Some recent car trouble reminded me to get comfortable being uncomfortable in uncertain or tough situations.
Car brake light coming on
I ran into some car trouble this last week – my brake lights came on when I was driving home from volleyball practice. Thankfully, I could still brake the car when I was driving on the freeway, but that light scared me the entire ride home.
Now…to give a little context, I drive a 2014 Toyota Prius. It’s got about 215k miles on it.
I took it to the mechanic the next day to get it diagnosed. Turned out that my brake booster was leaking. Unfortunately, the error code the car gave doesn’t tell you which part of the booster system is leaking – Toyota just recommends replacing both components (the master cylinder and the booster). The mechanic quoted me ~$2800 to fix.
$2800. That’s a lot of money…
When I asked the mechanic the expected life of my failing brake components, he said 10 years or about 150k miles. So…a replacement was technically due.
I didn’t expect for this problem to come up. I had been driving the car problem free for so long that I just assumed the car would never have any trouble.
I was a bit stressed financially. I kept thinking about how much this would set me back financially. I just went part time again at work so I wasn’t making as much money. I can’t afford to buy a new car. I also would be paying for fixes that are worth as much, if not more, than the car value (CarMax and Carvana quoted me $1900-$2400 for my car).
I remember talking to my Dad about it. He said the same thing the mechanic had said – these major fixes will eventually happen. It’s just part of owning the car.
Embracing the uncomfortable and moving forward
After the talk, it just hit me – why am I stressing out so much about this? I definitely needed the car so fixing it was the only solution. Something clicked in my head where it just made sense to accept the situation, embrace the outcome of paying the hefty bill, and move on.
Being in uncomfortable situations can really teach you about any weaknesses or blind spots you have in your life. These are things you will need to change and improve on in order to overcome the next uncomfortable situation you get in. Change is uncomfortable but necessary.
Being in this car fix situation made me realize that I really needed to be work on my financial health. Although I could afford to fix the car, I knew that I needed to be more financially fit. This meant having a healthy amount of emergency savings, multiple streams of income, and awareness of where I was spending my money.
I’ve also started wondering what other areas of my life I need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
So end of story…
I called 10 auto shops for quotes because it’s always good to get at least a second opinion…or 10 more opinions in this case. With the exception of one shop, all other shops quoted me anywhere between $2600 – $3200. There was one shop in Phoenix that quoted me $2100.
I took it to that shop (which is the shop you see in the picture). They got my car fixed. My car (which I have now named Peggy) is back on the road. Vroom Vroom.
