Well, to be blunt, I'm gettin real fed up with this car right now. If you all recall, just last month my transmission blew up. Had to go through the hassle of driving all over the state, waiting for new parts, hoping it all would work right and all that, in the end spent around $2600 for everything and was in the shop for 3 weeks. Cool, now I can cruise again. Not quite. 2 weeks later a nice snow storm hits, I slide into a curb, bend some stuff....crap (I know thats not the cars fault but bare with me). So fast forward to wednesday of this week. Get the new control arm fixed.

Awesome! My car is back! Drive home, notice when I hit the gas, the pulls right but the wheel goes left slightly and also hear some nice thunking when I let off the gas or hit bumps. Awesome what's this now? Well I still don't know, guessing the tie rods are bent and we looked over it. Oh well, I'll fix them monday. So here I am today. Show up at work and happen to look down, my battery light is on? Oh great...maybe it's just low cause of the cold. So after work I go on the hunt for an AutoZone to replace this crappy duralast cause it has a 2 year warranty. Well after 25 miles and 6 Advance Auto's later, I find an AutoZone. Thier tester is broke....grrrrrr (extremely irritated from the drive and idiots in traffic). So I have to pull my battery in an ice covered parking to take inside. Battery is reading low so we put it on the charger till it was fully charged. Put it back in out in the freezing cold only to find my battery light came right back on!! [chair] They tested it and three of the people there all said theres a very good chance my alternator is going out...freakin spectacular! Now not only do I have to fix the tie rods my stupid self looked over, but now another stupid alternator. This alt and battery arent even 2 years old! What makes this even more of a pain is having to remove the supercharger to get to the alternator.

Now I know these are just a few problems recently but I'm kinda wondering when they will end? It's just been one thing after another. My car now has 89K miles on it and in that time I have replaced more than just your average up keep and maintence. I take great care of my car but I'm just getting fed up with this car. I hardly even enjoy driving it anymore cause there is always something I need to fix and also because of my finacial situation, I have little to no money and have had to borrow money left and right just to fix things. I'm kinda at my wits end with it and soon as I get it all fixed I'm going to discuss things with my family and possibly get rid of it. As much as I love it, I'm afraid I'll end up hating it if I keep it. Now don't get me wrong it's a great car once I get what needs fixed, fixed. But it just somehow has lost it's spark it had with me. I'm probably going to be taking it near as I can back to stock and putting it up for sale. The blower may or may not come off depending if the buyer wants it or not. I'll keep you posted but I just had to vent my frustration which still didn't begin to scratch the surface in this post.

That sucks to hear. G/L with whatever you decide to do. I'm also considering selling my car for some of the same stupid reasons. I know exactly how you feel.[dunno]



Edit: My buddies battery light came on in his SVT and he didnt investigate it and 3 days later his alternator actually blew up.

Yea that sucks. I'm just worried that I won't be able to get rid of it from a financial stand point. Also, since it's pretty heavily modded, both inside and out, that it could hurt my chances of selling it unless the buyer liked all what I've done, not to mention a few cosmetic things. I guess time will tell what happens.

as far as the battery light, check the connector on the alt that has a couple of wires. heard the wires can break or come loose causing this.
one other thing is to loosen where the batt grounds to the tranny housing and clean it. the connections left exposed to the elements . the connection is also three dissimilar metals bolted together which will react to each other after awhile.

Well, after charging the battery and heading to my buddies shop to fix it yesterday. It died and I was stranded on the side of the road, in the freezing cold waiting for a tow truck for literally over 5 hours. I may kill someone at AAA soon, I hate those people. Also doesn't help me feel any better about the car. This is the 7th time since I've had it that I've had to have it towed cause it broke or left me stranded.

Damn $2600 for a tranny? You can get used ones on ebay for 400-500 all the time.

Damn, talk about a long string of bad luck. And expensive bad luck too. I can understand if you don't trust owning another Focus anytime soon, if ever. Although at the same time I think this is just a case of having a combination of bad repair shop service and owning a lemon that might've lead you to this. It can happen to any car, really.

But I'd probably do the same thing if my car was burning up my wallet and leaving me stranded on the road like that. Why take chances, ya know? I can't blame you at all. Good luck in trying to find a solution that works for you.

Damn $2600 for a tranny? You can get used ones on ebay for 400-500 all the time.

No the trans was $1200 for an 04 with 9K miles, $2600 was for install, new clutch and everything. Unfortunately, I'm kinda scarred to think the synchro's on it are bad or the linkage is bent or somethin. And yea, tell me about a string of bad luck, since x-mas. It's been one thing after another it seems. I'm hopin this string is over, I'd love to keep the car, but after all this. It seems to have lost some of it's charm to me. Not to say it's not an awesome car, but lately WRX wagons really have gotten my attention.

I'd rather have an WRX wagon (my fav bodystyle of the WRXs!!!) with a little higher car payment than prob after prob.

I've got to go out and get a new battery tomorrow too. I went out yesterday morning after the son of a gun was completely dead. It didn't even have enough juice for me to unlock the doors with the fob.