first things first:
- I love my csvt. I hate my csvt. I want to make a financially sound decision about this car!
- I did a search for posts like this and didn't find any.
- I used to be a frequent poster here, but my username was lost in the ubb upgrade quite some time ago. Honestly, I'm a different guy now and so am using a different nick. Hello again everyone!
So without boring you guys too much, let me jump right into it. I bought my car brand new 4 years ago (it's a 2000) and have had quite the time with it. It's provided me with a LOT of satisfaction, but also a lot of frustration. I've taken it into the shop many times, but my job requires I drive around during the day so it is a *major* inconvience to bring my car into the shop.
I recently ran into someone (friend's cousin at a wedding), we got to talking about cars, and - surprise! - he had a contour svt too! He'd had a 99 and also loved/hated it - after a few major problems he'd decided to sell it and STRONGLY encouraged I do the same.
My car has ~46000 miles on it (millions of short trips :/) and I'm just beginning to get to the point where it could use some major attention. Since I haven't said it yet, I drive my car HARD, and know there are consequences for this. Without an official diagnosis, it seems my car is ready to start having some parts replaced. I'm looking at:
- new brake pads
- new shocks?
- complete chassis lubrication (lots of squeaks, and I've had the ebrake cable taken care of)
- new set of tires is coming up kind of soon, I'm on my third set. I do *not* peel out, I just take corners as the csvt wants you to.
fyi I ran through stock rubber KDWs in 12k, second identical set in 15k, now I'm on the awesome but expensive michelin pilot sport A/S's and am maybe 1/2 to 2/3s of the way through them.
- water pump?
- something for the problems I have shifting (hard to get into first, second, and reverse); maybe I just need the "cocktail"?
- baffled oil pan?
I'm just not sure I want to deal with all this, which kinda looks like the tip of an iceburg. Part of it is just that the car is getting older, and I'm okay with that. But I'm also afraid of the long-hard-right-turn oil problems killing my engine. There are some pretty exciting newer cars out there, and also some used cars I could really get into that would maintain value better (I'm leaning this direction) than the contour.
I have taken very good care of this car aside from driving it hard - religiously using mobil 1 ever since the third oil change, exhausting cleaning inside and out (gotta love that zaino!), etc etc.
What do you guys think? You've seen the troubleshooting forum here, many of you have dealt with the same problems I have, and many I (luckily!) have not. Do you see this car being a 200,000 mile car? How about 150k or 100k?
Should I keep this car? Or should I "remember the good times" and sell it? I'm very split on this and could use some input!
