You ever make a little mistake that turns into a big problem, which snowballs into an avalanche of more mistakes and more problems so fast it makes your head spin? I had one of those in November. It's kind of a long story, and ultimately only the consequences are important, so you can skip to the end if you want.
My car is a 2012 Cruze Eco, with 80k miles. It's in great shape. It's probably the best car for road trips I've ever had. I made a road trip up to see my parents in Oregon for Thanksgiving. I like to explore new routes on my road trips, so I was taking the scenic route back along highway 140 through southern Oregon, which I've never done before. There's not much civilization along that road. About 400 miles in, I passed by Denio Junction, thinking I should get gas. Was that even a gas station, there? I couldn't tell. I decided I was okay; I knew I was about 80 miles from a Shell station north of Winnemucca, and I went 530 miles on my last tank without coming close to running out.
That was my little mistake. 40 miles later, the car dinged at me. "Engine power reduced," the screen said. Then, it died. I slowly rolled to a stop on an empty highway in remote northern Nevada (right about here). No gas, no phone signal.
I managed to flag down a westbound car willing to take me (and my two dogs) back to Denio for gas. It turns out there was a single gas pump there, the only one for nearly 100 miles around. The attached restaurant/store had no jerry cans for sale, though. The lady running the store had a look out back, and managed to find one in a shed, which I bought from her. That was my next mistake.
It took nearly an hour to find someone willing to pick me up and take me, my dogs, and my gas back to my car. More than three hours after running out of gas, I emptied the 2-gallon tank into the car, and fired it up again.
It ran, but boy, it had hardly any power. The "Engine power reduced" message never went away. I figured it had entered some kind of "limp-home" mode when I first ran out of gas. I could barely keep up with traffic once I turned south on 95. About 30 miles after running out of gas, I ran out again. Two gallons of gas gone in 30 miles. Luckily, I rolled to a stop about a quarter-mile from the Shell station I was originally shooting for out there in the remote high desert. I hiked over and re-filled my jerry can.
But the car wouldn't start. I managed to get it to rev once, which let out a huge cloud of blue smoke. Then it would start no more. And my phone still wouldn't work.
I hiked back to the gas station, and got the attendant to call a tow for me. I was only 20 miles north of Winnemucca, which is a small town, but it's on I-80, so it has plenty of gas, food, and service stations.
It was Sunday, so I spent the night in a cheap motel, waiting for Monday. The mechanic there drained the remaining bad gas (that was the problem, bad gas) from the lines, and replaced the spark plugs, which were choked with carbon. They assumed it was two-stroke gas. The car still puffed blue smoke from the exhaust, but it ran. We assumed it was residual 2-stroke oil in the filter and lines. It wasn't. Yet another little mistake.
I continued home, sticking to the well-traveled Highway 95. The car would occasionally lag and puff a cloud of blue smoke if I hit the gas hard, but I still assumed it was oil in the gas.
400 miles later, in Beatty, the car dinged again, demanding that I shut it down immediately. Low oil pressure! Small miracle, I just happened to be next to a gas station. Imagine, that could have been two tows in two days.
It took three whole quarts to get it back to the top half of the dipstick indicator. This was bad. Not wanting to spend another night in a cheap motel, I bought two more quarts and kept going, driving gently. This turned out to be an okay decision, my first in a while. The car lost only half a quart more in the remaining 400 miles to Phoenix.
I pretty much left the car alone out of disgust for the next month, using my bike to get to work and pick up groceries. Oil was dripping from the throttle body and the intercooler. I was hoping it was somehow a PCV issue, even though I had installed Xtreme's retrofit immediately after buying the car. No luck, the PCV system was fine. I finally did a compression test last weekend (the new spark plugs were gross again, #4 was the worst). The results:
Cylinder 1: 210
Cylinder 2: 182
Cylinder 3: 218
Cylinder 4: 80
I doubt it had been 2-stroke gas in the jerry can. It was probably really old, or had water in it, or both. Whatever it was, it killed my engine. One mistake after another.
I took it to a mechanic anyway, since I'm no professional, but they agreed with my results. It was time to rebuild or replaced.
The shop quoted $4250 to replace the engine, and $850 more to replace the turbo while they're at it. That was... a little more than I expected, to say the least. I live in an apartment, so I don't have the space or the tools to do the kind of work the car needs now. I thought it over for the rest of the day, slept on it, and decided against dumping the car as a "mechanic's special" and replacing it. I'll pony up to get it fixed, but my question to all of you is, does $5000 sound at all reasonable? Is there any possible cheaper solution?
One thing's for sure: I'll never pass up a gas station in the middle of nowhere again. $4.50 a gallon isn't so bad, now that know what the alternative can be like...
