I’ve got a 1996 Ford Escort with 132,000 miles, and a blown head gasket. Should I get it fixed, or say goodbye?
not enough info. so let’s assume that most everything else is in working order on the car, and you are planning on doing it yourself to save money.
then yes, the part is not that expensive. go for it.
As mentioned the whole question depends on the rest of the car and on your general situation. It also depends on how long the head has been leaking and how much coolant has been circulating around with the oil.
If it was me and it hasn’t been driven much or at all with badly contaminated then I would fix it. But I’d also be doing myself at a fraction of the cost of paying someone else. The thing about Escorts is that they are generally very reliable & cheap & easy to own.
If you do have the head gasket done, consider having a machine shop re-do the valve seats when the head comes off - one that knows about the valve seat issues with these engines. That will now add to the cost, of course.
I have a feeling that the oil may have been contaminated with coolant. Apparently, the thermostat broke, and that is what caused this. I’m not that mechanical, so I’m not sure if I understood the mechanic correctly, but the engine is fried??? Otherwise the care is in pretty good shape, and we’d love to keep it a while longer.
I’d ask the mechanic exactly what he means by the engine is fried. I would take such a comment as meaning the complete engine is gone and not just needing a new head gasket. If that’s the case you could likely find a good used engine in a junk yard for under $500. and have it installed. If the rest of the car is in good condition it should be worth repairing. I have 5 Escorts all of which have been very reliable, one of them has 518K miles on it and is still running and giving very few problems, but I also do my own repair work and many of the parts have lifetime warranty so when something goes wrong it doesn’t usually cost much if anything to fix it.
I have to assume by the broken thermostat info that the car overheated. If that is the case then its probably not a good bet to deal with a headgasket replacement as all sorts of other problems can turn up.
If you want to keep the car, the $500 junkyard motor is a fine option as FordMan noted.
So long, farewell, Au’voir, auf wiedersehen if the repair exceeds $1000.
If the car is otherwise in good shape (transmission, tires, suspension, brakes, etc.) I’d take a '96 Escort up to about $1500
Only do this if someone in the family thinks replacing a head gasket is fun. My first car repair at 16 was a head gasket. My stepfather told me, “You blew it, you fix it”