Which car should I buy?

Factual Questions
1

My '91 Passat has, for all practical purposes, given up the ghost. I must now find a new (read:low mileage used) car. My name “El Destructo” came from my awful luck with cars. Since I am clearly incompetent in choosing autos, I have turned to the SDMB for help and personal ignorance supression.

I have three criteria for a new car. In order of importance, they are:

  1. Reliability. Like I said, I have had nothing but trouble from my former cars. Please recommend a car that will start every time I put they key in the ignition. Or at least one that I won’t have to devote lots of money to fixing until after I’ve paid it off.

  2. Gas mileage. It’s the environmentally right thing to do, and in these dark times of oil company price gouging, the cheap thing to do.

  3. Cargo space. I am periodically called upon to haul musical equipment and other bulky things, so the more cargo space the better. However, if you have a suggestion which fits criteria 1 and 2, but has limited cargo space, I will consider it.

Let’s limit suggestions to automobiles produced within the last five years, unless you absolutely have to talk about the great experience you had with your '55 Nash Rambler. And I prefer manual transmission to automatic, but at this point I’ll drive anything.

Commence showering me with advice.

(note to Moderators: If this is the wrong forum for this thread, please move or close as necessary)

2

You don’t mention price, do you have a price range? Also, what counts as good gas mileage to you? I know people who would be happy getting 25 MPG, others to whom anything less than 35 is an waste.

From the sounds of it, you are looking at a small wagon or hatchback. I’d take a look at Corolla wagons, Civic hatchbacks, Accord wagons, and Saturn wagons.

The Corolla wagon isn’t made anymore (Toyota doesn’t make any wagons anymore) and I think the Accord wagon is no longer made either.

3

Price range: as low as possible. But don’t worry about price when suggesting autos. I’ll deal with price when I set out to buying the car. Right now, I’m just looking for the best fit for the OP criteria

Mileage: The Passat averaged around 30 MPG. I’d like to do better than that, but around 30 MPG is OK.

4

Though it pains me to recommend a Ford, I humbly suggest a gently used Escort wagon. Though the mileage probably isn’t up to your standards, it’s gotta helluva lot of cargo space for a small car. And cheap, too.

5

Highly recommend a late-model, low-miles, used, Honda Civic hatchback. I got mine with 30k miles on it for $10k, and it’s been very good to me.

Shop around for prices in your area. Get as late a model-year and as low a mileage as your budget allows. (Mine’s a 1994.) I probably should have paid about a thousand more for mine. I was very adamant about $10k at the used car dealer I bought it from. I was able to pay it off in two years by making double payments on the loan. (Which was a three year loan @ $300/mo.)

MPG has been anywhere between 28-47 MPG. It seems to get 30+/-2 around town, and when I drove to Texas and back (flat as a board and 5th gear 95% of the time) I got 47 MPG average. I probably could have gotten 50 MPG if I hadn’t insisted on doing 80 the whole way. ;]

The cargo hauling capacity is surprisingly good for a car that looks so small. The back seats fold down and there’s probably 6-10 cubic feet back there - albeit not too tall. I managed to carry my “twin” sized mattress and box spring in it when I moved. They hung out the tailgate a bit, but not enough to slip. I’ve hauled a 27" Sony Trinitron TV and its foot-high cabinet/stand thing. I can throw my bicycle in the back with little trouble, though I do have to take the front wheel off if I want to close the tailgate. Most of the time I don’t bother - it says in fine even with the gate down.

Maintenance-wise, it’s been better than I expected. I’ve had it for about four years now, and the only expenses it’s seemed to cause me on a regular basis have been oil changes. The 60k maintenance did hurt - $700. It would have been more like $500 but for some stupid $150 dust boot that wore out unexpectedly. Other than that, eveything has been $25 oil changes, $15 worth of spark plugs - stuff that is very mickey-mousey on the kind of money scales I deal with. For instance, I spend several times more on eating out in an average month than I do on maint on the Civic. It has been amazingly economical in the long term.

I chose to put new rims on it cuz I lost the wheelcovers and the stock rims are ugly as hell. I also bought new
tires at the same time. It was about $900 all told, but this is certanly not stuff the car needed by any stretch of the imagination. It was just stuff I felt like buying.
Downsides? It has a small engine. It’s not meant to be a race car and it isn’t. It can do a hundred (downhill), but I wouldn’t want to take it any faster than that. It’ll sustain 75 on the flats no problem. It will lose speed up steep hills and you’ll have to downshift - boo f’ing hoo. It doesn’t look sexy, though I don’t think they look actively ugly either. Just kinda bland.

