Two different economy cars cost $15,000, let’s pretend that you are going to keep whatever car you buy for five years and that either will run without excessive problems during this time. After five years you are going to trade this car in because you need something bigger.
Car A has a resale of $7000.00, deduct this from your purchase price and the car cost you $8000 for the five years. Cost per year was $1600.00
Car B resells for $10,000 so the cost of driving this car was $1000 / year.
The formula: purchase price - resale / years owned = cost/year.
Looking at it this way the Cavalier (car A) is going to cost you more than a similar Honda or Toyota (car B) due to the marked difference in resale values. Check absoul’s post to see what kind of resale value there is on a Cavalier.
Your best deal is to pick up a clean used car with a decent warranty. You’ll save 20 - 30% right off the bat and a two year old Honda with 18,000 miles will likely run 10 times that distance with very few problems.
My SIL has a 1990 Nissan Sentra that just got a new engine after the original 1.6 litre four cylinder had racked up better than 700,000 miles. The car has nary a speck of rust and is in great shape.
I had a cavalier until my sister totalled it on me. It was a cute car, looked pretty, and ran decent, except when it rained or snowed. It was a 96 model, and every time the ground was wet, the brakes died. I’d be pushing on them like hell, but nothing. I rearended 2 different cars because of this, with no serious damage either time. I took it to 5 different mechanics, and no one could come up with anything wrong with it. After my insurance company pronounced it dead, I used the payoff to buy a 97 saturn coupe. So far, no problems yet…
Consumer Reports is typically bias against US car manufacturers. I wouldn’t consider them an impartial source of information.
I’ve driven American cars that were junk and American cars that were awesome. I’ve only owned one Toyota in life and it only ran if I was willing to constantly replace parts in it.
My husband had a 92 Cavalier that blew its engine at 250,000. It was a great car. Don’t know about the most recent ones.
Ford Focus’ are cheaply made (per friend in the auto industry here in Michigan).
My husband has a Geo (now Chevy) Metro. Dependable as a Golden Retriever I have a '99 Chevy Prizm, which is essentially a Toyota Corolla with GM wiring. Do I love it? No, but it is a fabulous car, very dependable, roomy for its size, runs great, good on gas mileage etc. The only reason I don’t love it is that I had a 1993 Eagle Vision, which, in truth, was a POS, but I loved it. Who said love was rational?
My girlfriend who works for GM is driving a Pontiac Grand Prix. That thing rocks. Cherry red with the spoiler (?) on the back, black/grey leather interior, kicking sound system, cool wheels. If you look at it wrong, it growls at you.
I drove a rented Cavalier once and HATED it. The automatic shift is set so far back (I’m 5’1") I had to actually reach behind me to put it in drive. Also, I saw one of those 20/20 specials on side impact collisions and it got a VERY low rating. I think something like a 35 mph side impact collision would kill the driver and severely injure the passenger. Other small cars like the Camry got very good ratings, they said it had more to do with design than size.
Buy a used Honda Civic. You’ll be ever so much happier for the money. I admit I have a bias against American cars. I have never seen one that was built to last 10 years or more, or resell for 4k when it I have a 1991 Nissan Stanza and it runs like a charm. I haven’t done anything but routine maintenance. I also know loads of people driving late 80s Hondas with no trouble.
I will put in a plug for the Metro – it gets GREAT mileage. A friend had a manual transmission and got 55 mpg.
I used to drive a Chevrolet Sprint Metro with the 5-speed. I routinely got 55mpg. I’m not exactly small, but thanks to Suzuki’s quantum engineering, the Sprint (later the Sprint Metro, Suzuki Something-or-other, and Geo Metro) seemed larger on the inside than on the outside. I’m 5’11" and big, but the Sprint Metro was quite comfortable and had plenty of headroom. It would easily carry four adults, or two adults with a lot of cargo space. It was light enough to climb up to the local ski area without chains while everyone else had to pull over to put chains on. It was quite peppy around town, but the three-cylinder engine had a tougher time on long hills. It had a top speed of about 90mph, and it maintained that speed well.
Aside from being a little anemic on hills, the only other problem was that you pretty much have to throw them away after 140,000 miles or so. FWIW, between my father and I we had three of them.
CR bases their automotive reports on objective data collected from tens of thousands of survey respondants. Your experience with Toyotas is based on a sample of one.
'Nuff said.
Thanks for all the input! My husband checked out Consumer Reports online after I read this thread. The Cavalier has very low ratings in reliability. A couple people at work (one’s a mechanic) had good experiences, but the CR info was disheartening. Now we are looking more toward a Prizm. To be honest, the reason we went toward the Cav at first were that the Cav had better standard features (well, not better, but more what I would like) and was cuter. But what we want is reliability. Both my dad (amateur mechanic) and my buddy at work (teaches car repair part time) are very pro-Chevy. My buddy said that if we want a car that will last a while, a Chevy is the one to get. Also, I appreciate the info on resale values, but I doubt we’d resell a car. In my family, you drive a car practically until the engine falls right out of it. We wouldn’t even be getting rid of my crappy Saturn (eight years old, 155,000 miles) except that it would need an engine rebuild to save it, and you can hear the transmission change gears five miles down the road.
I really appreciate everyone giving me the info. The last thing I need is another car that’ll start breaking down before it hits 50,000 miles.
