Took my beloved truck in this morning to have the starter replaced (see 2 posts above). I would do this myself, but I'm past the age of enjoying work on cars...I loved it in HS though. Anyway, the guys at Midas (whom I've taken my truck to for years) pull the starter and check out the flexplate as I was getting a grinding sound sometimes when starting. Well, about two inches of teeth are missing on the flexplate, also called the flywheel for you manual transmission folks....and the starter still is broken.
I expected a tooth or two to be missing and the starter needed to be replaced as the truck is 10 years old and I expected to spend about $350. Midas guy calls and tells me it's going to hurt at $1000 to get the two damaged pieces replaced. So I've got to get it done. I've been planning on selling the truck, but wasn't going to until next year, after I had my wife's car paid off and I had a chance to sock away a big down payment on the next car. So now I find myself wondering do I need to get rid of it now? It needs to have the door lock actuators replaced and one other little thing that I know off. The truck as 123000 miles on it and as you can see is in good condition.
So, I've been looking around online at cars and I'm leaning towards one of these. I've thought about getting the Jeep wrangler unlimited, but I'm really wanting something big as that's pretty much all I've driven my life and feel better about big cars and accidents. (Three nasty accidents, two of which I was lucky to walk away from without a scratch, and a third with nothing more than powder burns from the airbag). Part of me wants to get a Ford Crew Cab 4x4, but part wants an SUV. I haven't owned one in years.
