we debated that for a while.... it was either fix this car up some, buy less car than we really want, or take on car payments which we do not want to do. this car has 85,000 miles on it and we look to get 112,000 - 120,000 miles out of it so we figure spend some now and in 2-3 years when some financial resources free up maybe we can pay cash for a new one. plus we really like this vehicle...who knows, we just hope we made the correct decision
85k is too soon to junk it for a $3k maintenance.
My previous minivan was a 2003 Odyssey. At about 7 years / 86k the transmission started slipping. Took it to the dealer and too Curry's. From both I got nearly identical estimates of $12k - new transmission + needed a timing belt, broken engine mount, and the ABS controller had failed. I ended up selling it to CarMax for about $5k and after swearing I'd never buy another Honda, bought another Odyssey. That one is just over 8 years old, has 116k miles, and so far has been perfectly reliable with only an alternator failure that was covered by the extended warranty. Did the timing belt package at around 95k.
