I'm Afraid Of My Car Again

First of all, the stuff I used to glue the weatherstripping on the driver's side-door came off a couple weeks ago, and it's flapping against the wind while I'm driving, slapping off the paint of my door.  And it's too fucking slushy for me to do it now, so the weatherstripping will not strip the weather, as it says in its name, but the paint.

In the past week or so, however, my car has been idling roughly, very roughly, like it's about to lose power whenever I hit the brake or put it in park.  I dealt with this once before, about six years ago, when I was working, and the cold weather pushed the problem of a dirty battery connection past the point of operability.  I remember calling AAA twice, first to give me a jump, the second, after it became obvious that there was more of a problem than a cold battery, to tow my car, maddeningly slowly, up the tower's winch and then down and around the curves of the parking ramp.  All of that mess for battery terminals that just needed cleaning.

Well, I still don't know how to do that.  I'll look them up online soon, and I bought baking soda already (I know you'll need that), but I'm still scared that I'll screw it up, like I'll manage to get the terminals to touch or something and I'll electrocute myself.  Plus, I don't know if I have the time to do it soon, and if a bad battery connection is the problem, my car could cut off at any time between now and a time I can address it.

But as I was driving to the gym tonight and continuing to feel the car almost give out, I'm now scared that it could be something else.  Like the sparkplugs, one car shop said I need to replace soon.  How long are those supposed to go for, anyway?  I remember the dealership once saying that the valve timing may be off.  How much does that cost?  And how in the hell do you diagnose that, anyway?

And then I remember from a long time ago that another shop said I needed to replace my engine mounts.  They cost a thousand bucks, so I went, actually, to the dealership for a second opinion.  They said only one mount needed to be changed, and for about $300.  Imagine that -- the dealership giving me a cheaper estimate than the independent shop for a repair.  The dealership said that two of the mounts were loose but were still good ... but that was at least a half-decade ago.  Are they no longer good now?  Is that the reason behind all the fluttering sounds coming from my engine?

And then, coming home and scraping off the snow and salt from the wells of my car, I hear this knocking/clogging noise from my muffler.  Holy shit, could it be the muffler?  If not, is there something wrong with my muffler?  I kneel down to hear closer, and then I smell these noxious fumes.  Now what's going on here?  Does exhaust smell like that?  I thought it spewed carbon monoxide -- which is odorless.  Shit, man, I don't need another fucking problem.

So you can see why I'm terrified of my old car.  It may fall apart on me tomorrow.