My car is a 2012 Cruze Eco, with 80k miles. It's in great shape. It's probably the best car for road trips I've ever had. I made a road trip up to see my parents in Oregon for Thanksgiving. I like to explore new routes on my road trips, so I was taking the scenic route back along highway 140 through southern Oregon, which I've never done before. There's not much civilization along that road. About 400 miles in, I passed by Denio Junction, thinking I should get gas. Was that even a gas station, there? I couldn't tell. I decided I was okay; I knew I was about 80 miles from a Shell station north of Winnemucca, and I went 530 miles on my last tank without coming close to running out.
That was my little mistake. 40 miles later, the car dinged at me. "Engine power reduced," the screen said. Then, it died. I slowly rolled to a stop on an empty highway in remote northern Nevada (right about here). No gas, no phone signal.
I managed to flag down a westbound car willing to take me (and my two dogs) back to Denio for gas. It turns out there was a single gas pump there, the only one for nearly 100 miles around. The attached restaurant/store had no jerry cans for sale, though. The lady running the store had a look out back, and managed to find one in a shed, which I bought from her. That was my next mistake.
It took nearly an hour to find someone willing to pick me up and take me, my dogs, and my gas back to my car. More than three hours after running out of gas, I emptied the 2-gallon tank into the car, and fired it up again.
It ran, but boy, it had hardly any power. The "Engine power reduced" message never went away. I figured it had entered some kind of "limp-home" mode when I first ran out of gas. I could barely keep up with traffic once I turned south on 95. About 30 miles after running out of gas, I ran out again. Two gallons of gas gone in 30 miles. Luckily, I rolled to a stop about a quarter-mile from the Shell station I was originally shooting for out there in the remote high desert. I hiked over and re-filled my jerry can.
But the car wouldn't start. I managed to get it to rev once, which let out a huge cloud of blue smoke. Then it would start no more. And my phone still wouldn't work.
I hiked back to the gas station, and got the attendant to call a tow for me. I was only 20 miles north of Winnemucca, which is a small town, but it's on I-80, so it has plenty of gas, food, and service stations.
It was Sunday, so I spent the night in a cheap motel, waiting for Monday. The mechanic there drained the remaining bad gas (that was the problem, bad gas) from the lines, and replaced the spark plugs, which were choked with carbon. They assumed it was two-stroke gas. The car still puffed blue smoke from the exhaust, but it ran. We assumed it was residual 2-stroke oil in the filter and lines. It wasn't. Yet another little mistake.
I continued home, sticking to the well-traveled Highway 95. The car would occasionally lag and puff a cloud of blue smoke if I hit the gas hard, but I still assumed it was oil in the gas.
400 miles later, in Beatty, the car dinged again, demanding that I shut it down immediately. Low oil pressure! Small miracle, I just happened to be next to a gas station. Imagine, that could have been two tows in two days.
It took three whole quarts to get it back to the top half of the dipstick indicator. This was bad. Not wanting to spend another night in a cheap motel, I bought two more quarts and kept going, driving gently. This turned out to be an okay decision, my first in a while. The car lost only half a quart more in the remaining 400 miles to Phoenix.
I pretty much left the car alone out of disgust for the next month, using my bike to get to work and pick up groceries. Oil was dripping from the throttle body and the intercooler. I was hoping it was somehow a PCV issue, even though I had installed Xtreme's retrofit immediately after buying the car. No luck, the PCV system was fine. I finally did a compression test last weekend (the new spark plugs were gross again, #4 was the worst). The results:
Cylinder 1: 210
Cylinder 2: 182
Cylinder 3: 218
Cylinder 4: 80
I doubt it had been 2-stroke gas in the jerry can. It was probably really old, or had water in it, or both. Whatever it was, it killed my engine. One mistake after another.
I took it to a mechanic anyway, since I'm no professional, but they agreed with my results. It was time to rebuild or replaced.
The shop quoted $4250 to replace the engine, and $850 more to replace the turbo while they're at it. That was... a little more than I expected, to say the least. I live in an apartment, so I don't have the space or the tools to do the kind of work the car needs now. I thought it over for the rest of the day, slept on it, and decided against dumping the car as a "mechanic's special" and replacing it. I'll pony up to get it fixed, but my question to all of you is, does $5000 sound at all reasonable? Is there any possible cheaper solution?
One thing's for sure: I'll never pass up a gas station in the middle of nowhere again. $4.50 a gallon isn't so bad, now that know what the alternative can be like...
Those last-chance gas stations were the only thing I saw for about 300 miles. It's a pretty remote part of the country.
