Don't buy a Ranger. You don't need a truck to pull a trailer.

I just spent the afternoon testdriving a bunch of new Chryslers at a special demo session, including jeeps, crossfires, SR2s (?), 300s and Magnums etc. Did a high-speed -ride in a Viper too, but with their driver at the wheel.

I could not believe how awful the SUV was to drive, it handled like a complete pig. Only thing worse was the PT cruiser convertible.

The Magnum stationwagon with the hemi was not too bad, it felt the same as the car to drive.

 

Do not get a Neon....they drive extremely badly...had one the past week. The buzziness of the 2L and the sticky throttle just disgusted me. If you want a cheap but good car, look at Mercury Mystique/Ford Contour V6 (not 4 cyl). They depreciate pretty badly and are under the radar of most buyers so you should be able to get for cheap but are nice cars, esp. the later years....based on Mondeo. Handles great, 2.5 V6 is very smooth, reliable and gets pretty good gas milege. Good luck

 

I'm going to be in the beater market soon. I'm thinking late '80's/early '90's Civic hatchback. The ones that look like a little staton wagon. They're cheap, indestructible, get good mileage, and won't tempt me to put money into them for upgrades.

 

I say AUTOMATIC Honda. The 1990-1993 Accord Coupes are cool (well, relatively), and will run forever, if maintained properly. And they ride very nicely. They can be had for $4k, and if you get a clean one, will be decent looking, and fun to drive.

My dad has a 1990 4-door, and although it's beat up, the thing drives well, and has a very BMW type tight feel.

Oh...more important than cars, congrats on the job!!

 

stay away from dodge cars, esp ones in your price range, trans city! My beater is an 03 ranger 3.0v6 but of course it treats me very well. I love having a truck to haul my porsche parts in. Get a little s10 w/ the 4.3litre or even a little 4cyl iron duke would work well.- i have one at work as a hauler and it wont kill itself- YOu could also get a little nissan sentra, i had an xe that i bought for 300 bucks and it wouldnt kill itself either, even after over 200,000.miles.

 

Also, what you DON'T wanna do is get a cheap car that will need $$$ in maintenance to make is safe to drive!

Get the best beater you can afford, and don't forget the PPI...ha!

 

Thanks for all the input, I took a quick look for Volvos locally and saw a couple that might be worth looking at.
I don't think the Z-3 is gonna work as a cheap beater to keep the wear and tear on my NA to a minimum, there's something about spending $10k to preserve a car worth less than $10k that doesn't make sense.
I'm not sure yet, but the budget may be as small as a couple grand. There will be no Hondas, I don't trust them for safety. My mom had a '93 accord (bought new) that was the biggest POS ever built and when it was hit lightly in the side it just folded up. That car would be the Honda that fit's my price range. Mom replaced it with a Toyota Avalon, my opinion of that car isn't much better. I had tried to talk her into an A4, A6 or a Passat and she now says she wishes she had listened. I've looked into Passats but for the $ it's easier to stick with a Jetta, My wife and I have has 6 VWs between us over the years and they've treated us well, she even had a '89 Jetta coupe with a 5 speed (I wouldn't mind finding one of those!)
Tom, I did see a 95 Camaro, 6 cyl automatic for $2k, kinda scary! I don't need anything even remotely sporty though, a box would suit me just fine for what I need it to do.
As I look over the cars listed here, I have to chuckle. My neighbor 2 houses down has the following in the driveway, his=F series, hers=new Maxima, oldest kid=M-B 190, extra car(?)=early 90's Passat. Every one of these has come up in this thread. I always liked those 190s, I know they last a while, how are parts prices? I'm really wishing we hadn't gotten rid of her '98 Stratus 5 speed, that was actually a fun little car.

 

Pete you are looking for a early-mid 90's civic DX. I had one as a company car (IIIRC it was a 95) had 183K miles and ran like new.
Our company cars were pretty well maintained- (regular oil changes I mean..) I averaged 140 miles a day in it. Cheap on gas too.

Get one now before the 4MPG soccer mom's get tired of filling up the cell phone holders.. uh, I mean SUV's.

I second the automatic- they dont get beat as much..

 

'84-'89 MR2. You can pick up a well running example for $500 (I just did, but I'm going to have about $1500 into the motor and engine managment system by the time I am done with it...turbo 4A-G), they get 30 MPG *if* you drive the **** out of it, close to 40 if you are easy on it, they are killer autoX cars (at the autocross I was at last weekend, a guy in a bone stock '87 MR2 with crappy tires who wasn't the best driver was running 49 second runs in the wet...at that point, the top time of day was 44 seconds in a prepped 996 GT3...112 HP w/ 2200 lbs, 385 HP w/ 2900 lbs...not too shabby), motors last forever, parts are reasonable, etc. etc. That would be a fun beater...that's what I bought the car for originally, than I realized that it could be a lot faster for my 951 for relatively cheap, so I started hawking junk yards and ebay for stuff to transform it. Hopefully I will be able to run a low 12 second 1/4 mile when I am done.

 

How bout a $500 old honda accord or civic, if it is going to be just commuter car.

 

How about a volvo diesel. Good gas mileage with cheep fuel. Heck you could even mod it to run on veggie oil.

 

I second the S-10. Still gonna get good gas mileage and gives you the ability to haul stuff.

 

as well as waste grease from a restaurant.. they give that stuff away.

 

I would go with the A2 Jetta as well. I'm not sure if there was something "ROW" that Luis was talking about, but the first Jetta IIIs were in 1993 I believe. I personally have an A2 Jetta (92) as a daily driver that I absolutely love. Crank windows, the bare minimums and the perfect daily driver. BeerBurner on the boards has also had good luck with his Jetta it seems.

https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...ighlight=jetta

There is also a pretty active community for fans over at the 'tex BTW, I picked up my Jetta last year with 80k on it for $1400. It's a 5spd that revs like mad (and doesn't do much else ) That having been said, it really is a lot of fun to drive and easy to maintain.

Micah

 

It's too bad I donated the camry