This is a portion of an email I recently received from my adult daughter who lives in Minneapolis. The referenced vehicles are a '91 Camry and a '96 Explorer.

"We had an interesting adventure getting home from our trip... we drove the Camry because both vehicles seemed to have roughly equal amounts of stuff wrong with them, and the Camry gets (or got, I should say) much better gas mileage than the Explorer. We knew it had had a very slow oil leak, but an additive put in a couple oil changes ago seemed to have mostly taken care of that; we were checking it regularly and everything seemed fine... Then in middle of nowhere Illinois, it started making a terrible noise. Turned out it had somehow lost every last drop of its oil and run dry until it couldn't anymore, and at that point (needless to say) there was nothing to be done for the engine. So, to make a long story short, a really nice guy pulled over and helped us by driving us around to different places for several hours, and we left the Camry at the machine shop it was towed to there, selling it to a mechanic who may try to find a new engine for it.... something which, at cost to us, was nowhere near worth it considering the value of the car (and especially with the added fact of the location of its demise). So, we got a rental car and made it back, miraculously not even losing our hotel reservation that night, and now we're down to one car which was a plan we already had, though obviously not intended to be accomplished in quite this way. Disappointing altogether, but not entirely unexpected, and really the whole thing turned out about as well as could be expected for such a thing. Otherwise, our whole trip went pretty well."

Moral: Don't take anything for granted and check your oil regularly, especially on long trips.

 

or just get a new car and keep it maintained...

 

don't believe that an additive will really cure leaks....

Matt

 

very true...

 

moral of the story, learn to drive on pieces of crap. it has been driven into my skull to check fluid levels atleast once a week. (lets just say my first car, a 1988 jeep comanche that i miss dearly , had a small leak) but that is an awful story to hear. glad everything worked out for them

 

Give a couple of poor college kids on their own a break.

 

i was commenting on your general summary. nothing personal about
your daughter.

"Moral: Don't take anything for granted and check your oil regularly, especially on long trips."