The bad news ….. arrived full force today!

After taking my car to the shop Monday, the mechanic and my dad discussed it and decided that MAYBE changing my transmission fluid/filter would help.  I do have 130,000 miles on my car and it’s never been changed. So we left my car there and came back home.

On the way home, Dad tells me that not only would I get the filter/fluid changed, but when the mechanic took the pan off, he would see if there was metal in the pan.  While I really still don’t know what this means, what I have learned is metal is bad and is sign that a transmission is about to go…

We come back in a couple hours and the change costs me $100!!!!  Merry Christmas mechanic!!  Daddy asks him about metal in the pan and he says yes….quite a bit!!!  (GREAT!!!!)

Daddy says it may last a week….it may last a few months. There’s no way to tell, but that continuing to drive it won’t hurt anything else and since the transmission will have to be replaced anyways I might as well keep driving it – LOCALLY – and start saving as my grandmother just had to have a new transmission and it cost her $2500!  He thinks mine will run closer to $3000!  (WHAT!?!?!  I have maybe $500 in savings!!!!)  Damn!  I’m raising two girls on one teaching salary.  Making ends meet is not happening all that great and now I have to find $3,000?!?!  yea….

Well, I prep talk myself ….  if it lasts a couple months, I can go into savings overdrive…there will be no extra spending.  If I can get close to all of it, maybe a family member will loan me the rest (Geez, I hate asking for money)…

So today we load up and head off to the bank and post office and to deliver family/friend presents.  We get about a half mile from the house and my car won’t accelerate over 40…The harder I push the gas, it just revs up (like you are pushing the gas while in park).  CRAP!  I quickly turn in a driveway and turn around and head back home.  Now we are stuck.

I just talked to Dad and he says, “That’s It. It’s gone then.”  MERRY CHRISTMAS MOM!!!