My car played up yesterday and today. Yesterday when I was driving home from work it was really hard to drive, brakes were extremely touchy, not accelerating, burning brake smell etc. After waiting an hour for roadside assistance I was told it was the brakes sticking on (which I had figured out already! - though to be fair, the guy was really quite nice), it would be ok to drive but to get it fixed asap. So instead, I drove it to the mechanic. He was not super busy, so hoisted it up, took the tyres off and did all that manly mechanical stuff () Couldn't find anything, took it for a drive, and wouldn't you know it, it drove like normal!

I guess the only good thing about that day was that the roadside assistance didn't cost a thing, seeing as I pay a $60 annual fee for it. And when I asked my mechanic how much I owed him (for an hours work) he said nothing.

So I drive home, all fine. This morning I drive to the markets, again, everything is fine. Then DF and I decide to go into town and it does it again. So now kind of unsure what to do really. I guess I will just drive to work on Monday and then book it in for whatever needs to be done on Tuesday or Wednesday. If I had a normal job with normal hours, I would book it in for Monday. However, I start at 6am. The mechanic starts at 8am. And I would have no way to drive it there and then get back to work, if I so wanted to do that. I hate car trouble.

Coupled with the fact that it rather looks like a piece of crap at the moment (it has been scratched, run into & dented by strangers) and things are going to start costing large chunks of money soon to keep it going and safe, I think DF and I have to have a good talk/think about getting a new-to-us car in the near future. Our ultimate goal is of course to pay in cash - but if you had asked me a month ago when we would be thinking of buying a new car, I would have said in a few years. Now it is more like, in a few months. I don't want to loan money for a car, but I do not want to buy another car that is going to have the same problems as my last two cars have had (the major problem being: they are OLD!), which is probably what we can afford at the moment.

I am thinking, if things begin to go sour for my car soon, that we will get a loan for a new car, sell my car (could still get approx $3000 for it) and then just pay down the loan straight away with the cash we get from the sale of the old car. We would be looking at buying a new-to-us car around the $10k mark. (i think at this stage we have settled on a subaru liberty stationwagon).

Anywho. Thanks for letting me vent my frustration and ramble a bit.