That 240k miles is the detail I keep coming back to. You spent $145 and got it through emissions, which is great, but the AC is still a maybe and the tail light is still a cheap fix on a car that already has a quarter million miles on it. I respect the old guy for knowing his stuff, but he talked you out of a decision you'd already made for a reason. You said you were tired of looking at it, that's not nothing. That's the car telling you it's time to move on, not a lazy Saturday problem. So you got a few more months or a year out of it, but that alternator is just the first domino. The transmission, the suspension, the rust, they're all waiting in line behind it. Sometimes the smartest money is the $380 you walk away with, not the $145 you pour into a car that's already on its last legs.