Horrible News For Any Car Owner

Ugh. Just ugh. The transmission in our 2003 Toyota Corolla (with only 121,000 miles on it) is quickly dying. It started making an alarming noise in fifth gear after our second big road trip this summer, and that noise has progressed through fourth, third, and now second gear.

I took it to a mechanic's shop yesterday on the way home from work and had one of the guys there take it for a spin to hear the noise. He came back about five minutes later and said, "Yeah, your transmission is going. It needs to be replaced. How many miles do you have on this? 121,000? Really? Toyotas usually last WAY longer than that."

When we had the clutch replaced a few months ago, my brother (who did the replacing) expressed amazement that the thing even worked after taking it out and looking at it. He asked if I rest my foot on the clutch pedal while driving or something else that would cause that inordinate amount of clutch wear. Nope, I don't, and neither does Lisa.

I guess this is one of the hazards of buying a used car. You have no idea how the people who had it before you treated it. Obviously, the person that had this car before us had no idea how to drive a manual. Otherwise, the clutch wouldn't have been in such bad shape and the transmission would not be dying now.

Anyway, awesome. Now I am going to have to pay about $1000 to replace my dying transmission with a used or possibly rebuilt one that hopefully won't die any time soon. Unfortunately, these are apparently a little tough to come by. The shop owner has been trying to track down a transmission to put in my car, but so far has had no luck.

So I am driving to my full time job each day hoping the transmission doesn't give out on the freeway, and tonight I will have to park this car and use the gas guzzling Jeep Cherokee to deliver pizzas. This sucks. I hate being poor.