OUCH

My car's been making a funny noise for about a week now. It's very hard to describe, because it basically sounds like a normal car engine, but very, very loud. I took it to the mechanic this morning, and later this afternoon, got the damage report.

Apparently, I have an alternator bearing gone bad. The rear bearing, to be specific. Apparently, the alternator has a roter inside of it which spins on bearings; when the bearings start to fail, they make loud noises. Eventually, if they fail entirely, the alternator will stop turning the drive belt, and thereby stop charging the battery. My mechanic tells me that the sign that this has happened will be a high-pitched screeching noise -- at that point I'm to pull over to the side of the road as soon as possible, because I will at that point only have about 10 - 15 minutes of battery life.

So, the poor little Rav4 is a sick puppy. And, unfortunately, the part is apparently made ONLY by Toyota ($$$), and can't get here before Thursday at the earliest. So, I get to drive around in my incredibly loud little car till then, then get to fork out gobs and gobs of money to get him fixed. Oh, and he needs new spark plugs, too. And an oil change.

Of course, the car is paid off, so I don't have a car payment. But I'd rather not have a car payment AND not have to pay gobs of money in maintenance!