i have the worst luck with my car

[Chad]

[rant] I have the worst luck..... I bought my protege 2 years ago off a friend of mine for 700 dollars ( he was going to Oklahoma for the airforce had 2 get rid of it) . and right now i am so sick of it , it always seems to have something wrong with it. When i first bought the car the thing wouldnt stay charged, so i replaced the battery and the alternator that was solved. Then my interior gets spraypainted white... i respray all that black... ( looks ****ty), then i put a system in the protege and just my luck it kills my alt again, so i have to replace that. THen i get a huge whole in my flex pipe and ofcorse when i replaced that a stud broke so i left it there and bolted up the rest. i buy this foglight grill and its to powerful for the fog setup that comes with the car, so i replaced it all and did new wiring and i before i put electrical tape around the connectors to make sure that nothing goes wrong i wanted to test it 2 see if it was going to work, it does i move the grill just a little bit and bam hte pos and neg touch smoke goes EVERYWHERE go to turn the switch off its hot as **** i burn my hand so i had to rush and take the neg cable off the battery. So i ran all new wires and it works great now. Now i go to a muffler shop to have them take that broken stud out and put a new one in, and they said they cant do it, Because I have a gas leak. and then they pointed out that i need like 2 more gaskets my cat is leaking, by teh last exhuast hanger my exhuast is rusted almost all the way through and its about 2 fall off, and not 2 mention that my 2 rear struts are leaking and im goign to have to replace them. [/rant]
i just dont want this protege anymore im deff thinking about selling my garnish and my grill

[XLerate93]

I bought my protege 2 years ago off a friend of mine for 700 dollars

I think that was the start of your problems, hooking up a $700 car.

[JesseSays]

You bought an old car for 700 bucks, and most of your problems have been issues that you've tried to modify something without the proper knowledge.

If that's the case, any car you get will have problems.

:shrug:

[lscrx]

I think that was the start of your problems, hooking up a $700 car.

You shoulda done like me... bought a $750 Protege

[MazKid]

How did the interior just suddenly become spraypainted white, and why did you think spraypainting it black would help?
What foglight grill do you have? '94 style? I'll buy it if it is.

Just stay with it. My car was screwed as well, needed a clutch, the back tires were shot, the defroster switch had melted to the connector, had 3 exhaust leaks(missing gaskets and it still has one on the manifold I think), and the moron that put the exhaust on it before I got the car left the O2 sensor off, it melted aganst the manifold, that caused the CEL to come on and hesitation, and they broke one of the lower manifold bolts and replaced it with a carrage bolt or something. The wheels were so far off ballance that the car would vibrate like mad, 1 wheel needed 4oz to be ok, the back tires were pretty bald and warped, the brake rotors were warped and whoever did the brakes before had pads on the front that only covered 2/3 of the rotor surface(they were small pads, maybe they'd stop a gocart ok but not a Protege). Misc little stuff adds to that, and with all of the OEM Mazda parts I got as well as junkyard parts the bill should be around $800, and that's with my dad's discount on the parts and ofcourse no labor cost, but if there was labor alone would be over $3K.
But you know what? My car drives great. It drove like crap when I got it, but now it's nice. Just stay with yours and you should beable to get it nice again.
Ohh, and go to a junkyard and take all of the interior peices you spraypainted. And post pics of this spraypainted interior, I can't imagine how bad it is.

[jnorion]

spraypainted interior

[MazKid]

Oh. That's not that bad.

[XLerate93]

That is ****ing horrible.

[Chad]

its not that bad, but its the fact that it happend, haha it was all over my one door all over my center console on the windshield on the window, ebrake seatbelt buckles misc splatter all over..

but im not that worried about the interior its hte exterior.., all the rust. on hte underbody of hte car ... idk what im going to , prolly just save up a little while and see what other cars i could afford or maybe fix this whole thing who knows

[Kevin]

save yo money, fix it to make it legal and **** the other ****.. your car may be further gone than you have first imagined.. lord knows. it's a depressing thought, i know, my protege was a piece of **** after i was done with it, but when i bought the damn thing.. MAN was she pristine.. not a dent nor scratch.. $10,000 dollars and 2 1/4 years later, she was junked. ask anybody who's seen my sorry ass car and the way i neglected her. point being, i paid 6 times what you bought your protege for, and sadly enough, the resale on a junked out protege with a blown trans is about $75 bucks.. the reimbursement i was paid for towing the mother :p:.
kevin