My son R, who is living with me for the summer, has been trying to figure out how much he needs to pay for a year in college at the school he's attending in the fall. His opportunities for earning money while he's living here for the summer were limited until he got his own car. He spent most of his savings and borrowed some from me to buy a car last month. Our mechanic even gave it a thumbs up.

Only now it's developed transmission problems. The transmission repair place says it needs a new transmission, which will cost at least two grand. The car is only worth a little over $2000. So basically we (mostly he) may be out what he paid for the car and paid to get it licensed and titled. We're going to talk to the transmission place some more and ask what are the chances they can do a lesser repair for a fraction of the cost to keep it running for a little longer.

If he doesn't have a car it's going to impair his ability to work and earn money here during the rest of the summer, meaning my ex and I will have to haul him around and/or he'll have to borrow the van primarily used by our daughter. He says he can get by without a car once he's at grad school, but here again if he needs to work to earn extra money, not having a car is going to limit his options.