I just put $1450 in my '95 Ford Escort a few months ago. Basically I knew of a reputable auto-repair shop that had a wrecked car with the same engine as my ruined one. After some discussion with the mechanic the plan was made to replace my engine. It took them a month to complete the job and I was anxious and frustated, waiting and hoping I was going to have a reliable car in the end. There was a lot of phone calls back and forth and there was this and that issue they were dealing with a any given time. I got a new water pump, timing belt and radiator (when they found out the radiator was shot). Anyway I'm not 100% sure I made the best decision but I didn't have to go into debt and the car runs fine now and I've put about 8000 miles on it since the repair (the "new" motor had 92,000 miles on it). Before the repair I had the front struts replaced (in the spring of this year) and the battery was less than a year old. The 5-speed manual transmission worked fine also. I guess I felt like I "knew what I had" and didn't want to shell out $3000 for a car with 150,000 miles on it and possibly start replacing all kinds of stuff from the get-go.

I looked around to see what kind of used cars I could find and the "cheap" car lots wanted about $3000 for 10-15 year old cars with over 150,000 + miles (this is in extreme southwest Virginia U.S.A.). I've read that you can get the best deal by buying from an individual owner. Anyway I guess you got to know when to let go, and I'm hoping to get about 3.5 more years out of this car, and in the meantime keeping my eye for an early 2000-ish hyandia (?) Accent with maybe 80,000 miles or less for like $3000 (I actually saw one like this in a recent ad but never checked it out).

I guess I told this rambling story to encourage you to weigh your options. If you could find a car from an individual seller for $1500 that isn't exhibiting any obvious problems then that might be a better option than just fixing the transmission on your current iffy ride. Of course a $1500 car (where I live anyway) would probably be pushing around 200,000 miles and maybe you couldn't really hope for more than another 20,000 or so before major problems (I acually had 258,000 miles on my Escort when it expired, probably because I failed to replace a radiator hose.