Help replace my clunker
I'm Brian Nicholson, a 34 year old man in Jefferson City, Missouri -- and that picture is my current car, a 1988 Mercury Grand Marquis. It was cheap (well, at the time, until stuff started going wrong with it), was getting me from point A to point B.
The reason it looks in the condition it does is because of an accident where the person in front of me suddenly slammed their brakes at a yield sign after having already yielded -- my brakes were not strong enough to achieve stoppage at warp speed. The turn signal broke, the grill is being held on with packing tape, chunks of the body are ripped, & my hood will not go down all the way.
As if this wasn't enough, what I've already been dealing with is getting worse -- a steering fluid leak, the brake system seeming to require my foot pressure earlier and earlier, a fuel system problem causing it to stall out at times, and an A/C that does not work (summer was terrible...). The repairs that the car needs are easily more than the car itself is worth.
Further problem: my registration runs out at the end of this month. In my state, that means to renew it I'd need to take the car for an inspection. An inspection which I know for a fact it will not pass. Which means my only option left is to get something else that will pass one. Unfortunately, due to debts I've incurred over time to keep a roof over my head & my lights on (my complex considers having no power to be a lease violation) during darker times, I have nothing left for such a thing after expenses, and cannot borrow for it because of what I'm already paying back. My frustrations with those have been enough as it is, but realizing that just when I would prefer to be looking into possibly better employment opportunities elsewhere I instead am staring down the barrel of not having transportation for even what I already have is the last straw. I already have never taken stress well, and honestly don't know what I will do if I cannot get past this at least, so I'm reaching out for some extent of saving grace.
What this is for is so that this car -- which, again, cannot pass a required inspection for the registration renewal, and as a result will be illegal for me to drive come October 1st -- can be replaced by *ANYTHING* used that will pass one. The goal amount isn't a hard & fast "I must absolutely get this amount", but it would mean with that plus any scrap value I can get for the clunker I'd be able to go get something that would easily pass an inspection & cover my fees for doing so, and I could actually entertain thoughts of opportunities further distances away (since this car has gotten worse I've been afraid to even *try* going out of town with it, which derails interviews that aren't local). It'd be a first step out of the mud that I've been stuck in the past few years to have one less expense tearing me to pieces, and I'd practically owe you my life.
