Stranded in Houston

BurbMan wrote:
Problem is that your current truck is not worth much in its current state. You're either going to spend the $7000 to fix it or sell it as a non-running truck for $7000 less than it would be worth running. Either way the $7000 is gone. Also need to consider if the transmission is original with 200K miles on it, it's likely to be next.

Driving a new truck doesn't mean that it will be trouble-free, except you have the warranty to back you up.

Assuming the rest of the truck is in decent shape, the best bang for your buck is to bulletproof the engine, pull the trans and have it rebuilt and address anything else marginal. You may wind up with $10-12k in the truck, but it will go another 200k miles if you want it to. Lots cheaper than a new one. Buy one that's 2 or 3 years old and you could be in this spot a year from now.

Unless you have some extra cabbage laying around and just want a new truck, that's another story.

I certainly am not rolling in cash at the moment. We spent all of our emergency funds getting it "fixed" while on vacation. If I do decide to keep it, I don't even know how I'm going to pay for the repairs. It will take me a few months to save it up.

Thanks to all of you for being a sounding board, though.