That's the thing. Up until literally this past March, we took it to a local mechanic who we thought was reputable, but as things like this kept happening, I began to doubt him, and after months of it basically not running well (hard starting, stalling, rough idle), I took it to a dealer in another town, and the mechanic there told me what was wrong with it (bad ignition coil+distributor, bad fuel injectors, bad radiator hoses, bad water pump... basically, everything that makes the engine run), I lost it, because the jerk mechanic kept telling me that he had fixed all these things (as I payed him probably $6-7k over the past 3-1/2 years), when, in fact, none of it was fixed at all, and I was driving a ticking time bomb! Needless to say, I'm no longer a customer of his.
So, it occurred to me today that something underhanded he did might've led to this, like maybe doing a half-baked job on the transmission cooler (which the dealer and I overlooked, since the transmission fluid looked good and it didn't show any signs of trouble). Is it possible the cooler got clogged, causing fluid to not flow properly?
So, basically, I bought the truck for $8,000 in 2017, put probably another $8k of work into it since then, and now I need a new transmission, so that's probably another $5,000 for a truck that's probably worth only that much at best.
c