First, all the fluid spills out. I manage to fix it cheap. Whoohoo, I think, bullet dodged! Then the leak comes back. I take it into the shop. They show me how it's leaking from basically everywhere. Turns out my front engine mount broke, and the engine has been bouncing up and down. Totally killed the lines, and it was smacking the transmission control module on the bottom of the alternator or something or other that looks roundish. So I spend eight hundred dollars getting that stuff fixed, and while I'm driving away from the shop, it starts to clunk. Now they tell me that that few seconds it was rolling with no tranny fluid probably killed it. Now I get to see if my warranty will replace the tranny. I'm broke and have no car. I should have traded the damn thing in today instead of fixing it.

Please recommend the most efficient ways of being totally emo.

Not cool. Sorry to hear that..

Eyeliner. Greasy hair over one eye. Voila.

Kill yourself in a car wreck. It'd be emotastic.

BLAST THE LINKIN PARK

I'd like to be totally emo without actually killing and/or maiming myself, please.

My card looks like it was stolen from a junk yard, but at least it runs really well.

That's no fun, and not emo enough.

Myspace I guess.

Linkin Park, definitley.

You need something reliable, I agree you should have just bought something else. It is possible to be sufficient with under $1k

I bought a 79 chevy truck for $500. It has never broken down, and the only things I ever did was change the oil, spark plug wires, and radiator fluid. The engine is so simple it is easy to fix myself.
However, it lacks many luxuries. I don't even have a tape deck, but I have a CB radio! It's not fuel injected, and it takes time to start up if its cold. I don't have power steering or ABS. I have a family of mice living in my bedliner and my tailgate fell off. Enginewise it is perfect, and it is simple and will continue if I change the oil.

I would not recommend going emo as emo people are worthless. All they do is moap, you need to kick your problem in the balls and move on! I don't know your situation, but I'm sure over some time and discipline you will aquire some money to be mobile once again.

Whack the mechanic over the head with the tranny.

Please reassure me you're talking about the transmission.

I heard the best mechanics in the world reside in Africa. You should give your car to them.

This is why I work on cars by myself.

I would be very skeptical if this happened to me.

A) I trust the shop.
B) I need the car to work.

You trust the shop after they let you drive the car away with the car clunking, and making you fix all this crap when the transmission itself was already shot?

My thoughts exactly They should have properly assessed the situation before doing any more work on your car (esp. if fluid was leaking everywhere!).

hahaha I'm in a similar position.

A year and a half ago, my car's muffler split just under the driver seat and was told that it was a 700$ job (CAN) to replace the whole pipe+wtvr else because most was shot. Instead I just jaked the car up, stuck a nice long pipe into the split pipe. Its been running fine. If a problem arose, I'd stick another pipe in. Sadly now its pretty much ruined and I am on the verge of having no choice but to change it.

Secondly, near the end of autumn, my radiator pierced. Its been leaking since but I mostly drive short distances (15-20 minutes at a time most) so I've been running it on no fluid. Didn't feel like paying 350$ to get it changed.

I'm leaving out a few other problems, but in general I have a 1000-1500$ job to do on the car. I am weighting getting an evaluation and deciding if I want to put money on it, or aim to buy another 4000-5000$ car to replace it.

Dilemas dilemas.

Of course I'm also looking into moving to Alaska, which will require a lot of money until I manage to get myself an American visa so I'm considering going on foot while I'm saving money.

Hmmmm HMMMM

Step 1: Be suspicious of mechanics who find more wrong with your car than what you noticed. Especially if your car ends up in worse condition after they "repair" it and charge you an arm and a leg.

The key is to find a good mechanic, and stick with him.

The key is to do this **** yourself and save some money.

Hear hear

They key to being emo is most certainly listening to a lot of Dashboard Confessional.

So very not true. People come into the shop every day with lots of crap wrong with their car and all they want is an oil change and tire rotation. I see leaking shocks, oil and coolant leaks, torn CV boots, loose or cracked belts, etc. all the time and people have no idea. I'm not talking about idiots here either, just normal people that have NO idea how (or when) to carry out basic maintenance on a car. It's EASY to find things wrong with most cars when you lift them up in the air and LOOK.

Now, that's not to say there aren't some real *******s out there that will make up problems with your car too. But just because a problem is found you didn't know about doesn't necessarily mean the mechanic is trying to screw you, he's probably just doing his job.

Just wanted to reiterate this highly intelligent post. It's not hard, get a Haynes manual for your car if nothing else. It will tell you how to do damn near anything.

Dude, have you been reading the thread? The main problem is that he has no car to wreck! lol