Cheapest way to own a car

[thomsbrain]

Originally posted by: keeleysam
Buy a couple year old Honda and run it until the parts are more expensive than the car is worth.

this is the single most common mistake in reasoning i hear people make.

it simply does NOT matter if repairs cost more than the car is worth.

the ONLY thing that matters is your complete operating costs over time, including depreciation, insurance, etc. and depreciation will be likely be the single largest expense for new or nearly-new cars. the fact is, a really old Honda may only be worth $1000, and you may have an $800 timing belt change coming up, so you're like, "oh god, I should sell it." but you have to consider that the car will depreciate like $25 in that entire year, and the belt won't need to be done again for years, so the cost should be averaged over seveal years (and if you have a savings plan for your car maintenence, then it already has been averaged). in addition, if you know that the car is otherwise in good shape, it is worth it to continue driving the car you know is in good shape rather than buy another crappy car with god knows what wrong with it. the ancient car will be cheaper to register and insure. maintenence will be less labor-intensive. there are less things that can go wrong that would require the dealer to work on it.

i do think that running an old honda or toyota is the way to go. yes, you spend a little bit more than for a domestic, but at that point, we're talking like $1000 more. the difference is the domestic will be completely unreliable at that point, and spend a lot of time in the shop, whereas the toyota/honda will still be nearly bullet-proof. coupled with their slow depreciation, you'll save money by coughing up for the japanese car. look at it this way: my GF bought her Camry for $400 from a little old lady, and has put about 100,000 miles on the car. the car is now worth... $400! ZERO depreciation. and the only maintenence has been a little A/C work and a refurbished alternator, which I did the labor on for free. it's cheap to insure and gets 25 MPG. the only downsides are it sucks to drive and it's not very safe.

 

[Greenman]

I always buy brand new, and drive em 250k miles. Thats the point where they start to break down a lot.

 

[Pikachu]

the only maintenence has been a little A/C work and a refurbished alternator

Someone has a selective memory. Are we forgetting tires, if nothing else, and I'm sure there's something else. Damn thing can't go the first 70K without a timing belt replacement, let alone another 100K.

 

[BullyCanadian]

Originally posted by: BUTCH1
I got 160K out of a 95 escort I bought new. It all depends if you have the ability
and time to do repairs yourself..I did on mine but as anyone who has worked on
a FWD car can tell you , it's not easy! a $45 water pump can take hours to install.
shop price was around $350. Also if you are going the keep it/ fix it route try to
stay away from FWD V6's as they are even harder to work on..

so your saying RWD cars are much easier to work on?

 

[dug777]

hehe, no rust issues here thanks to the climate, my '89 323 doesn't have a speck of rust on it

(well, the exhaust has soe surface rust at the end...)

 

[Pikachu]

Originally posted by: BullyCanadian

so your saying RWD cars are much easier to work on?

That's a fact.

 

[BullyCanadian]

Originally posted by: Pikachu

Originally posted by: BullyCanadian

so your saying RWD cars are much easier to work on?

That's a fact.

Why is that? Ive always had a saturn of course its a fwd car, but its never been difficult to work on, and Im a noob when it comes to repairing cars.

 

[Pikachu]

Ever done the waterpump,? Easy to get at in a RWD. How about a CV joint? RWD cars don't even have 'em! Cramming the tranny under the hood, and mounting an engine sideways makes things VERY cramped!

 

[KrillBee]

Originally posted by: BUTCH1
I got 160K out of a 95 escort I bought new. It all depends if you have the ability
and time to do repairs yourself..I did on mine but as anyone who has worked on
a FWD car can tell you , it's not easy! a $45 water pump can take hours to install.
shop price was around $350. Also if you are going the keep it/ fix it route try to
stay away from FWD V6's as they are even harder to work on..

my nissan maxima is a pain in the butt to work on. i barely managed to finish my last job on it.

why is it that fwd cars are harder to work on? is it because there is more stuff near the engine bay?

overall are domestics easier to work on than foreign cars? cuz it sure seems that way.

i'd love to work on my own cars more, but it just seems like such a pain in the butt!

 

[Pikachu]

This is how it always SHOULD be! (Minus the N/A carb.)

Wow, check it out!

 

[KrillBee]

do you guys think that part of the reason that manufacturers are making cars so much harder to work on these days, is because they are trying to rake in more money?

 

[Pikachu]

If by "rake in more money", you mean easier to build, then yeah. It's much easier and cheaper for them to assemble a FWD machine.

 

[Black88GTA]

Originally posted by: KrillBee
do you guys think that part of the reason that manufacturers are making cars so much harder to work on these days, is because they are trying to rake in more money?

It's mostly because times have changed. The days of the 5,000lb land yacht with RWD and a carbed V8 are gone. Now the trend is toward much smaller FWD cars with lots of electronics, emissions equipment, etc. All that stuff still has to fit under the hood (with a few exceptions). In the case of a FWD car, the transmission has to go in there too. There's simply not room to make everything easily accessible.

 

[KrillBee]

Originally posted by: Black88GTA

Originally posted by: KrillBee
do you guys think that part of the reason that manufacturers are making cars so much harder to work on these days, is because they are trying to rake in more money?

