dazedandconfused

Actors: Wilson Luke,Jay Lacopo,Affleck Ben,Lewis Phill,DeKay Tim,Pitts Greg,Federman Wayne,Schwartz Mike,Matarazzo Neal,Lau Jim,Lorenzo Blas,Comedy,Romance,

Why Did My Car Die On The Highway?
I have a 1995 Ford Escort sedan with about 139,000 miles on the clock. Other than some normal wear and tear, the car seems like it’s been holding up fine.

The head has a tiny crack in it and has since I bought the car (at about 102,000 miles), but it only seems to leak a tiny amount of coolant and only once the car is heated up. I also recently had a tune up done, I had the brake lines replaced, and had the car inspected (first place I took it to wanted $1,500 for repairs to pass it, second place said nothing was wrong with it except the support bar was going and would need to be replaced at some point).

Today I was driving the car to work and all of a sudden I thought I heard a sound like I was running over tiny pebbles which were bouncing off the under-carriage. Immediately after that, I noticed my car was losing power. I quickly put the accelerator to the floor, but that didn’t change anything. I began coasting over to the breakdown lane, and when I took my foot off the accelerator slightly, the car pretty much died. I didn’t lose power, the CD player still worked, power steering and power brakes both worked, however the engine just seemed… dead. After I’d parked I tried turning the car on again, and the engine makes noise, but it doesn’t sound like it’s turning over at all, it just makes a constant sound as it would when you first turn it on, but with no turn-over.

Any ideas what could be causing this? I had AAA tow it to my mechanic, and when I called the mechanic to let him know I was on the way he said he hoped it wasn’t the timing belt. I’ve been reading on Yahoo! Answers today about timing belts, and it seems like that could certainly be my problem, my only fear is if it is the timing belt it could have caused massive amounts of engine damage, and frankly if the repairs are over $500 I’m hesitent to invest that in this car since it’s pretty old and will potentially need a new head gasket at some point.

If the timing belt DID go, does the 1995 Ford Escort have one of the newer engines that would prevent engine damage from happening? Would this car be worth investing money in?

P.S. It just occurred to me to mention three other problems the car has been having that seemed relatively minor. I’ve noticed a pretty hefty decrease in mileage, I went from roughly 32MPG down to about 25MPG, and I’d just assumed that was due to the winter gasoline mixture. Also, the car (and it hasn’t done this lately), will sometimes shake very badly when I drive it. It will sound like I have a flat tire, but I don’t, and when I reach speeds of 40+ mph the car shakes so bad the steering wheel bounces around. When it was doing this, it was typically only doing it in the morning, and it would always stop after I’d been driving for 10 minutes or so. The third problem I’d noticed is a sound coming from the area near my interior window defroster vent that sounded like a muffled spray can being, well, sprayed.

P.P.S. Just thought of another problem. When I make a hard turn such as at a red light or around town, there’s a clunk that sounds like metal hitting metal. My best guess for location is on the passanger side in the rear.