TOD
I think this was around Thanksgiving week of 1993, and mine was (wait for it...) a $2400 engine replacement.
Early one cold morning I set off for someplace and hadn't been aware I was losing oil pressure. About three miles out, on the interstate, the thing began losing power, then started squealing and screeching. I was just coming up to an exit and was able to nurse the car down the ramp, where right across the road there was a full service gas station. I got the car parked there and found they weren't open yet, so I left it and walked up the road to a McDonald's to get some coffee and whatever to fortify myself, all the while hoping for the best. When I got back to the station they were open, we looked under the hood, and an all too quick oil check (and smell of burnt oil and scorched metal) told us that the engine was done for. Just like that. It could have been my fault for not knowing how to keep a close watch on things, or it might have been something catastrophic that simply happened. At that point it didn't matter, the damage was done.
The car was my much loved 1987 Nissan 200-SX that I'd brought here from LA. Long story short, when they told me they'd found a replacement engine with similar mileage on it and it would cost $2400, it seemed worth it to go ahead with that and continue enjoying that particular car. And that did turn out to be the right thing to do, considering it served me well for another several years. What I *didn't* do was check around to see if I had any better options, because a friend of a friend who was a fully able mechanic told me later (literally, that very afternoon) that he could have done the entire job himself for a $600 engine replacement plus something for labor (he jad searched and found one within half an hour). And I believe him. By then it was too late to stop the work at the gas station. and that was actually the larger lesson learned that day.
