Hi everyone. Long time "Ford guy" here, first time on these boards.
I have a question that I cannot seem to find clearly answered in my exhaustive web searches.
The question, i will ask upfront, and then I will give some of the background behind my question.
The question: How long can I get away with driving my 110K mile 2007 Ford edge with a leaking PTU?
The background:
We wayyyyy over-extended our budget in purchasing my son's first car. It was a 2008 Mercury Sable. Great car, and he loved it. But less than 3 months later he totaled it.
The insurance company raped us on the value, and then we over extended ourselves once again in our next purchase, a 2007 Ford Edge.
After purchasing the Edge, we took the vehicle to our local mechanic and dropped $800 into it for regular maintenance type things such as breaks, rotors, shocks, etc etc. He drove the car for a month and we noticed a smell coming from it which turned out to be the famous leaky PTU. $500 later we had new PTU seals installed by our local Ford Dealer. 2 weeks later we see reddish pink puddles in our driveway.
This all leads me to my question. I have to assume the PTU needs full replacement at this point. But we are so bone dry financially that I wonder if simply not fixing it is an option. If we just continue to drive the vehicle as is (drive it "into the ground") with a leaking PTU, how long might we be able to get away with it before towing it to graveyard?
Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions.
~Ambull