New car or not???

I have a 99 ranger that blew the fuck up yesterday. It needs a motor. Its about $3000 for a motor including everything i need. It has 240k on it. Here are my options. Fix it or buy a new/used truck.
Story is this. Truck isn't worth 3k. I don't have 3k laying around. And i dont have the $ for another car payment. My credit isn't the best in the world. So, what would you do and why??

 

Do you have any transportation alternatives while you save the $$$ for a reasonable used car?

 

Get a loan from a credit union for a inexpensive used truck in the sub $5k range. Just know what you are looking for and what is good.

Use a bicycle. If something happens to my car, that is what I would do and just rent a vehicle the few times I really need one. But I don't come close to driving 240k in 14 years either.

 

Really tough one. I try to explain this to people and they never seem to understand. It doesn't matter what kind of vehicle you have. A car is expensive. If you buy an expensive car and don't spend expensive money to keep it expensively maintained you will wind up with an expensive hunk of metal. The same for an inexpensive car. There will always be a monthly expensive issue with it that requires an expensivefix.

I wonder if you catch the drift.

Your only option is a loan. You live in GA? I am to understand their transportation system is slightly better than NC. Which is to say it slightly sucks less. If you require reliable transportation in order tofeed your family, you need to get to Free Annual Credit Report and see if you have any derogatory shit that you need to either contest or take care of.

Go there now. Report back and I might have more rambling for you to read.

 

Any backyard auto mechanics that owe you a favor? Can you kiss up to one?
Used 99 ranger engine
Swapping out an engine is outside of my skill set; but I've helped friends do it.

 

No.

 

Alot. 20 miles one way to work. Alot of other driving. Not really any budget just cheap as possible and good ( which don't exist)

 

Sir, i will go there in the morning, sir.

 

I built transmissions for 10 Years. I can do it, just dont want to put more money in it than it is worth

 

Too bad you are so far away...my 99 Ranger sits in the driveway for weeks on end sometimes. Drive train is great, body is rusting out.
Is the $3k the price from a junk yard? Sounds kind of high if it is. Not exactly an exotic motor...they built what...about a gajillion Taurus' (Taurii?) with that 3.0L.

 

If you want a 96 Chevy S10 motor, I have the pieces to one. It is all torn apart on my garage floor like the aftermath of a plane crash though.

 

I haven't had good luck with re-built engines..So I highly recommend a new/used car..as too how to get one...nothing that anybody as said comes to mind. Sory I couldn't be more help.

 

I'm guessing its different over there, over here in the UK if my car dies I can get a run around for about £800, (or less for a real rust bucket!) a run around tends to last a year or two with a little bit of maintenance. My sister sold her Corsa for £400 and its still running over a year later, it just needed some fibre-glassing (anyone can do that with a little bit of patience) and its not the prettiest car but it still works mechanically!

 

True

 

Even if you leave it unlocked, I guess no one can steal it.
I buy cheap. One I have now is small, a ford fiesta, cost £850 plus £250 for rear wheel arches to be welded/repaired and made to look like new. Last car cost me about £400, and every year she would go for her road test, and the garage people would laugh and rub their hands with glee - and she would sail through. She was a 1986 suzuki swift convertable. I had her for years and got £400 back when I traded her in - which I wish I hadnt, she was my friend and had a name, and I knew where the spiders lived. Just as expensive doesnt always mean good, cheap doesnt always mean crap.
I used to cycle to work, ten miles each way, sometimes twice daily. Ralphie, you will get buns of steel. Women will lean out of cars and call 'wish I was the saddle'. Isnt that right Azu

 

It would be like breaking half bad. Because he didn't cook it.