For several years I have had a wonderful 1989 New Yorker (no that is not it in the photo). It just rolled through the 160,000 mile mark yesterday. As cars go it has been a good car, has run like a tank with few problems until now. Unfortunately as cars age parts wear out… and they seem to all fail at once. This winter has been a rough one on cars with the many potholes all forming at once.
The first failure was my transmission. Thankfully after consulting with a local shop (more about them later) they recommended that I take my car to Cottman Transmissions after replacing the transmission and two half axles, I asked the question… I should be good for a while now, right? To which they answered well your struts are a bit soft but yeh you should be good. Well, little did I know that I would be replacing the struts in under a week. In their defense they did a good job of replacing the transmission for a good price, but knowing the added expense of replacing the stuts I may have reconsidered fixing the car.
Next a couple weeks later I noticed a bit of a wobble on the front passenger side. Thinking it was a bad tire I took it to the local sam’s club to get my tires looked at. Turns out that yes they needed rotating and balancing, but it was the struts that were causing the big problem. Sam’s is good at what they do, but it is limited to the basic tire and battery stuff.
So then next stop was a shop that a coworker of mine sent an email about getting a 10% discount because he was friends with a manager there. Heartland tire and auto informed me that the front struts and back shocks were shot and that my Sway bar was broken. Unfortunately they do not make sway bars for my car anymore so we just will have to do with out. Heartland Tire and Auto also did a good job, but I hope that this is the end of my car problems for a while!