Cars

Marn takes my car to work on Monday and Wednesday while I take hers in order to drop Violet off at Mom's.  on Monday morning she called me to say that as she was parking the car, the brakes just gave out.  That it just went to the floor.  Thank god she was pretty much stopped and in her parking spot when this happened!  It turns out that there was a busted brake line (fluid was all over the ground).  She we went at night to try and drive it to the garage for repairs.  I happened to have brake fluid in the trunk along with some power steering fluid, so I topped it up as much as I could and off we went, slowly, to the garage.  But stupid me, I grabbed the wrong fluid and ended up putting power steering fluid in instead.  The garage called to question me on this, to which I said, "Crap.  Yeah, I guess I did...  I grabbed the wrong bottle".  He goes on to explain that this is really, really NOT good for the entire braking system because that fluid can swell the seals making them fail completely.  If the seals have swelled, I'll have to completely replace ALL of the brakes (rotors and pads would be ok, but the expensive parts like the master cylinder and calipers would need to be replaced).  He says I could be looking at 1000's of dollars.  I told him to repair the broken line, then flush the system, refill it and hope for the best, then call me when that's done.
30 minutes later he calls back and says that while repairing the broken brake line, a fuel line beside it also broke and that ALL of the lines should be done since they're all rusted out. Brakes and Fuel, and I'm looking at a minimum of $1000 just to do that because of labour.  I tell him to do it, flush the system and call me.

So I'm waiting on that call now....  "Hello, Andrew?  Yeah, we repaired your fuel and brake lines, flushed and refilled them, and you have no brake pressure.  They're screwed and need to be replaced.  $3500 minimum".

Now, there are 2 reasons that I'm really pissed about this.  First one, obviously, is because of my stupidity in putting in the wrong fluid.  But the second is, we just recently (after buying this house) decided to keep my car for another 2 years.  I know it's getting old and things like this happen, but, GAH!!  I also know that it needs other expensive work done on it to stay around for 2 years. We're now thinking on back-tracking keeping it for 2 years, getting the brakes fixed and cutting our losses....  You never know the right decision until it's too late.  Hindsight sucks!  It's the old dilemma; We just spent how much on repairs?  We should keep the car to get our money out of it!  or; We just spent how much on repairs?  We should sell it now before it happens again!

So, anyone know anyone who wants a 2000 Honda Accord EX-L, 2-Door, leather, 5 speed, sun roof and power everything?  I don't want to sell it to someone I know...  but friends of friends are ok!  ;)