It could happen to you......

[thstone]

I am on engine #4. After the failure of engine #1 and the failure of engine #2, it becomes much less of an emotional impact and I have come to realize that its just the way it goes with these cars - the engines are a replacement item and I treat them as disposable. Thus, I keep a spare engine on hand to immediately swap-in since the current engine could fail at any time.

While there are a LOT of ways that an engine can fail, it is surprising and rare that your engine failed with less than 50K miles.

Plan for the best but prepare for the worst. My advice to everyone is to start saving NOW into a replacement engine fund so when it happens you have the money (and the mindset) to weather the storm.

Why? Because there is no other car that you can buy for less than $10K and have this much fun. Over 5 years, even if you put in $2K per year for repairs/maintenance and have to replace the engine once for $4K-$6K, you're still only in for a total of ~$25K and there is no other car that you can buy that will deliver this much enjoyment for that little of money. And after 5 years, you can still sell the car for $5K and have spent only $20K total.