ready to die, he won’t mind me trying to fix it.

If I CAN get another 200,000 miles out of it (not on this clutch, though!) I would be extremely pleased - but extremely surprised. When the time comes to give up and have it hauled away, I’ll be sad but grateful for the service it has provided.

12

Well, I’m simplifying a bit, but the stuff I’ve mentioned is a good way start.
AFA changing the oil, that’s one way to prolong the life of a motor, but realistically, at 190,000 miles, that motor doesn’t owe you anything. I realise you don’t have much dinero, so you replace money with time, assuming you have more time. :wink:

What you have here is the chance to learn some pretty interesting stuff with no liabilities. You HAVE access to another vehicle, so you’re ahead of 90% of the people out there who don’t have the ‘time’ to learn and may or may not have the ‘money’ part either.

I started out changing my oil myself, graduated to brake jobs, and over the course of 5-8 years have gotten to the point where there’s very little I can’t do on a modern car (computer stuff included.) This is with no formal training, and plenty of access to the internet for assistance.

13

Just to add if you have a 4 banger that really only has 3 bangs working I would say the HP would be cut roughly in half not by 3/4. If a nother banger goes out I would say that would be your other half (in other words zero horsepower)

14

Do you mean that hp would literally be cut in half, or for all practical purposes cut in half? If another cylinder goes, the other two will still provide power, but not enough to move the car, is my guess.