For 25 years my partner and I were happily carless, but we recently moved to a city where cars are virtual necessities. My father sold us his ten-year-old car, which my partner drives most days, and now I’m looking for an inexpensive used car of my own to get me to and from work.
The last cars I regularly drove were various models from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. So I’m perfectly capable of driving without modern gadgets like backup cameras, satellite navigation systems, and Bluetooth phone connections. All that stuff passed me by in my car-free quarter-century, so I don’t miss it it all. I’m used to having the shifter on the steering column, the headlight dimmer switch on the floor, and pop-out buttons on the radio.
I’ve been browsing local used car ads and occasionally find very old cars for sale – anything from the 1960s to the 1990s – that seem to be in good condition, with relatively low mileage, and at prices much lower than cars from the 21st century. I assume that in at least some of these cases the price is low because the seller assumes that nobody wants a car that old, rather than there being some undisclosed problem with the car.
Even if I were to verify before purchase that such a car has no problems, though, I’m concerned about what would happen if it were to develop any, as I’m sure it inevitably would. I’m not much of a car person and so would be relying on local mechanics to fix any problems. Are they going to have problems sourcing certain parts for older vehicles? If so, how old of a car could I get away with purchasing and still have a relatively good chance of getting it fixed when something wears down or breaks? Or does the situation vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer and/or model to model?
If there is such a variance, are there any particular manufacturers/models that are fairly safe in terms of availability of parts? For example, I know that many Hondas and Toyotas have reputations for being exceptionally reliable, so perhaps Honda and Toyota still manufacture (or warehouse) parts for very old models, or maybe so many of the old models were in use long enough that it’s easy today for mechanics to get used parts from a junkyard?
A lot depends on how common the model of vehicle is. There are a lot of old Toyota Camry sitting in junkyards you can mine for parts. You can get after market parts for them. Places stock OEM parts, even, because there are enough out there needing repairs to justify doing so. On the other hand, I drive a Toyota Echo, which never sold a lot in the US. You can’t find them in junkyards. No one makes after market parts for them. No one stocks parts. Last time I had a major repair we had to source parts from Japan, put them on a boat, wait about 7 weeks for them to arrive, and then fix my car. Ask you local mechanics what old models it’s easy to get parts for. Or ask them if the make and model you’re interested in has parts easily available where you are.
Contrast with my Ford Ranger. When I need to fix my Ranger I go to a local “You Pick” place/junkyard and pull a part off another Ford Ranger in even worse shape than mine. Last bit I bought that way cost $16. Oh, and there are after market parts for them. Easy to get parts.
Now, I will caution that if you get your own part out of a junkyard not all mechanics will want to install it for you because they won’t make guarantees about a part you’re supplying. Other mechanics will make it clear there is no warranty on the part and be willing to work with you.
Or you can learn to fix it yourself. That only works if you have the space/tools/skills. I’ve learned to fix some simple things on mine, but anything needing a lift I go to a mechanic who has one.
There are even people still fixing up and driving Model T’s - presumably someone is still making parts for them.
Two types of people buy 20th Century cars at this point: those that can do their own repair work, and those that don’t mind spending the money on a mechanic who will do the repairs. Since you’ll be working with a mechanic try to find one who works with older cars and ask them your questions.
Most older cars that you’ll still find with some frequency on the secondary market will have some kind of surplus of older OEM parts available plus a potential aftermarket (assuming it was a popular vehicle or has a restoration market). At last resort, you can scrounge parts from a “Pull-A-Part”-type junkyard or from online markets, albeit with uncertain provenance as to what service they may have seen previous. Your best bet if you have a specific model in mind is to talk to an independent mechanic who specializes in that vehicle or call up a parts warehouse to ask about general availability. Honda and Toyota both made vehicles of that era that are still on the roads today so they are a good bet in general (depending on model); on the other hand, I wouldn’t buy anything from GM or Chrysler from that era (and might be dubious about Ford) because even though you can find parts in general, finding the right one for your vehicle can often be a puzzle fit even within the same model year, and general reliability of these vehicles varied from bad to ‘call a tow truck between gas stations’.
Most cars of that age will be off Blue Book listings and as you note don’t have even the minimal amenities that newer vehicles have. A lot of the older, low milage cars you find for sale are cars someone has received or inherited from an older person who didn’t drive much, and they are generally fine if somewhat neglected and in need of fluids/filters/spark plugs service that the new owner just doesn’t want to deal with. From a mechanical standpoint, I’d be concerned with the powertrain, that the oil pan and transmission case is not leaking significantly and that the oil/tranny fluid appears to be clean, integrity of the exhaust system, the thickness of brake shoes/pads and any warpage or issues with braking, any rust or apparent leaking of the gas tank or fuel system, and that the heater core and AC (if equipped) function. If all of those look okay (any decent mechanic can put the car up on a stand and give a 30 minute evaluation), and the car tracks and handles acceptably, and you are willing to live with the inevitable squeaks and creaks and wonky functions of any old car, then it is probably okay.