It's mostly because times have changed. The days of the 5,000lb land yacht with RWD and a carbed V8 are gone. Now the trend is toward much smaller FWD cars with lots of electronics, emissions equipment, etc. All that stuff still has to fit under the hood (with a few exceptions). In the case of a FWD car, the transmission has to go in there too. There's simply not room to make everything easily accessible.

i think my next car should be a rear wheel drive car, so i dont have all these headaches when working on it!

Originally posted by: Pikachu
If by "rake in more money", you mean easier to build, then yeah. It's much easier and cheaper for them to assemble a FWD machine.

yeah, and unfortauntely this 'cheaper to produce' thing, means 'tougher to repair' for the home mechanic

but why would ford or GM care? their dealerships just rake in more money doing maintenance on cars.

 

[Pikachu]

I blame consumers first & foremost. If they didn't demand 'em, they wouldn't build 'em!

 

[waggy]

either merry or be born into a family that owns a few car dealerships?

i buy a 2-3yr old car and drivie it until around 130k miles (seems the magic number with car repairs getting more frequent) then start over.

 

[drum]

i bought an '88 ford ranger in 1998 for $1500.

- it has never left me on the side of the road
- i've put 80K on it since
- Although I have another ranger as a primary driver now, i still drive it on occasion

ended up being a fantastic first vehicle for me

 

[KrillBee]

Originally posted by: drum
i bought an '88 ford ranger in 1998 for $1500.

- it has never left me on the side of the road
- i've put 80K on it since
- Although I have another ranger as a primary driver now, i still drive it on occasion

ended up being a fantastic first vehicle for me

how many miles did it have on it when u originally got it?

 

[JinLien]

Originally posted by: waggy
either merry or be born into a family that owns a few car dealerships?

i buy a 2-3yr old car and drivie it until around 130k miles (seems the magic number with car repairs getting more frequent) then start over.

My formula is similar second hand car at 2-3 years old and drive it till 150-160K miles.

 

[thomsbrain]

Originally posted by: Pikachu
the only maintenence has been a little A/C work and a refurbished alternator

Someone has a selective memory. Are we forgetting tires, if nothing else, and I'm sure there's something else. Damn thing can't go the first 70K without a timing belt replacement, let alone another 100K.

yes, a couple sets of tires, which ANY car would need, and brake pads, which, again, ANY car would need. also a couple scattered oil changes, but nothing close to regular changes. i'm talking unscheduled maintenence here, which is what is going to really make the difference, since it can be assumed that you're doing scheduled services regardless of your car's age. in this case, she hasn't kept up with most of the scheduled stuff, either. and even if she had, it's not a BMW, so they wouldn't have been that expensive.

and no, it hasn't had a timing belt change. in fact, it hasn't had any kind of proper "tune-up" since she bought it. i know people who have gone 140,000 miles without even changing the oil on their toyotas.

my own 15-year-old honda hasn't had a single unscheduled service in over 60,000 miles.

 

[thomsbrain]

Originally posted by: Pikachu
Ever done the waterpump,? Easy to get at in a RWD. How about a CV joint? RWD cars don't even have 'em! Cramming the tranny under the hood, and mounting an engine sideways makes things VERY cramped!

in most FWD cars, you do the water pump when you do the timing belt, and then it doesn't cost you any extra labor at all. a whole new axle (including CV) is a sub $250 job, and only needs to be done maybe once every 200,000 miles.

 

[Pikachu]

This board is filled with YACT of people fighting with timing belt and CV replacement posts. I seriously doubt they've got anywhere near a couple hundred thousand under their belts.

I consider every part on the car a "wear item". Even an alternator can't be expected to last forever. The difference is in how much that part costs, how often it pukes, and how easy it is to get at. FWD is NOT the first choice of service vehicles for this reason.

 

[KrillBee]

what is a good cheap fuel efficient rear wheel drive car?

Maybe I should just buy a 4 cylinder truck?

 

[thomsbrain]

i've replaced one front axle on my honda, and the other is original, at 209,000 miles. it needs a timing belt every 90,000 miles, and i've replaced it twice, along with the water pump as preventive maintenance. that timing belt job is an expensive job, no doubt, but it's one that doesn't need to happen often and one that you can plan for years in advance.

the thing about japanese cars is that there are four very important and potentially very expensive areas of the car that wear so slowly that they are basically NOT wear items: the engine, the transmission, the suspension, and the interior electronics. if you buy a typical Taurus, those ARE wear items (and frequent wear items, at that), in addition to the extra bits, like the alternator, distributor, A/C, etc. i'd rather schedule an $800 timing belt job at my convenience than be stranded on the road by a dead transmission every 75K, and stuck with a $200 towing bill and a $1000 repair bill.

crown vics do tend to be very solid cars, but most of us wouldn't be caught dead in one, and they ride and handle so poorly that i actually get sea-sick in them.

 

[Pikachu]

Found one!

But seriously...

Trucks sell at a premium, and "fuel efficient" ones more so. I don't care much about fuel efficiency, because neither my wife nor I drive more than 5K per year. If I had to spend a lot of time in my car, I wouldn't want a small cramped one anyway. Minivans seem to get decent mileage and have room to stretch out. They're FWD, but that's the give & take I guess. You should be able to find one of those cheap enough. If you don't beat on it, it will probably hold up OK.