My Baby

Last week that mysterious "old car noise" I've been hearing turned into a check engine light warning so I took her in to have her checked out. They gave me a grave answer to the tune of 3 days in the shop and $4400 (choke!). I had to think about it. Today I took her to another shop for a second opinion. They couldn't even hear the noise I'm hearing (of course) but they don't think it's the above mentioned repair, that incidentally they offered to do for half that amount. I was getting grumpy until the technician went out on a drive with me, heard the noise, then waxed poetic about all the reasons I too love this old girl.

Update: In my next life I am going to marry a mechanic just so I will always know truthfully whether anything is really wrong with my car and how much it would cost to fix it. The latest report is that it isn't the one big repair the first shop said it was, but it's a laundry list of "small" issues that add up to nearly just as much. It's a good car, but an old car is about the best thing anyone can tell me. Will it run great after I make so many improvements? Or should I just keep taking the approach of waiting for things to fail before I pay to replace them?