They offered heavily discounted oil changes as a deal to get people, then didn't put enough oil in and over-tightened everything.
Also during some "test drive a car and get a gift card" thing I drove another Mazdaspeed 3 they had and assured me they had looked it over and it was stock. Except that it had a boost gauge on the A-pillar and the check engine light was on.
Dealers are usually pretty expensive for most things other than the oil change special. Can we help find you a good indy mechanic? There has to be one around. I realize that doesn't really solve your near-term troubles.
So you basically need to swap in another engine or abandon ship and get a different car? Or is this engine fixable?
Abandoning ship. One of the techs is building a frankencar (Mazdaspeed 6 wagon) and offered to buy it for parts, likely just going to do that.
Get that weak shit off my track
Sorry to hear about the Mazda ! It only takes one little mistake sometimes to lose an engine.
I felt pretty foolish after I "restyled" my RX-7 against a barrier, but best not to be too hard on oneself in these situations I think. Dunno what the best value you can get from what's left is.
Maybe look for a car that's low-value enough that you won't worry too much about it, but still has some character, like an old Civic or MX-5 or something? Good luck.
I'm considering getting something I can finance with a low payment, and then selling it in the spring. Effectively a three month rental, for much less than monthly rentals cost.
Get that weak shit off my track
Creativity skills. I'm so simple-minded I tend to just find cheap cars to pay cash for.
Good to hear you'll get something back from the car, presumably a fairly easy 'sale', and parts of it will live on in a cool project.
That is also an option. There are a lot of moving parts that I'm trying to juggle. I realized today that there is a Hertz just a mile walk from me, so that might be my best short term solution.
Get that weak shit off my track
Possibly, particularly if you don't have to drive much for the next while.
Buying a cheap old car is a risk... I put a lot of effort into sniffing out the good (less bad?) ones to hopefully not end up with big or endless repairs. I do the vast majority of work myself on my cars (this is me) and I'm a little OCD about their cleanliness and presentation, so if I have something less than 3 years it tends to have retained its value pretty well. It also helps I often buy cars at or near the bottom of their depreciation curve. The cool part about doing it this way is I've gotten to own and experience a lot of cool cars without losing much money on them. Or maybe even break even sometimes (not counting insurance or fuel).
I don't gather that car work is your favorite thing, so the few-month payment idea might be a good option for you on a newer car if the numbers work all the way through to the sale.
Car is sold.
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