Anyway, 14 years in, my old '08 has a handful of minor problems. It's not super high-mileage, since we tend to use my wife's vehicles for family-oriented outings and then also the pandemic happened:
- The aforementioned recirc/fresh air actuator. I feel like I could do this myself. I'm not sure I care enough to actually worry about it.
- A noisy fan when A/C or defrost are activated. I have heard Vibes like mine before, and no tech's ever made an issue of it, but it's essentially this problem: viewtopic.php?p=532263&hilit=radiator+fan#p532263 I have lived with it for so long I don't think it's worth dealing with.
- Catalytic converter throwing a CEL code. My mechanic said it's a lot of money to spend when the car is driving just fine.
The fan running at high speed bugs me a little with the overdue realization that it's maybe unusual
The CEL, I would love to get done with for the sake of whatever grams of CO2 I might not spew into the air/gas mileage savings, but my wallet disagrees.
But I thought I'd throw it out there -- does anyone disagree with the "it's running, it's fine" approach? Other than these issues, it's been serviced regularly and the only work it's ever needed was after it got rear-ended (grumble grumble). I would give it even odds that rust from snowy Canadian winters or another driver are more likely to be the end of this car than natural causes... but I also don't want to be the cause of any longer term issues.