Blown engine

[Pete Nice]

Long story short, my engine blew today, missed work. 2005 Saturn Ion 2.

The Saturn dealer can replace it with a used engine with between 20K and 30K miles. I also need a gasket in the transmission replaced. They wanted $3000 for this. They came down to $2700. I owe $6400 on the car and the old engine had 270K miles on it. The new engine would have a 90 day warranty and I will have the car paid off in 12 months. If i turn the car in as is, the trade in will be less than $1000. I would have to pay a new car loan AND about $5k on the old one. Not really in the budget right now.

Here is how I see it. The alternator is 1 year old, the engine fan is 8 months old. The transmission is going to be completely repaired. The engine will have 20k to 30k miles on it. So basically I am putting an engine with 20 to 30k miles into a frame with 270k miles. The only expensive possible breakage is the catalytic converter ($800) and the computers (4 of them but might not be as expensive). By my estimates, this will make my car like it was at around 65k to 75k miles. I NEVER had any kind of problems with the car until is was well over 150K. I am assuming, if all goes well, this would give me at least another 18 months out of the car with no major problems AND this is the cheapest route for now, if this would have happened in 10 months, I would have told them to do whatever they want with the car, but right now, to much is still owed.

Brampton, Leneve, Joe and any other mechanics, what are your thoughts? Am I doing the right thing, or should I tough out two car loans for the next 12 months? Do you think, on average, this new engine (treated properly) will get me another two years and 75K miles?

I need help fast dudebros.