Olympia came into my life in October of 1991. Those were shitty times, as I recall. I was 15, and Sam was but a wee babe shitting himself and I had just been forcibly wrested from my comfy home and taken to an ugly-as-shit track house near Mexico which belonged to a man who wouldn't let me hang posters on my bedroom wall. A few months later, my dad died and I had to get my wisdom teeth out. Olympia was my mother's 1992 Toyota Camry, garaged, well-taken-care of, sparkly white, and the only family vehicle my baby bro never vomited in. In 1998, I received a Saturn SL2 for graduating from a schwanky women's college. It was purchased to safely port me daily to The Dictionary, some 20 miles from my dwelling in Flo-Ho, Mass. In 2002, the Camry was sent to Austin to be my car. I named her Olympia (to go with the big K sticker on her heiny). She currently has 126,680 miles on her.

OLY'S LIST OF PROBLEMS 1) AIR CONDITIONING NON-FUNCTIONAL. Dude, I live in Texas, and it gets HOT here, for long stretches of time, like April-October. That is summer 'round these parts. It's humid, too. The car was sent to me with the notion that the busted a/c would be easy to fix, but alas, it is a $1000 job, minimum. As such, I've been sweltering and baking my way through summers here for two years.

2) TRANNY GONNA GO. Around the 120,000 mark on Toyotas, I am told that the transmission must be replaced. Sure enough, Oly's gotten quite jerky when she is changing gears. She is an automatic. She gets jumpy when I put her in drive. And sometimes when I put her in reverse. Her transmission fluid is brown and chunky, meaning it is burning fluid.

3) ELECTRICAL STUFF IS OVER. The power door locks are no longer working. The power windows are slow. A bunch of warning lights don't work anymore. The dome light is finicky. I am not paying to fix any of these things, as they are mere inconveniences.

4) INTERIOR/EXTERIOR RATTY. There are exposed wires, cracks in the dash and gearshift panel. Exterior has some dings and a beautiful memory of sideswiping a dumpster.

If I wanted to sell Olympia, with these problems, I'd could probably get $3000, max. Probably less. However, she needs about $2200 of work to keep her going for, at the most, two more years.

I take the bus to and from work, so I put way less mileage on my car. Maybe about 6000 miles a year, just from driving around Austin and taking that occasional road trip to Houston or middle-of-nowhere Arkansas. Being exiled here in the middle of Texas, there aren't many places one can drive to in less than eight hours that I'd dying to visit.

I spend maybe $400 a year on gas, what with these high prices right now. That's another thing: ideally, I am waiting to purchase a hybrid or electric car, when they come down in price and are more widely available. I think fuel economy is the most important factor. According to fueleconomy.gov, Oly gets 22/28 mpg.

MY OPTIONS:

1) FIX HER. Dump the $2200, drive Oly until my job at the HRC ends (Xmas '05), at which point I am planning three months of international travel.

2) BUY NEW. Take that money and use it as a down payment on a new Corolla or Civic.

3) FIND A USED CAR. Use all of my cash to fund a new car, in the $6-7000 range.

NEW CAR NUMBERS:

6000 down payment 250 monthly payments for 36 months.= $9000 for the year, $6000 for following two years.

FIXING NUMBERS

2200 for repairs new car numbers in a few years down the road

As of now, I am only driving Olympia at night. The 90-degree reign of terror has begun. The busses are nicely air conditioned.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? 12-13 year old car (albeit a reputable model), 127,000 miles (Camry's can go 180,000, easy), blue book value of $2700, needing $2200 of work. Do it or dump it?