Blew a head gasket on my 97 Civic on the highway last Friday

I was driving home from work in Austin when smoke started pouring out from under the hood. Pulled over and saw coolant everywhere, ended up having to tow it to a shop and they quoted me $1,800 to fix it. Has anyone else been stuck deciding if an old car with a blown motor is worth saving?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jenny8d ago

Honestly I'd pay the $1800 and get it done. My buddy had a 98 Civic with 230k miles and the head gasket blew last year. He dropped $1600 on a remanufactured head from a shop in San Antonio and that thing is still running like a champ. Plus you know that engine, you know the car's history, and a new car payment is way more than $1800 over a year.

zara5727d ago

My buddy down in Texas had a 2000 Corolla with like 190k miles and the transmission started slipping real bad. He was looking at $2200 for a rebuild and almost junked the whole car. But his neighbor knew a guy who did transmissions on the side, got it done for $1500 cash and that car went another 80k miles before he sold it. The thing is you just never know how long these older cars will keep going once you fix the big stuff. Your Civic already made it to 300k which is impressive, and you know how it was maintained. A new car payment these days is like $400 or $500 a month, so $1800 is only like 4 or 5 months of payments. If you can get even a year and a half out of it after the fix you're way ahead on money.