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I was driving through the passes between Washington and Montana and the car started overheating while muscling up a massive hill. This was not a good place for this to be happening as there was hardly anything for miles. I'd lost some coolant somehow so I waited for it to cool down and refilled the radiator with some emergency water I had for just this exact reason. I finally got over the hill but it was still overheating. At some point, my thermostat suddenly shot up and the car just died while I was going 50-60 mph. So, I hitched a ride to the nearest inn and managed to get the car towed there where my dad picked me up with a trailer.
I wrote that out to explain some of the crap I've put this poor car through.
Anyway, I got the car running fine again and a few months later I even drove it 800 miles back home from my dad's and everything went great but now I'm having trouble with it.
I recently started losing power dramatically and quitting at stops. At some point, I couldn't make it home but managed to pull it to the curb and walk. That night, I got a ride back to it and managed to make it home. I replaced the spark plugs and it finally started up and drove fine for about a minute and then it started losing power again.
While replacing the spark plugs, I noticed oil was pooled up in the chambers getting progressively worse from front to back. Also, oil has very obviously been leaking all over the place but it hasn't looked too extreme. Everyone told me replacing the head gaskets was extremely expensive except my uncle who said I can just do it myself for vastly cheaper and learn a lot about the car in the process. I replaced the spark plugs regardless and tried to burn off the oil. I understand this is bad but I'm very hard up for cash and I lost my job because of this. It seemed to work but only for a few minutes. I contacted a mechanic and was told my head gaskets were likely shot but I should take it in and had the codes checked. I can't move the car more than half a mile and I have very little cash so I can't really do that.
So, I'd like some more opinions on this to get a better idea of what's going on. I'm almost ready to order a new gasket set but I'd rather not buy an entire set if I don't need to. The entire set is $30 on ebay so it's not a huge deal but, like I said, I'm broke and jobless for now.
Thank you very much in advance. I'll be keeping my eye on this thread.
I wrote that out to explain some of the crap I've put this poor car through.
Anyway, I got the car running fine again and a few months later I even drove it 800 miles back home from my dad's and everything went great but now I'm having trouble with it.
I recently started losing power dramatically and quitting at stops. At some point, I couldn't make it home but managed to pull it to the curb and walk. That night, I got a ride back to it and managed to make it home. I replaced the spark plugs and it finally started up and drove fine for about a minute and then it started losing power again.
While replacing the spark plugs, I noticed oil was pooled up in the chambers getting progressively worse from front to back. Also, oil has very obviously been leaking all over the place but it hasn't looked too extreme. Everyone told me replacing the head gaskets was extremely expensive except my uncle who said I can just do it myself for vastly cheaper and learn a lot about the car in the process. I replaced the spark plugs regardless and tried to burn off the oil. I understand this is bad but I'm very hard up for cash and I lost my job because of this. It seemed to work but only for a few minutes. I contacted a mechanic and was told my head gaskets were likely shot but I should take it in and had the codes checked. I can't move the car more than half a mile and I have very little cash so I can't really do that.
So, I'd like some more opinions on this to get a better idea of what's going on. I'm almost ready to order a new gasket set but I'd rather not buy an entire set if I don't need to. The entire set is $30 on ebay so it's not a huge deal but, like I said, I'm broke and jobless for now.
Thank you very much in advance. I'll be keeping my eye on this thread.