So, I know my car burns oil. It's got 176k miles, for cryin' out loud! Unfortunately, it seems the only time I think to check it is when I'm rolling down the highway. So the other day, I'm on my way to work, thinking about the fact that I haven't checked the oil in a while, when I started to hear a light ticking sound from the engine bay. I thought it was the old VW I was passing, but once the VW was gone, the noise persisted. Got to work and ended up putting a couple of quarts of oil in the car.
The noise went away, and everything was sounding pretty good until a couple of days later, when the noise came back with a vengeance. Dropped the car off at a local garage, and got a call this morning from the mechanic telling me the car needs an engine. Now... I know it was my own neglect that put me in this situation, and I'm prepared to deal with that. Thing is, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I could tell him to go ahead with the cam chains and tensioners and hope he's wrong about noise in the back and top of the engine, spending about $1300 to do the job, or I can buy a used engine that I found about an hour away with 41k miles and spend about $2000. Or, I can cut my losses, and sell the car with a running, but noisy engine for whatever I can get out of it. I've owned the car for 3 years next week, and I like it well enough, but with the miles, It's worth MAYBE $2500 with a good running, quiet engine. I don't want to scrap it, it's just recently started to develop rust bubbles over the front wheel arches, the car's too good for that. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to do the cam chain tensioners myself, or I'd consider it. Just too much going on to let the car suck up that much of my life. Anyone in/near Cincinnati want a good deal on a whale?

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