2005 Civic LX - Repair or Replace

[ScotDaftest]

Admittedly I'm not a car enthusiast and not very knowledgeable in this realm so I figured if anyone knows Honda it's a forum of Honda users and lovers, so here I am.

 

My issue is this - I own a 2005 Honda Civic LX, drove the car off of the sales lot in late 2004, and it's been fairly good to me through the years but it is starting to fail. It's been a slow decline for the most part as I haven't had any major issues with the car mechanically, but little things have been happening for years and adding up and recently my alternator died mid-drive on the highway (which scared the shit out of me as I watched all of my electronics blink in and out before losing power steering and acceleration altogether), and the whole situation has left me pondering my next move.

 

First of all a little history. I've long had minor electronic issues with this car. The speedometer stopped working years ago. The door lock on my passenger rear door stopped working years ago and recently all of the door locks have stopped responding to my key fob/internal switch and have to be activated manually. The power windows have failed over the last few years (switches, motors and regulators) and even after repairs at Honda dealerships I've continued to have issues (I currently only have my front windows operational and since I rarely have more than one passenger I haven't cared to repair the back ones again). For a few years now I've noticed that my car shifts a little awkwardly between 1st and 2nd gear (it's an automatic and revs *really* high between those first two gears before normalizing) so I'm wondering if perhaps my transmission is also going to need to be repaired or replaced soon. That on top of the alternator going out a few days ago mid-drive and I'm unsure if my car is worth continuing to spend money on.

 

I'm currently sitting on 152,000 miles and I will need new tires soon. I've dropped about 2,000 dollars into the car in the last six months for scheduled maintenance, brakes, tire repairs, in addition to several attempts at repairing the power windows (replacing switches, motors, regulators multiple times on top of glass replacement and a rental after my car got broken into) and now with another pending repair I'm just not sure if it's worth continuing to drop money into a 13 year old car with so many miles.

 

I've debated trading the car in (I doubt i'd even get a grand considering the state it's in) and buying a recent model certified used Honda or maybe financing offers on a new vehicle but I really don't know if I should take on another six years of payments when I can barely afford it or just repair what I have, roll the dice and hope I can get another few years out of it. It just feels like such a waste to continue putting money into a car that might continue to fail though.

 

So, thoughts and advice? Similar experiences?