zachofragn

Hello. So I'm hoping I could get some advice on what this sort of thing means before I take this to a repair shop. Hopefully this isn't so terrible for the car that I'll seem like a monster, but I'm a college student that was given this car by his father (was his old car), so keep that in mind in terms of budget.

Basically a while back I cracked its headgasket (radiator tubes ruptured and couldn't safely get off the road in a good enough time). This didn't get diagnosed until way later, and after basically a bunch of con artists, I got a used engine, a new water pump, and a new radiator (It was supposedly a trusted family friend, don't ask). I have no idea if these problems specifically started before or after the repairs, as naturally when you have a cracked head gasket, it'd be very similar to these symptoms.

Specifically my car runs like a dream regularly, such as coming out of a garage, or when it's cool/dark outside. Has a small oil leak (pretty much lasts between oil changes to give you an idea how slow), a slow leak in power steering fluid (probably unrelated, but just listing it), a VERY slow freon leak (like refill it once a year and it's fine), and otherwise is dandy.

However, when it's hot outside, or specifically, the car has been heated up for awhile (as it has to stay outside as I live at an apartment), it has difficulty starting. Just, to use onomatopoeia, it isn't like a dead battery, it does that normal "old car having difficulty starting" noise that's cliche at this point, and then typically on the first try, or at least the second or third, it starts.

Then it has the check engine light, starts off at about 1.5 on the pedometer, even in neutral (normal is 1), and sometimes the car revs itself randomly, such as when sitting at neutral at like a light. It also accelerates quite a bit slower, and the air conditioning won't blow cold (actually rather hot). Also whenever it has to sit at a light for quite awhile, it starts smoking at the engine a bit (yes I know, eep!, but the degree of this varies), however it has plenty of radiator fluid, and it is not overheating, so I'm honestly not sure what's causing that. After I drive for a while, particularly on the freeway, like 10 or so minutes, it does what I'd call is "coughing", in that it rocks backwards and forwards and the pedometer keeps shifting up and down, jerking me backwards and forwards, like I said, like it's coughing. If I can keep a generally constant gas pressure, eventually it gets it "out of its system", and it's back to being perfect again, working air conditioning and everything. Also, and I'm not positive, but I think it makes my car not have very great gas mileage during all that, but I'm guessing that's because it needs more pressure on the gas pedal to get reasonable acceleration, but I am unsure.

This has been happening for about a year and a half, and never gets worse than that. It still passes state inspections and everything (though obviously I have to make sure it isn't doing the check engine thing). Only reason why I bring this up is if anyone has ANY idea what this might be, and how much it'd cost to get it repaired. It really sucks because it FEELS like it's not good for the car, but if the car functions and all it does is cost extra gas, I just couldn't afford to repair it. I have some extra money right now, so if it's under 1000 dollars or so, I'd love to fix it.

Sorry if that was too detailed, but I wanted to give as much information as possible. This car is very important to my family, especially me at this point, and if this is particularly bad for it, then I think it's worth it so I can keep it for years to come.

Thanks in advance for any help provided. I sincerely appreciate it.