What do you do when your only car is just about dead& can't afford a new one?

Question

Well here's my situation. My husband is at the garage and they tell him they can't help him because it's an engine problem. The car shakes and rattles when you drive, it stalls and doesn't accelerate. We've already put $300 into repairs in the last two weeks. Now we're thinking it's going to cost more than $1,000 to fix this situation, possibly even as much as a new engine plus labor. The car is 10 yrs. old, a piece of junk! We bought it for $3,000. It lasted six months.. barely. We can't afford a new car, luckily we don't need it for work, but we don't have a way to take the baby to the doctor or buy groceries! We're pretty much stuck. Luckily my husband has a friend in town who he works with (owns a business with him) and they use his vehicle to work. We have about $500 to work with to get this car fixed and then we're absolutely broke & poor. What on Earth should we do? This car was running fine until about 2 weeks ago!

Answer 1

sell it to the junk yrd get 200 and buy a cheep bike (no emisions or fuel cost)

Answer 2

you say it stalls and wont take gas? ok, there,s a few things you could try which won,t take much money. first thing, clean the throttle body out with throttle body cleaner, check the air filter, change the gas filter. when was the last time the plugs and wires been changed? they might be getting bad.i know exactly what you mean about the money situations.you could try those things and see if it helps, also have your husband check the motor mounts too, that can make it shake too. good luck dear, things will start looking up for you, i,am sure.

Answer 3

it would help with more answers if we had car info...what year? what model? how many miles? what did the mechanic say the prob is....good luck..ur not gona get a lot of repairs for 500...tell mechanic thats all you have..."can you make it run ok" is Q to ask ..OR..break out the master card. go deeper in debt...its the American way

Answer 4

I'm sorry to hear the bad news, but if you don't have a family member to borrow the money from, you might have to think about the bus.