And the hits just keep on comin'

On top of everything else that is happening, I took my husband's car for emissions inspection yesterday and it flunked. The code reader said it had a bad knock sensor (what the heck is that?). Husband says it will cost over $700 to fix. Rats. We also need to get the blower speed control replaced on the A/C (only the highest speed works right now, so it's a bit windy and very noisy when you run the fan), so we won't get out of the repair shop with less than a $1000 bill.

This is what you get with a 14 year old car (even a well maintained low mileage 14 year old car). The fact that it's an Infiniti isn't going to help. Their parts are ridiculously expensive. My friend owns one too; his car had a broken dash clock. He said several years ago it cost $200 to buy the part, not counting installation costs. $200 for a clock?