Hi Guys,

I got my licence back in the beginning of May last year (2005) and since then, I've had a magnitude of problems with the car. The car had only done 130,000kms when I got it and it had been treated reasonably well with basically no reliability faults whatsoever. Seems like I have hit the brunt of the problems, in a big way. Firstly, I had a leak in the heater core which wasn't evident to me at the time and my radiator ran dry along the Hume Hwy. Not good. My A/C was stuffed after that too with what sounded like a Greek wedding going on in my bonnet (like ceramic plates bashing together). So, disconnected the A/C and re-routed a hose from the radiator bypassing the heater so that I could get home (had to spend a night in Seymour as it was dark then). Got the heater fixed and it works great, left the A/C though as its not worth it (~1,500 too much). Totalled out to be about $600 to get fixed I think.

Car was running fine for a few months when I put my foot in the clutch when approaching a roundabout and it went flat to the floor. All the fluid had drained out. Got a mate to get some for me, put it in and it would just drain out. Leaking slave cylinder was the fault. Got it towed to my mechanic and he fixed the problem. ($100 to be fixed + towing)

The tyres were crap on the car (simex on the front and econo-tread on the rears - 1 with a massive flat spot on it too). I replaced them with some okay 14" pirelli tyres and the grip is great. I can actually take the car in the wet with some confidence now. ($470 total with wheel alignment).

The car was stuttering a bit on power occasionally and I was wondering what the problem could be. The car would even feel starved of fuel and stall sometimes too at its worst point. After checking out this site and reading through people's experiences, I decided to replace the fuel filter and the difference was awesome. Thanks guys for that! ($10 for the filter)

Then, not long ago, the car had developed a grinding noise when braking. It became increasingly worse and I put the car in to get fixed. The car needed new pads and rotors as they were stuffed - another $377 out of my account on this car.

Most recently (friday) the tacho started going nutz half way through a journey to pick up my girlfriend. The car sounded rough and would stutter much worse then before. I got to my girlfriend, picked her up, then started the car and it was fine for the rest of the time to her place (she was at work before). Then, started the next day and it sounded okay but the tacho was not moving at all. Car felt okay so we were off. Got to within a street of our destination and the car stuttered a LOT and then stalled. The car wouldn't start after that and we were left there. Got RACV to come out and also called my mechanic. They both had the same conclusion, ignition module had gone. Got it towed to my girlfriend's house that day. Got the car checked out to replace the ignition module on the Monday by a mobile mechanic and it was ready to go very quickly. That cost another $195 total to get done.

The bad news was that he said that my starter motor was about to go though, because the gears were skipping quite a lot sometimes. I'd never had this problem in the past so I guess it must just be because we were trying to start it so much when the ignition module had failed. Drove around for a bit today, went to shopping center and stuff, the car worked great, just like usual. Headed off to my house after seeing my girlfriend and I needed to get some fuel. Filled up the car, then the starter motor flared up bigtime. Spent 5 minutes trying to start the car with just clicking noises before it finally worked. I got home, but the starter motor needs to be fixed pronto!

WHAT ELSE CAN GO WRONG WITH THIS CAR?!?!? Its very annoying given that these issues aren't really related to a differing driving style or anything like that. I'm particularly smooth with my gearchanges too so its just bad luck I think. Odometer now reads 149050kms now, but you'd think that it'd have been around 300000 given the problems I've had.

Just wanted to share that with you guys... venting frustration. :D

hehe poor thing, welcome to the world of motoring!
when you calculate the actual cost to run a car, any car you need to budget fuel cost and the same again for maintainence.

your doing better than me though i think.... since buying my car for $500 2 years ago i have killed 2 engines, replaced the gearbox, full exhaust replaced twice to fix the stuff ups the first guy did and put in a resonator and cat converter, radiator, hoses, shockies all round, cv joints, clutch, everything ignition wise, carby, accelerator cable, stereo, seat covers set, bonnet scoop, air filters, numoerous oil changes, coolant changes, serviceing for the latest engine under warranty. prob more stuff ive missed.

grand total is around $7500 in 2 years. but the car runs pretty sweet now....once i put the intake manifold and carby etc back on that i just had to replace today :bowrofl:

though it should cause almost everything is new or nearly new.

sound like he'll have a brand new car by the end of it all :P


and as for poor tyres, i just learnt how to drift the thing... no problems in the wet now :D

i noticed that a lot of things appear to go wrong in succession with our car, but the lovely thing is you wont have to replace these things again for a while, so the more that happens the less you have to worry about in the long run. My magna had a spate of bad happenings that used to cost a fortune ( even tho my hubby could fix it all himself ) and drive me nuts too, but in the end we now know the car like the back of our hands, and we know what is due to pack it in.

well what im trying to say is, that it may piss you off now but in the long run you will see the benefits.

$1152 in repairs so fast damn that sucks. Add an extra $250 if you are going to get a new starter. I paid $270 for mine and that was a brand new one not a reco.

lets see.. i have probably spend around $2-$3k on mine ?? thats just mechanical stuff and nothing cosmetic :(

If you are lucky you can buy a car after someone else has done everything, when you hear people say that they have spent a fortune on their car, and they are selling it cheep is the time to buy.

And it helps if you are mechanicly minded and know a bit about cars, which is no help if there are computer problems.

But you will have a nice car soon

"Gemini
$1152 in repairs so fast damn that sucks. Add an extra $250 if you are going to get a new starter. I paid $270 for mine and that was a brand new one not a reco. "

Why spend that much money on a starter, when you can buy a whole car for that price?

Why spend that much money on a starter, when you can buy a whole car for that price?

What, so i can take parts of it ? i was planning on doing that but i dont have the room and needed to get my car on the road ASAP because i was going to tafe when it died on me.

Same goes for when i rammed into a camry. I spent $500 to get parts from the wreckers to get it on the road again but for that much i could have got a really nice 1st gen body and thrown my engine + box in it :(

Yep, thats my problem ATM, although I was lucky enough to scavenge some parts off of a mate of a mate who had a dead one.

I hope to move onto a block of land in about 6 months and I will have a few dead TM - TP's when I have the space

wow nice 6 months

my last 6 on road months,got the car fueling issues, replace filter, dizzy, carby, manifolds, exhaust. auto box and motor died, replaced with manual injected motor and box, blew that box in 2 hours, replaced box, clutch went, replaed clutch and pressure plate and machined flywheel, around 4 starter motors and 3 alternators died, 3 sets of cvs, and 2 days ago my motor seized, so another motors going in over the weekend, lucky i can fix it all myself :)

holly hell dude you should just buy a new car :confused:

Ummm am i the only one that thinks that most of those are normal/could have been avoided if noticed earlier?
Eg. brake pads were low, fudged up your rotors, this is normal.

My brake pads are low because i drove for 3kms with the handbrake on :confused:

There was smoke pouring from inside the left wheel and an eerie red glow shining between the gaps in the stockies. Whats worse is it was raining and after taking the handbrake off and driving home i hit a puddle, all that icy cold water on those red hot rotors warped the rotors.

Smart me :P

It's like that with everything... hindsight is always 20/20. The best thing about mistakes is after seeing the effects, we learn from them pretty quick-smart now. I bet you double-check your handbrakes now right? :)

I do double check it but my friends now have a habit of pulling the handbrake on "just to see if it will work"... When im doing 110 on the calder. :nuts: