Driving a damaged car when you can't afford the repairs
Discovering you need a massive list of replacement axle and brake parts can quickly result in a two thousand dollar repair bill. Because you do not have the money for a new down payment, you are forced to risk driving the damaged vehicle around town, hoping it will not break down before you can trade it in for cash.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1replacing the entire differential or axle assembly rather than individual partsDid this help you?
- 2Trading the car in for cashDid this help you?
- 3Limiting driving to just around town for a few weeksDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“some one else said that i would need an axle shaft and bearings if the tube is bent an entire rear axle assembly, rotor, caliper and mounting bracket, rear trailing arm, check the panhard bar and mounts,wheel, and might need more.”source ↗
“It’ll cost me 2k to fix. Likely just going to try and trade it in for some cash. But I’m just wondering if it’s safe to drive at least around town for the next few weeks. I don’t have the money right now to put a down payment on a car. But I also don’t want it to like breakdown on me.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 47How to handle a mechanic who messed up brake repairs
- 41How to pay for unexpected expensive car repairs when broke
- 8Can I fix major car body damage myself?
- 2Upside down on car loan and can't afford repairs
- 14Car repair shop broke my car and wants more money
- 21How to handle random car error codes and weird driving feelings