Ask her which would cost more, a transmission service or another car? In the late 90's. me dad tried to justify spending $900 on the manual transmission in hie 89 Ranger. He told me that the cheapest car that you can buy is the one that you already own. Ok, that made a lot of sense to me. Of course, being my dad, about six months later, he traded the Ranger in on a 96 Explorer. Thanks for the life lesson, Dad! I still go by what he tried to teach me though.
It was probably 4x this much, but to sum up:
Me: You should probably have it serviced...
Her:
*looks shocked, mouth agape*
Me: ...it'll be about $100-150
Her: The car is so old, it's not worth it anymore!!
Me: It's not a big deal, just wait until you have the money. It's fine to drive, luckily I caught it in time, but the fluid is a bit dark. I suggest having it serviced when you can afford to since it might have gotten burned from being low.
Me:
*Shows her the dipstick fluid vs fresh fluid from a bottle*
Me: The trans isn't acting up any, so I doubt any damage was done. So don't worry about it right now. It was caught in time.
She hears: "the car will explode if you drive it"
Her: No more of you driving it then!
Me: Uh.... I said it's fine to drive, just have it serviced when you can afford it. Keeping the fluid at the proper level is the most important thing.
Her: Show me where to check it.
*complains about being out in the cold*
Me:
*tries to explain HOW to check it, not just where*
Her: Just show me where!! You're going off on all this unrelated stuff!
Me: You can't just check it willy nilly! you have to do it a certain way.
*tries to explain again*
Her: It's too cold out here! I'm going in! Show me WHERE to check it!
Me: ......
Me: Again you have to follow certain steps to do it. I'm trying to tell you.... *tries to explain for a third time*
Her: Well write it down for me then! *complains about the cold again, walking away*
Mind you SHE came outside when she saw me with the hood up on her car, to which I had immediately told her why. I didn't force her to come outside. I would have gone in to explain what was going on, but yeah, it seems like sometimes she comes outside just to complain about how cold it is outside.
She rolled her eyes when I said I drove it about an extra 10 miles to be sure I had the trans hot enough to check the fluid level, as if I just cost her a fortune. (Gas is $1.97 here) The owner's manual says to drive at least 20 miles, but I knew she'd REALLY freak out if I did that.
So yeah, that's what I have to deal with after saving her transmission from destruction for the cost of $5 for a quart of Mercon V and half a gallon of gas. Plus about an hour of my time, slowly adding it to be sure I didn't overfill, going to the store, buying more fluid, and ensuring the level was in the crosshatch area.
Plus I will be the one working on her car to fix the hose leak. So free repair labor too.
But... she seems to have been gouged for a new alternator and battery within the past few months, to the tune of $600. They must have charged $200 for the alternator, $200 labor, and $200 for the battery. The alternator is effing EASY on that car, there's no excuse for it, quite frankly. So she's still paying off her credit card from that repair bill. So when I suggested a $100-150 trans service sometime in the next year, she freaked out like she tends to do, even if she doesn't have a fresh $600 repair wound.