Why during the Holidays?

Sorry for your car troubles the timing is never right when it happens. 4yrs old & having troubles. We usually have troubles once they are paid off or if we buy used. *sigh* too bad horse & buggy isn't efficent anymore

About 5 years ago, I had bought a used car fairly cheap. A friend looked at it and told me it was in great shape so I had nothing to worry about. My husband at the time was working down here in North Carolina while I and the kids were in Maine. 2 weeks before Christmas the car caught on fire. Luckily my husband was coming home the next day. But come to find out the car had been no good in the first place. My husband looked at it when he came home, he told me I was lucky I had not been driving it when the fire started because even the brakes had been burned and wouldn't work. Having to buy a new car right then was something that we couldn't afford to do. In fact we had been lucky enough to just buy a few presents for the kids that year.

our thanksgiving in canada is in october and I lost my stove a few days before. As it turns out I did not have turkey or anything special because the stove was completely finished. I have a new stove now so I will have my turkey for christmas

Bad Luck Bob. I am no expert in cars either, but it doesnt sound too good to me. Yes, I have had car incidents at inconvenient times. A few months back I was driving out the shoping centre car park. I had to drive around a sharp curve on a slope. I was foolishly distracted by my daughters talking, & just as I was going round the bend, I hit the curbing heavily. This tore my tyre. I had to call the RAA. Fortunately I had a spare tyre. However it was old, so I had to buy not one, but two new tyres, so that both front tyres would match up. Cost was $300. This was just before we were to leave on a country swimming carnival trip. Hope you get yours repaired with no inconvenience.

Well that sucks big time. The car didn't give you any indication that something was amiss before this happened? I'm no mechanic either but that doesn't sound like the trans to me, Grandpa Bob. Before you start worrying too much about it, have it looked at first to make sure it's an expensive repair. I've never had a car's transmission go out on me before and I've owned quite a few clunkers with original transmissions who's engines blew before that happened. But then, maybe I've been lucky all my life?

My husband was driving his car,(he was a cab driver at the time)it was just before christmas. he drove through what he thought was surface water on the road. It turned out the road was flooded and he literally aquaplaned, brakes failed and he hit another car. He was knocked out and ended up in hospital with concussion. luckily he was fine and was out in time for Christmas, but i must say the boss of the cab company and the other drivers rallied round ( it was before I passed my driving test)and they made sure i was able to visit my husband using cabs without waiting for buses. But I am sorry to hear about your car,and its only 4 years old. Hope you can get it sorted out soon. to add to above, it wasnt a holiday , but it was valentines day and we were on one of the main motor ways in england, and we were the 4th car in a 6 car pile up. No one , luckily, badly injured, except me. i had a super ride in an ambulance in a hospital about 200 miles from where we lived. i had whip lash injury to my neck. But it could have been so much worse. But very sadly my husbands new car was a complete write off. But the insurance company came through and he had another car within a week.

Hi Grandpa Bob, Haven't seen you in awhile, I haven't been around much neither...been busy with the season. As for your car, Gee Whiz Think positive, maybe it won't be a big expensive repair. Thats practically a new car. I have a 1978 car, its sitting in front of my house, it needs a brake line. It broke when I had my grandson in the car. I was heading for a new Town n Country van when the line broke, no brakes. They went all the way to the floor. Lucky for me, the emergency brake worked, even on a 31 year old car. Good luck with your car.

Thank goodness you were so close to home BOB. I broke down recently and was stranded for some time in the hot sun. My car was towed away. The repairer had my car 5 days and I've since taken it back because it's still not right. I'm taking it back on Tuesday to have more new parts fitted. It's mostly guess work these days as to what's wrong...so much for all the new fangled car computers that are supposed to run everything.

Good luck, my tranny went out last week. Of course it is a 12 year old van with 160K miles on it but it hurts just the same.

ah, the joys of car ownership! cars are such a necessary evil that suck so much money out of you. sorry to hear that but i think any time a vehicle breaks down, its horrible!

hi Grandpa Bob oh yes once when we were married about twenty five years. my son was grown and my husband asked me to come with him out in the toules to a nursery where he wanted to buy some plants. we were in our old international harvester pickup. It did just what you described only it stopped completely and we were stuck. Of course the only money we had with us was a customer money for landscape plants we were buying for his yard.so we had to phone our son at work, ask him to send a wrecker and some money so we could get home. we drove home the three of us in the front seat of that wrecker a nd me fuming at my husband because he never maintained that old Inyernational harvester untiol something vital broke down on it. and fixing it even way back then was a costly proposition as the engine was built in such a way that the mechanic had to take stuff apart before he could even get the new transmission in there. so we spent a goodly hunk of money for us it must have been like four or five hundred dollars.so we had to really work to come up with the next months house payment. lol but at least things were quite a lot cheaper back then. lol

Hm, not that I can recall (knock on wood). The worst repair I ever had was also a transmission. $3,000 later...

Hi GRANDPA BOB, That is just so bad to happen at the wrong time, thank goodness we just had a new gear box put in into our car so all is well with ours, hope you'll manage to get it fix cheaper. Tamara

Aah, I'm sorry for what happened to your car! It all happens like Murphy's laws say, isn't it? When you're near the date of having to face expenses, a bigger and meaner expense will appear in the form of a devil or a broken car! lol I hope it won't affect your holidays too much :)

Sorry to hear about your Car issues Grandpa Bob. It is not Fun when you have major Car issues and you have to worry about how to get it fixed especially around the Holidays. From what I can remember, we have never had this happen around the holidays, but we did have one of our Cars break down while on Vacation so at the end we had to worry about borrowing my sisters car while trying to get the Car fixed while on Vacation and how to pay for it, to have that not be the problem to where we ended up having to spend more when we got home as well. Somehow I hope you can make light of this, and still be able to have a Great Holiday Season as well.

Isn't this the same car you had trouble with last year? Maybe it just doesn't like you.

Not that I can remember.....Wow you must drive your car alot...that's alot of miles for a four year old car! Mine is three years old and I go all the time and I only have 25,000 on it! LOL...well hope you get it sorted out and that it isn't such a big deal....like the transmission!

That's an awful thing to happen when you want to buy gifts for grandchildren. It seems that everything conspires to keep up broke, doesn't it? I hope it's not that serious! Hey, at least you got home and weren't stranded on a freeway or in a shopping mall, look on the positive side of things. Only 4 years old?! That's weird. I hope it's much less expensive than you think.