People will call it a “chick car”. Funny, the stereotype of women I’ve always been told is that they’re irrational and care more about appearance than practicality. But probably I’m just insecure, since after I paid off the loan early, I went and used the money I wasn’t spending on car payments and maintenance to buy a penis-car Nissan 300ZX twin-turbo. ;]
So anyway, check one out and see if you like it. I’ve been very happy with mine. (I’m sure having a good mechanic
who I don’t fear taking the car to for maintenance has contributed to this, too.)

      -Ben
6

In addition I’d suggest you also look at a Mazda Protege. They’re Consumer Reports top rated small car. Decent mileage and a lot of room inside. I’ve had good luck with my Mazda truck.

Good luck. Oh, and you might want to check with car rental companies. They often sell late model cars with pretty low miles for a decent price, and they’re usually very careful about maintenance on their cars. The downside is that they almost always have automatic transmissions, and sometimes the cars have been abused by assholes.

7

Honda civic hatchback.

Let me tell you a story. One of my co-workers got drunk at a gulf coast beach one day. Driving back home later that night he missed a curve a drove his civic into a muddy SALT water canal. The engine compartment was under water. (He and a friend then spent the night in the marsh hidding from the cops so he wouldn’t get arrested for DUI. He then reported his car stolen the next day.) Anyway, the car spent several hours under water. When he got the car back he washed the car and engine to remove the salt and mud, changed the oil, and he’s been driving it ever since. This happened about 5 years ago. The car is rusty but still moving.

8

My vote would be for a late 90’s model Cavalier. If they are even as half as reliable as the earlier ones you’ll have no problems with it whatsoever. My '90 cavalier finally died after 220,000+ miles. It got pretty darned good gas mileage also. Also what about a late model Sunfire? Pretty reliable and fairly decent on gas. If your looking for a hatchback model I’d go the route of getting a Subaru Outback. Very nice cars! Good luck not getting screwed over by a used car salesman like I did.

9

Gonna have to agree with the majority of the posters here, and go with a lightly used Honda Civic hatchback. Good gas mileage, quite dependable, as far as I know fine service should anything go wrong, and of course, should you suddenly want to personalize your ride, a burgeoning aftermarket that produces all manner of mechanical and cosmetic doodads for the Civic. When this inevitably gets moved to the In My Humble Opinion forum, I fully expect to get flamed…

Since this is still in General Questions, I feel I should offer some tips on used car buying. Because, really, it doesn’t really matter what make and model you buy, you should be wary. Try dealerships first: most manufacturers now offer some form of certified pre-owned car program, complete with a warranty. But if you must buy directly from the car’s previous owner, two things. Check under hood for anything that looks like a leak. Replacing things like head gaskets or vavle-cover seals are EXPENSIVE. Also, and maybe nowadays this doesn’t apply, but carry a fridge magnet with you. Any part of the body that looks suspicious, try the magnet: if it doesn’t stick, it’s bondo, and the car’s been in an accident. Walk away.

10

Thanks everyone. I appreciate the advice and anecdotes. I will try to avoid soaking whatever auto I eventually buy in saltwater for any length of time. And I see no reason for anyone to flame you, donnie rotten, for giving an honest response to the OP.

Anybody had any first hand experience with the Neon or PT Cruiser?

11

Actually I didn’t, but I recently considered buying one from about the 96 or 97 vintage, but changed my mind.

What I did end up buying was a 2000 Nissan Altima GXE with less than 17000 miles on it, just last Saturday. I don’t know if that model would meet your needs, but it’s got a lot of room for a small sedan and the trunk is huge. It only comes in 4 doors AFAIK, so I suppose you could easily store some additional cargo in the back seat if you have to. Judging by the fact that you were driving a Passat I’d assume you aren’t into the whole van/SUV/pickup-truck esthetic, and also that you want something a little bigger than a subcompact. The salesman whom we dealt with said that Nissan was really hurting and overflowing with inventory. The sticker on the car we bought was already so low that I didn’t think to haggle (damn!).

12

Its like love, everyone has their own idea what you should do.

PT Cruiser? That’s a little early in production isn’t it? A nice car, yes but Id wait until it has more production models behind it.