The 1999 ES300 I inherited from my wife needed some work and I needed it to last me another two to three years, so I had some work done on it by a trusted mechanic near our home. I put almost $1000 in it, but it was paid for and my accident proved to me that it was a well-built automobile. Four months later, on one of the hottest days of the Summer, the water pump went out, spewing steam everywhere and stranding my daughter and me. The water pump wasn’t the only problem. There was a transmission problem as well. The repair bill this time was $2000. Finally, in the Spring of 2012, it began overheating and at times, would not start. The bill this time, not including a rent car was over $400.
This was getting old… and expensive.
We had one car payment we had not anticipated (the Highlander) and although we were paying it off faster than the note required, we still had two years left before it was to be paid off. The dream of a convertible was being dashed by a hard dose of reality. I could not continue to put money into the 1999 ES300 but I also could not afford the type of car I wanted.
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