Worldcons and Van Repairs

[kevin_standlee]

The dealership called with the bad news about my van: The air conditioning compressor is shot, not just the clutch on the front of the unit. And the freon leaked away, which means that -- it being the older style banned R12 freon unit -- the system needs to be converted to the newer R134 type unit. That's the worst part of the cost there: $1200. Besides that, the serpentine belt needs replacing (not surprising given that it was sliding over a frozen pulley) and the belt tension pulley also needs to be replaced. And that Check Engine light? That was an unrelated problem: the O₂ sensor failing. Estimated total repairs: $1700.

At least I'm not stuck in the middle of the Nevada desert having to sit while they repair it. They have more than two weeks to work on it. And I have enough credit to get it out of the shop when I return. How I'll end up paying those credit card bills later is less certain.

And once again, instead of being able to direct my business to the mechanic who has been good to me, because I'm on the road, I have to pay a shop somewhere else.

I do have to keep reminding myself that much of the travel on my Worldcon trip is "free" in that meals are included in the train trip on points and the hotel nights coming and going are on points as well. This will help keep costs down. Pity the Canadian dollar has jumped back up over 90 US cents, though.

Comments

[timill]

Can you do just the O2 sensor and leave the aircon for your regular guy?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Not really. There's no way to run the van without the AC in place because of the way the belts run -- its a single uni-belt. The AC pulley is stuck and they say they have to replace the whole assembly to fix the problem. Otherwise, I'd be tempted to live without air conditioning entirely, which one could do if the AC were on a different "circuit."

[daveon.livejournal.com]

It's this sort of thing that is making me look at the Cash for Clunkers deals with our Jeep at the moment. It's cost me $600 in the last 3 months and I suspect it's not going to get any better. The $4500 trade in is looking pretty attractive on a 12 year old Jeep, especially as the repair bills over the year are starting to look like car payments...

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's trouble. But so many of the pieces of my van have been replaced over the past five years -- new engine, transmission, etc. -- that it seems like about break-even to stick with what I have. And even the $1700 is less than the payments would be on a new vehicle.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. Mine just started costing real money so I'm not too deep into the hole at this stage. Plus we have the advantage that it's the second car so if we did decide to keep two we could downgrade to something considerable smaller now.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how much money failing O2 sensors has cost people. What does that sensor accomplish again?

It's always cheaper to keep a car going than to buy a new car (short of accident damage, anyway). However, it does get to be rather a pain after a while.