(Although this is FQ, I feel compelled to mention that someone looking to save money shouldn’t get a 30+ year old car if they aren’t able to work on it. Cars that old always have something broken or just about to break. If the owner isn’t able to do many of the repairs on their own, the car will spend a lot of time on the rack in the shop racking up big repair bills. Cars 30+ years old can be considered more of a hobby than cheap, reliable transportation.)
I have some late 90’s BMWs and can get them repaired relatively easily at the local specialty BMW repair shop. There are often cars there from the 60’s and on, so I assume cars that old can get repaired as well. One challenge is that some uncommon parts may need to come from Germany. Common stuff like alternators I can get in the US, but unusual stuff like cable clips for the heater core cable need to be shipped from Germany, which adds time and expense. One factor that increases repair costs is the need to go to a mechanic who specializes in that make of car. They will generally be familiar with fixing that specific model no matter how old it is. A generic repair place may never have seen a car that old and there’s a good chance they’ll mess things up.
The more cars of a specific model are on the road, the more mechanics there will be and the easier it will be to get parts. You could lookup stats of how many cars are still on the road for older cars you are interested in. If there are just a few, then repairs will be more challenging. Another resource is to look at the online inventories for junkyards. They will only have cars on their lot for which there is still demand. If junkyards don’t carry your car anymore, that’s a sign that parts may be harder to get.
The specific model of the car will make a big difference for ease of maintenance. The more collectible or beloved the car, the better chance you’ll have of being able to maintain it. For instance, the demand for a 60’s Toyota Land Cruiser is much higher than for a 60’s Corolla. There is a large and active ecosystem around old Land Cruisers that enable them to live on for decades. That’s not the case for a model like the Corolla. You’ll have to work a lot harder to keep a Corolla running because there’s not as many people interested in old Corollas.
Some older vehicles may also require repairs that would be unheard of in younger vehicles. My Ford Ranger, which is “only” 26 years old, needed some repairs that required welding. I don’t know how to weld. Estimates started at $2500 and went up from there. If I had not had a friend who did know how to weld and was willing to do the work as a favor to me I would have had to junk my pickup.
The older the vehicle the more likely stuff like this will become. You might have to replace an entire quarter panel. A roof. The floor of your vehicle. That’s just one example.
The last car I owned and drove was a 1967 Pontiac Executive, which I was maintaining and acquiring parts for in 1992. That’s a 25 year gap. It was often a problem (lower case “p”), and occasionally a Problem. Getting replacement ball joints when the old ones were worn out involved locating a box of them in a state six states away and paying to have them shipped. Lots of parts removed from junkyard cars, etc.
How desirable or collectable is the car? There is an entire industry built around older Camaros, Firebirds, Mustangs, etc. You can even buy a brand new Mustang body and build it yourself.
A surprising number of forgetable cars have fan clubs and followings. AMC Pacer? there is a club for that. Model T, Model A? you can find the parts and someone may still be making them. VW Bugs will be repairable well into the next century. Unless the car you want to keep is very obscure you can keep it running. Metal fabricators can work wonders too. How bad do you want to keep it? This is just like the question, how fast do you want to go? Money is what matters.
Some mechanics will even be willing to contact the junkyards, find the part for you, and get it shipped. Again, usually with a warning that its condition can’t be guaranteed; at least, unless it’s the kind of thing they’re going to rebuild for you.
Is this true even of old cars with very low mileage? I sometimes see for sale 30±year-old cars that have odometer readings more typical of a 10-year-old car. (The ads sometimes give a reasonable-sounding explanation for why the car was rarely driven.) For a car that’s been adequately maintained, I would have thought that its parts would tend to break as a result of extended use and not simply because they’ve existed for a long time.
Yes, old cars are in the process of decaying. Parts made of plastic and rubber will become brittle from age alone. The seals around the sunroof and windows will start to gap and leak. Gaskets will be past their end of life. Fluid leaks become the norm. I had so many leaks in my old BMWs that I knew what was leaking from where the spot was on the garage floor under the car. In addition, it’s common for additional stuff to break when you’re trying to fix something. You may be trying to fix a plastic part for a power window, but the plastic mounts that hold the door panel break when you’re trying to get it off. That kind of stuff is just never ending.
