I have a 2001 Taurus with 76000 miles that is losing antifreeze, about 2 cups per round trip to work and back.
I am taking it to a radiator place tomorrow, but if it costs too much to fix I’m thinking of getting another car. It also needs rear struts.
The bank has approved me for $10,000. What kind of car do you recommend?
How much is too much? Fixing the Taurus won’t cost $10,000. It’s always less expensive to maintain a car than to replace one. I recommend fixing the car and driving it another 76,000 miles.
Agree; if all that is wrong with your car, I would get it fixed properly, and driuve it another 4 yars or so. The car is worth very little now, but it still has a lot of life left in it!
I bought a 1997 Taurus lease return for al colleague of mine and after 98,000 miles or so it still runs great.
This problem could be as small as a faulty radiator cap, which lets the coolant boil away. Or it could be a radiator hose that is loose and simply needs tightening. If its a cap you may see nothing odd, but you might hear boiling noises after you stop the car. If you do hear it boiling, go buy a new cap and then wait until its completely cooled off before you swap them. If its a hose connection you should see coolant dripping out when its warmed up and running, and maybe even hear hissing after you turn the engine off.
For $10k I would recommend trying lots of cars and see what you really like. I would skip any Euro makes but otherwise look into either domestic or Asian.
That being said before you jump the gun figure monthly payment on that $10k and tranlate repair into how many. I have a feeling the repair will only be 1-4 payments max.
Remember on top of those payments you still have repair/maintenance costs on any $10k car if used.
It’s cheaper to keep her…
I have owned 4 Tauruses and have two right now. The two I have right now have almost 200,000 miles each and are still going strong. I had to replace the radiator on one of them recently and it was a bit of a pain (radiator had to be taken out the bottom of the car) but I got the job done for $150.00 for the new radiator (from radiators.com) and my sons providing most of the labor.