Car, Phone, What's Third?

Well now,

In the last 7 days my car has been declared terminally ill, my phone, which isn't MY phone, somehow suddenly stopped booting up.. Its meant to be a PHONE!

It is most irritating when things like this start getting in the way of other things which are going really well. Our band played our third gig last Friday. We probably technically did better in the first two, but this was a much bigger crowd and it adds a lot.

Now i'm faced, for the fourth time in my life, with buying another car. Lets look at my record:

1 Ford Fiesta - 9 years old when I had it, and I had it five months or so before flattening the left side against a gate post. £1400, effectively written off, but I had no comprehensive insurance at the time, so nothing doing.

2. Ford Fiesta - 7 years old when I had it. Lasted almost two years, although it sounded awful. Probably would have lasted a little longer if it had any oil in it when it last reached operating temperature. £450, died of mechanical failure. This was by far the best value car i've owned.

3. Peugeot 306 - 5 years old when I bought it. Lasted a year and a half. Drove great, never really recovered from a cambelt job gone wrong. 10,000 miles later the belt is wearing away but the thing is so tightly welded together further economical work isn't possible. £2800, soon to die of valve on piston action unless somebody wants a pet project.

4. I'm wanting a Skoda Octavia (its all about reliability and boot space) but recent ones are still £8000 - too much. Ditto a new Vectra. I'm thinking i'll settle for finding a Ford Focus TDCi, as boring as that sounds, but I swear if the crank bolt snaps off in this engine i'm going to hurt someone!

Yes, this was unfortunately a vent rather than an interesting post. If anybody is curious about the 306, the crank bolt snapped off 10k ago presumably leaving half in situ. Whatever the correct solution, the action taken was to create a stub by welding+chemical metaling a bolt in, holding the pulley on with a separate nut. This actually seemed to work, but the belt is wearing too quickly. 50/50 on whether thats due to this or something else eg pump/tensioner. This car could be brought back to life with a new crank - whether the current one is actually damaged beyond use I cannot say, but there are mostly perfectly good parts on this car. If somebody wants to make me a serious offer to make this their problem, get in touch (UK, Midlands - the car will be driveable again, it's just hard to say for how long before the inevitable happens). I don't have the expertise, time or the inclination to do what needs to be done but this really doesn't deserve to be scrapped.