I have a friend who has a 1914 Studebaker that he inherited from his grandfather. He said he can still find compatible parts for it, but not all parts are available. For example, he needs to replace the radiator and will have to have one custom made. It will cost him big bucks.
In my case, I’m not looking for a fancy collectible car. I just want an unremarkable daily driver for the commute. I see that in my area, even ten- to fifteen-year-old Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas are selling at prices that I can hardly afford. Yet there are sometimes 20-, 30-, or even 40-year-old cars of the same models that look to be in great shape and cost much less. The point of this thread is to ask what I might expect in terms of repair costs/feasibility if I got one of those older models instead. If the expected repair costs are likely to be less than the difference in price between the old and newer models, then it might be worth it for me.
You can buy an old GM or Ford model that they sold a lot of and have little difficulty finding parts. And the older the car, the easier to work on. When I had my 62 Corvair, a good majority of parts were in stock at Napa. GM used a lot of the same parts in multiple models. Since they had sold so many Vairs, there were plenty of after market manufacturers for any unique items such as trim. Plus you could tear the whole thing apart and put it back together with a set of wrenches and a couple of screwdrivers.
But - yeah - if you drive a car from the 60s or 70s, it isn’t a matter of IF you will get stranded. only WHEN. Any Toyota or Honda from the 90s on will be tons more reliable.
There is an NZ used-car website: Dog And Lemon Guide, that used to publish a paper edition. His comment on ‘prestige European cars’ (including BMW) was:
If you can’t afford a new one, you can’t afford a used one
Airbags started showing up in the 90s. In the years just prior there were a variety of goofy automatic shoulder strap systems, some with motors - more things to break. US cars were just starting to approach acceptable levels of reliability. For a cheap daily driver (as opposed to a 65 Mustang ragtop to tool around in occasionally) I would stick to mid-90s or later Honda Accord or Toyota Camry.
Buying an old car is not a way to get cheap transportation, it’s a way to get a hobby. If you want your hobby to be repairing and driving a 1987 Camaro, then great, now you have a hobby.
My recommendation is get something from this century. OBDII (OBD2), a standard to read data from a car’s computer, was mandated in 1996. If you want any mechanic under 50 to work on your car, they’ll expect to be able to plugin a diagnostic computer and see what is wrong.
Front airbags were mandated in 1998, so for improved safety, something from that year or later. ABS was required somewhere around then, too[1].
Low mileage old cars scare me. Even if it was in Grandma’s garage for 10 years, since she stopped driving, and appears to be in great shape, every piece of rubber is going to fail as soon as the car starts running again. Every piece of plastic is going to break when someone is trying to replace every piece of rubber.
Find a mass market Japanese or American car from this century that appears to be in good shape, and get it evaluated by a mechanic to find out if it is in good shape. Be very careful about getting sold a cheap car that “just needs a few things,” because there is a good chance that a similar version of that car in good shape will cost less than buying and repairing the cheap car.
I know you can stop faster without ABS, but someone who hasn’t owned a car in 25 years? ↩︎
I guess one could be like this guy and hoard parts in advance (though lots of questions remain in my mind even after reading the article and watching the accompanying video…)
I would have no reservations at all about buying, say, a 20+ year-old Toyota RAV4 with decent mileage. The parts availability is probably better than for a brand new car. (I would buy a 2005 RAV4 with only 100K miles in good condition in a minute.)
I would worry more about trim parts, and their durability varies a great deal from manufacturer to manufacturer. You can probably easily find all mechanical parts for a 1996 Chevrolet, but replacing dash parts and door panels might be a bit harder.
I was amazed to discover a couple of years ago, that an abandoned mill (very common around here) was being used as a meeting place for drivers of “classic” cars that I would not have expected.
Chrysler K-cars from the 1980s
Honda Accords and Civics from the early 1990s (defined by “generation”, not decade, of course)
Datsuns from the late 1970s (?)
Cadillac Eldorados from the 1980s. The ones with the looong tapered trunk.
And so on. I had to hang around while my kid went to PT next door twice a week for a couple of months and it seemed they had a meet-up every month for each “club”
I had previously regarded all of these as basically junk now. Stuff that would be in sale for $500 on Facebook Marketplace, bring your tow truck.
But apparently they have no problem finding parts and keeping these running and in some cases in beautiful condition. Better than my 2019 car.
A week ago I had occasion to drive by that place and unfortunately that mill has been demolished and a block of apartments or condos is going in there.
In 1988 I’d have given long odds on my Dad’s 1985 Dodge Aries outliving a sandcastle at Ocean City, never mind a beautiful New England red brick mill building.