BTW, the Prizm had great CR reviews in everything except back seat size, and trunk space, but I can live with that
That’d be the Suzuki Swift. It’s much cooler than the Geo Metro…just because the name is Swift. I’m on my second one(well, my first one that I just got back). It’s a '94, has 94,000 miles, and has had no major problems. Of course, I’m a little partial to the e-z bake oven(black car, black interior, no AC, Atlanta in September…).
I drove a Cavalier once as a rental, and I hated it. It’s been a while, so I don’t remember exact details though. I go with the Honda votes. I drove 2 Accords as company cars, racking up 60,000 miles on one in a year, and except for my tendency to be hard on tires, I had no problems at all with them.
Maybe I’m just hard on cars, and that’s why the Sprint didn’t make it past 140,000 before we put in another engine. My old Porsche 924 only lasted 145,000 miles, but then it was a 924. The 911 I had later lasted over 200,000 and was still running very strong, but there came a point where I had to sacrifice fun for carrying ability; hence the Cherokee.
I just remembered that a co-worker has a 1994 Cavalier. I’ve ridden in it and it seems like it might run okay with its manual transmission. I don’t think it would be good with an automatic. (OTOH, I think the Cherokee – my first-and-last automatic – would be better with a manual transmission. Live and learn.) But he drives like an old lady. (No offense to any old ladies who drive maniacally.) By comparison to his previous car, an '80-something Dodge (?) that we called “Mir” because he kept pouring money into it and it kept running like crap, the Cavalier is a vast improvement.
CR does not base their auto model reports on “tens of thousands of survey respondents.” Their frequency-of-repair and cost-history data come from surveys. Their new car road tests are conducted on individual vehicles purchased incognito from dealerships the same way consumers buy cars.
Therefore, their experience with any particular model from a given model year is based on a sample of one.
Of course when guys who make a living smearing gravy on shirts for washing machines to get out take a break and test automobiles, you get guys who strap steel pontoons to SUV’s and then act amazed when a vehicle with an altered center of gravity behaves like a vehicle with an altered center of gravity.
If you want opinions by people who know something about cars, try an automotive magazine like Car and Driver or Road and Track for information. Your library should have back issues and road tests are often available on the magazines’ web sites. These magazines often run long-term tests where they drive a car for twelve full months, provide quarterly reports in the magazine, and poll owners of that particular model. You might want to check the library or the Web to see if there’s a “four-seasons” test on the car you’re interested in.
CR is good for the survey information on repair costs and suchlike but as an automotive magazine it’s a great placemat.
I would like to agree with the Toyota faction in this discussion. Mrs. Longhair drives a 2001 Toyota Rav4. both of my daughters drive Corollas, one a 1999, and the other a 1996. They have been great little cars.
[Quote}
Originally posted by Zappo:
CR does not base their auto model reports on “tens of thousands of survey respondents.” Their frequency-of-repair and cost-history data come from surveys. Their new car road tests are conducted on individual vehicles purchased incognito from dealerships the same way consumers buy cars.
Therefore, their experience with any particular model from a given model year is based on a sample of one
Of course when guys who make a living smearing gravy on shirts for washing machines to get out take a break and test automobiles, you get guys who strap steel pontoons to SUV’s and then act amazed when a vehicle with an altered center of gravity behaves like a vehicle with an altered center of gravity.
If you want opinions by people who know something about cars, try an automotive magazine like Car and Driver or Road and Track for information
CR is good for the survey information on repair costs and suchlike but as an automotive magazine it’s a great placemat
[/Quote}
Not to turn this into some kinda Consumer Reports suck-fest, but the reason they are such as credible source of information is
a) they have no advertising, so they have no one but the reader’s/subscriber’s interest in mind. Not that C& D and
R & T are poor magazines, but they are primarily for car enthusiasts, and seem to act as an advertising arm of the auto industry. How often do they flat-out trash an automobile?? Car magazines spend alot more time writing about $75,000 Porsche than test driving GEO Metros & Ford Prisms and such… and thus have less relevant consumer information on consumer models.
b) CR is the most trusted magazine for fair consumer advice in America,and I would submit that they have people who know what they are doing testing automobiles. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that in order to keep their reputation intact and their readership high, CR is very interested in providing their readers high quality information. Quality information has to be what drives that company/magazine etc…
Originally posted by tsunamisurfer *
CR bases their automotive reports on objective data collected from tens of thousands of survey respondants. Your experience with Toyotas is based on a sample of one.
'Nuff said.
[/QUOTE]
Okay how about this? Consumer Reports uses unscientific methods and is a piece of crap rag.
Seriously folks. A title like that? Yet 37 posts and nothing! Nothing! It’s begging to be done. Cripes. Go write on the chalkboard “I will watch more Simpsons.” Except for you, nineiron, you made me laugh with that Geo comment.
Man 1: Should I finish college?
Rabbi K: Yes. No one is poor except he who lacks knowledge.
Woman: [babe in arms] Rabbi, should I have another child?
Rabbi K: Yes. Another child would be a blessing on your house.
Man 2: Rabbi, should I buy a Chevy?
Rabbi K: Eh, couldn’t you rephrase that as a, as an ethical question?
Man 2: Um… Is it right to buy a Chevy?
Rabbi K: Oh, yes! [chuckles] For great is the car with power steering
and dynaflow suspension!
Yeeha! Score one for the Bunny! And Jeannie, I just took a bunch of stuff over to my Dad’s last night and fit 3 pressback kitchen chairs in the interior of the Prizm. I’ve had no complaints.
We also have a tow hitch hooked up to it and tow my husband’s little aluminum boat and trailer with it. Works great.
