Originally Posted by
breathesrain
I have a 6 year old crappy wal mart bike. I really don't want to buy a new one, but this one seems to be falling apart...right now the rear tire is scraping the frame. It looks like the rear axle might be bent, but i'm not sure. The bike is a "PK7 Vertical", whatever that is. it's a mountain bike. I'm pretty sure they still sell the same basic bike, but i got this one about 6 years ago. The gears are messed up too, but it's the wheel rubbing up against the frame that causes the most problems. What should I do? Buy a bike on craigslist of something for cheap, try to buy a new axle, or what? The back brakes are screwed up too [the pull-wire seems to be rusted and won't move.]
Vertical is one of Dynacraft's brands along with Magna and Next and a couple of others.
It probably is more expensive to repair via a shop than replace. If you can repair it yourself, that may be another story.
You might try breaking free the rear brake cable with some penetrating oil, but if rusted so bad it can't operate it probably will bind a lot and fail to release so the cable probably will need replacing.