Should I change my car?

supermassive

So I've had my car about 5 years and it's a little citroen. It's had problems since I bought it and cost me alot of money to fix over the first 2 years, but since then it's been relatively fine other than electrics issues (cheers, France).

The other week my ABS light came on, signalling its death (or mine if I don't look out!) and I really can't justify spending more and more money over the next few years with the inevitable problems that are going to come up.

It's done 156,000 miles, so it's near the end of its life anyway.

I was just looking for advice on whether I should stick with it for another year and pay for it to be fixed, or cut my potential losses and send it to the big scrap yard in the sky..

BeenThroughItAll

You'd condemn it to scrap without even finding out what's wrong?


Madness. Get the problem diagnosed, then worry about it.


It could be something simple and cheap, like a £20 ABS sensor or reluctor ring, or it could be something expensive like an ABS pump; but to just write it off as 'dead' because a warning light's on is crazy.


No idea about your car since you haven't told us anything about it except 'it's a Citroen', but on some vehicles the same warning light can be used to notify of braking system issues across the board, so it may even just be the brake fluid's a bit low due to pad wear and piston extension.

kmb500

The fact a warning light pops up doesn't really mean anything in itself...


Have you even checked the manual to see what it indicates?
And if it something serious, just go to a garage and get a quote for how much it'll be to repair.


What is your car? How old is it?


150,000 is not the "end of its life" even for a cheap French car. You even said yourself it has had no mechanical issues in the past 3 years. So why would the car be on its death bed?


As posted above, I certainly wouldn't consider getting rid of it before even knowing what the problem is?

onomatopoeia99

If the ABS system fails then you won't have ABS. You'll still have brakes though, so the car will still stop. You would need to to be working again for the MOT, but it's not instant death to drive a car without ABS, once upon a time we all used to.

Find out what's wrong with it before consigning it to the scrapyard, unless you particularly want to spend money on a newer car.

flashg67

Depends what you can afford to replace it with. If it will be another 'older' relatively cheap car, you could be buying yourself more trouble. I'd get the current fault at least checked out,