about 2 years ago I bought a 2018 CR-V EXL, had roughly 97k on it. well maintained, no major issues. even met the people who owned it before me. nice older couple, told me what shop they had it serviced at and all that good stuff.
anyways, fast forward to Nov of last year. coming home from work I hit a big mf’er of a raccoon. and then not long after that I started having issues…. Christmas tree of lights came on the dash. took it to autozone (cause it was a Friday night after 6pm) they read the codes and said it was throwing a misfire in cylinder 2. got it into a shop the next morning, they told me fuel injector. I decided to take it to the dealership since when I got it they had to replace the fuel pump on a recall. figured if I can get the work covered why not.
they said they wouldn’t do anything unless they could read the codes themselves. fine. I drive it with no issues until early January, all the lights come on again so I take it to the dealership. they have it for about a day investigating everything. they come back and tell me the head gasket is failing and they need to send it out to get worked on. it’ll be 6k.
I don’t have those funds liquid so I took the car to think about what I was gonna do. in the meantime I have no issues until almost the end of March when it starts randomly overheating on me (of course on a Friday afternoon). so I carefully monitor the temp and get it to the shop. they came back and said the coolant is leaking, they assume into the engine, but without doing a couple hours of diagnostic they won’t know for sure. money is tight. so after talking with them and discussing options. one of which is an engine replacement for 5k. I take the car and watch everything closely. no issues for a couple weeks until last night on my way to work. check engine light starts flashing and it goes into limp mode (I’m like a block from work). I’m able to get into the lot and park at work. arranged a ride home just incase the thing doesn’t want to behave for me. but I was able to make it home with no issues this morning
this thing has been fine until 6mo ago. it’s now at just under (literally) 120k miles. I had planned on this being my car for hopefully a decade or two. but now….
to fix or to trade?