+1

My first car cost $100. Putting new tires on it cost more than I could sell the car for, but it was still more practical to buy tires for that than to get a whole 'nother car.

Sounds like there are other issues with the suburbs for you beyond the car thing. Trying to get by w/o a car in true suburban conditions is difficult. Those suburbs were built around the automobile! Perhaps at some point you will move or IPA will set up shop nearby. :)

Get acquainted with Rantwick. He commutes by bike, year-round, in London, ON. He should be good for tips and inspiration.

There is also this thing called a motorcycle - less expensive to operate than a car, faster than a bicycle. Even cheaper to operate is a scooter or moped. Just saying.

I'm going to guess by your Mississauga signature and snow pattern by southern Ontario you mean GTA.

I lived an hour north of TO for six years and I would agree that commuting between cities in those parts would be exceedingly difficult. The GTA suburbs are monstrosities and almost all are cities unto themselves until you get north of Barrie (120km). I have never seen a side street not jammed full of parked cars except 400 series highways and cyclists are not allowed on those.

You would need to be Mad Max to last the year there on a bike. For those who commute inter-city in the GTA my hats are off to you. They are most likely by far the most dangerous streets in the country.

i live in ajax[east gta] and i dont commute year round. my commute is 60km round trip from ajax into scarboro[east toronto] and the traffic and road conditions are bad enough without mother nature taking a kick at me. i find i have issues getting out of bed if im not riding my bike. during the nicer weather im up at 5am every day and ready to go an hour later. nowadays, as the weather gets colder and i ride in less, im barely into my old passat wagon to make it to work on time. i hate winter.

Engine swap perhaps? Perhaps the local highschool auto shop could use a project like that. You are a teacher, yes?

Mary jane after dinner makes me sleep like a baby. When I sleep I sometimes dream about cycling btw.

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.

A manual transmission and good old hand-cranked windows drive the price down, and I've never had a normal manual transmission need more than $600 in repairs.

Pretty much every area has at least one mechanic with some beaters he got stuck with and fixed up. $1200 seems to be the normal price around here for something butt ugly that runs great. If you thought the Plymouth Reliant was ugly when it was new, you should see what these guys sell :D