Automotive Pain
I have bad luck with cars these days. It's not so much that they break on me - cars do that all the time. It's that whenever there's a problem with my car, it tends to be the worst possible variety of that particular problem. This bad luck has kicked in again, and my costs have spiralled drastically skyward as my allegedly trustworthy VW Polo has begun to show its age (and mileage)
It all started with a slight whirring noise in fifth gear. I took it to the garage and they looked it over and told me the gearbox was ageing, but certainly not due for replacement. They replaced the rear wheel bearings at the same time, which made no difference as far as I could detect, other than lightening my pocket somewhat, and sent me on my way.
Then the car started making some very strange noises - both in neutral and in gear. I called around and was told by a number of garages that this sounded like the clutch bearing, which is apparently a pain to fix because it's difficult (read 'expensive') to get to. The noise got progressively worse and I took my car to the garage as soon as I had the chance.
The clutch costs a little over 300 pounds to replace. I got a phone call this morning from the garage telling me that they had finally removed all the bits they needed to to get to the clutch, and they had found it in perfect working order. The noise wasn't coming from this bearing, but from the inside of the gearbox, which had lost all of the gearbox lubricant, and was clearly shagged and needed replacing.
The cost of a new VW Polo gearbox? 899 pounds.
The second-hand value of my car (with a working gearbox)? 1300 pounds.
The availability and cost of a second hand gearbox? Unknown.
The extent to which I needed this problem?
Posted by nlvp at October 1, 2005 11:38 AM