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Re: Remanufactured Engine
In a roundabout way, you are asking 'at what point does it stop making financial sense to repair a car'.
This is a good question. Most people with older cars must decide if the rest of the car has enough life left to reasonably justify a major repair.
In my opinion, when a car costs more to fix that it costs to make payments on a new similar car, or cost more than a similar used car, it's time to replace it.
Of course, this is a difficult thing to estimate. Since I have owned and driven many older cars and trucks, I make sure I know the vehicle very well, including all its problems. I can roughly guess when the problem areas will become acute and act accordingly.
For example, my '87 Mustang needed a new starter motor at about 210 k km. It was rust free, ran very well and other than worn tires, had no appreciable problems. So a new starter was justified.
My '88 Bonneville also needed a new starter at 256k km. It also needed new tires, brakes, CV joints, had a loose steering rack, an almost irreparible camshaft position sensor problem, noisy trans oil pump, nonfunctional power window, one stuck door and a severely rusted and broken subframe mount.
Although it still ran and drove when the starter broke, its accumulated problems would cost far more than buying a much better used car. So it got scrapped.
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