I don't know what I should do and this website is basically what goes for my social support system these days, so I'd like some advice please.
So I drive a very old car that until recently I didn't use much. It's from 2003 and it has less than 150k miles on it. It has a check engine light that I learned today comes from a tiny crack in the (a?) cylinder head gasket that's causing me to lose coolant. They quoted me 3-4k USD to replace it.
If they said 2k I might have been able to melt my debit and credit cards at the same time MAYBE. But 4k I need a loan for.
It's possible that this place is just a ripoff. I'm partially just talking this out right now so I should really get on the phone and find out if I can find something that won't break me.
Part of why it seems like it might be a ripoff is that I can find the parts (according to my completely uneducated and untrained figuring) on autozone.com for like 250 bucks. Maybe I can just do it myself? Maybe my landlord has tools? Or I can rent some maybe?
The guy at the car doctor said that if I wasn't going to do the repair I should probably trade it in sooner than later while it still holds value. Down this path I might really start crying about needing an adult though. A whole branching tree of decisions to make afterwards.
And to bring up an added complication: part of why I don't have a solid chuck of the downpayment of a house on hand to deal with this is that I was semi-homeless up until three months ago (friday is the anniversary). A downstream complication to that is that I never received my auto registration renewal from the state of CA. And by the time I realized it was a thing I should have had to deal with already, my shit expired. I'm pretty sure they're going to make me do a smog check which requires that I don't have an engine light on. So it's extra fucked to be driving with it right now. Oh and my insurance dropped me over a dispute over late charges I refuse to pay because they didn't tell me I owed them money and sent shit to the wrong address over and over.
So I guess an informal poll:
A: I shop around for a mechanic that's willing to fix my cars for the clothes off my back + fill up my credit card again ( T_T ) IF I CAN FIND ONE (and if not I guess take out a loan)
B: I buy the parts/find the tools and see if it's possible to do it myself, on like, a weekend.
C: I throw in the towel on my car and try to find a replacement somehow despite being broke enough to be here
D: Something I'm not thinking of.
I fucking hate this. I hate cars. I wish I could bike. I wish I could take transit. I hate having this single point of failure in my life that can completely sweep my still shaky legs out from under me, which I just now finally got up onto. I need advice because this decision could literally be the fucking end of the world for me. Yay.
edit: the specific car is a 2003 Suzuki Areio
Hate to be the bearer of not great news here: Replacing a head gasket is feasible for a non mechanic but probably not as a first job. It's going to take removing a lot of hoses, wires, and fasteners, torque specs and torque wrenches, and if done wrong things could become more expensive. They are correct that the engine is on borrowed time if you keep driving it. Can you share the make, model, and engine so we can get a little more specific?
the specific car is a 2003 Suzuki Areio
Further research suggests the timing cover on this motor is a pain in the ass to remove and I'm seeing suggestions that the best way to do this is pulling the motor which definitely places this job outside the scope of a first big job, and goes a long way to explaining the price you were quoted.
What do you think about pour in sealants like steel seal?
I'd say it can't hurt to try, I've never used any pour-in sealants (I'm just a shadetree guy, I don't take my vehicles to mechanics but I've never been trained as one and often my troubleshooting involves replacing a lot of parts before I find the real problem and I often outsource brainpower to my mechanical engineer friend) but I'm pretty skeptical of them. For something like a leaky radiator the various sealant goops for radiators are not so bad, worst case you kind of gum up your coolant passages in the block and have to keep topping off the coolant. For headgaskets, there's just so much heat and pressure, you know? Worth a try but probably not going to fix it.
They do seem to work:
https://youtu.be/q3_kDiQb7lE?si=HzUt--VIlwJw9gZY
This is surprising, I guess the modern stuff has been improved. Looks like this is a solid bet, better than trying to pull the motor in your driveway to do the gasket job for sure
OK, the good news is that looks like a pretty accessible head. You're still going to have to remove/disconnect both the intake and exhaust manifolds and you'll need a shop manual or just torque specs off the internet, as well as a torque wrench (plus all the other tools). If you have access to a decent tool set and a little experience turning wrenches, this might be a one weekend job. Alternatively, find someone local who turns wrenches for fun who is willing to help - might even be able to find someone in a local left org.
edit: off the top of my head I would think you could buy a complete tool set from like harbor freight or the local equivalent, a decent torque wrench (I like Tekton for cheap and reliable) and the HG plus any other incidentals like a new PCV since you're in there, for under a thousand dollars.