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DÃœM needs a car


DüM

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could post elsewhere but fuck it...

I totaled my car a couple months ago and I've been without vehicle for this time and it really, really fucking sucks. It sucks alot. So, now I'm employed again and I'm probably going to get a loan for a used car, my parents will co-sign but they don't want to buy me the car, which is fine.

I need a car to get back and forth to work, random boomtime and also school, needs to not rape me gas-wise. I'm looking for the lowest price range that won't be complete shit, I'd still like to have money for cluthing.

how much do you think I'll need to pay? car suggestions?

internet, please help me.

thanks.

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240sx.... but if you want better gas milage, you might be better off with a civic.

I second this.

I have a '93 240sx that I got 6 years ago and the only problem I've had with it was when the water pump broke... and I think the clutch may need replacement soon. But yeah, all in all, it's a great daily driver.

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Everybody is gonna chime in with a 'Civic, Accord, Camry, FWD Japanese car yada yada' etc, but fuck that shit. You don't want to be paying inflated insurance rates on a popular car that you just want to use for transport. I paid more insurance wise on a Civic CX hatchback listed at 77hp than I did for a BMW 540i, and I had both back to back.

If I had to buy the cheapest transportation-only car today, cash, and assuming you do more than say, 10-20 minutes driving most days, I'd cop an '80's~'90's Mercedes 300D super diesel (either W123 or W124, possible even a W210 if you find a good deal for one under $8-10K), or if you have a little more money or can get a loan, maybe look into some VW TDi diesel, like a MkIV Golf or Jetta TDi. Diesel cars have been the domain of old fogies and the like, so it's common to find nicely maintained diesel Mercs. Then, invest another $1000-1500 on getting the second fuel tank conversion that you figure out how to install on your own, and run it on vegetable oil.

Favorable scenario: You pay something like $2,000-10,000 for anything from a 300D to a late model VW TDi depending on how nice of a car you want, get your second tank+oil heater setup installed in the trunk, and get a small oil filtering kit at home. Car price+ $1500 for the veggie oil conversion and filtration kit you'll use. After that, you go to your restaurant(s) of choice, ask for their waste deep frier oil, and then you take it home, filter it in your filter setup, and you run your car on it for free, essentially. You have to start and stop the car on your primary diesel tank so the car doesn't sit with veggie oil in the fuel lines (don't want it to coagulate), but after a few minutes when it's warmed up, you flick the switch under your dash to go to veggie oil, and make essentially the same power and mileage on veggie as you do diesel.

Less favorable scenario: Same as above, only you choose not to filter waste oil on your own to skip the mess, and buy straight new veggie oil from Costco or somewhere similar. In restaurant sized tins, new veggie oil is still marginally (sometimes significantly) cheaper than diesel at the pump in most places across America, so while not the savings posed by free oil, it's still cheaper than paying the oil companies. Greener than a Prius as well, and your exhaust gas will smell like popcorn. Or egg rolls.

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I know someone with a diesel converted to run off used restaurant oil, its pretty doable. The only thing is storage of the oil. If you don't have a garage or a lot of space that could be an issue... I don't know if i'd do it myself, not sure i want to smell like a rolling deep fryer, but i like the idea.

when I was in the same situation as you, i went for a low mileage 99 honda prelude. but it sounds like you'd be happy with a corolla/civic/scion/accord whatever.

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i just got my drivers license recently, i'm a late bloomer. i am currently driving my mother's car, a honda crv. it is a good drive but the only thing i am bummed about is the fucking cd player. it cannot play burned cd's so i need to buy cd's for it to play. sidneylo and i were way bummed after burning a cd w/ tight pants by ninjasonik on it and we could not bump it in front of the bitches due to my cd players being shitty. but once kiya got into the car, ghostigital totally set the mood. in cod we trust.

sftrip_01.jpg

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worst advice ever, 80's-90's benz are not the most reliable cars out there, how many do you see on the road now compared to old civics/japanese cars? not that many. plus euro cars are bitch for repairs/maintenance.

buy something japanese 90's or newer, there's tons out there, and you won't have to spend more than 1K yearly on any problems with it.

and forget that veggie oil garbage, sounds stupid as hell

edit: oh yeah and don't take out a loan to buy a damn USED car, work for a few months and save up like 3 or 4K and then buy privately from some old geezer.

Honestly, how many cars have you owned in your life? You sound like you've inherited your knowledge of cars from your aging Asian mother, and your clone friends who've never popped the hood of a car to know.

Car ownership costs in the way of initial purchase price obviously, but when we're talking about cheap used cars, the cost of gasoline, maintenance, and insurance will far outweigh the buy-in price, within as little as a year.

My suggestion factors in a car with a realistic used car resale value, unlike almost every popular Japanese car. I also took into account what a 19 year old male with a previous accident on file might have to pay for insurance, which is going to be unreasonably expensive for anything branded Honda, or most things Toyota, Nissan, Subaru, etc. Anything Japanese FWD made in the 1990's that he will be able to afford, they're unbelievably easy to get into from the passenger's side and drive away with. Therefore he will pay more as a 19 year old male trying to insure something like a Civic , Integra, or Accord, than he would trying to insure a 4-door European car even of the same year. Insurance premiums are based on risk factor and logic.

Japanese RWD coupes can be cut from the list for the same reason, and he lives in the Pacific NW so it wouldn't be a smart choice of vehicle anyway.

Japanese cars run nicely, but typically start to die around 150K-200K miles, and in the meantime, will require timing belt changes, CV joints, and if it's an automatic, will probably get around to needing transmission attention eventually. Due to the buy-in cost of economy cars, assuming that someone has done all of the preventative maintenance properly beforehand is a gamble.

German cars will do 300K-400K easily, and most of the older ones are bulletproof. Logically, the better-to do owners of these cars that cost significantly more to buy, will be a better bet for having maintained the car properly. Go look at used Japanese cars with 150K miles, and go look at some German cars with 150K miles, and see which ones are in better condition.

As for veggie oil, it's an dual-fuel solution that is a second option to petroleum that is far cheaper with sustainable economic benefits. The mess of collecting/filtering used oil could be circumvented by simply skipping that step and buying the oil, so it's an option even to those without garages or space. It just offers someone the choice of what they want to pay for fuel, ranging from free to a couple bucks a gallon, versus the government fixed cost $4+/gal for petroleum fuel that is only rising.... As for running a diesel car on veggie, that is as old as the diesel engine itself. You could pour a bottle of Wesson into your gas tank as long as it's warm enough outside for the veggie oil not to coagulate, and it'd run just fine. The petroleum companies just don't want people to know that.

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I've dealt with a '96 Integra and my girl's family has a '99 A6, and while getting the latter fixed does cost more, the thing is definitely in far better condition than the Acura was when it was at the quarter-million mark. Despite all those K's, the A6 still feels new, and solid. So I'll agree with the pro-Euro people here, but add in that it all depends on how long you plan on keeping it. If the plan is only for a few years at max then some of the Japanese smaller cars are just as good, as long as the last owner took care of them.

No idea what the market looks like out west though. A quick autotrader search in your area showed some pretty badass deals {this one right here, though it wouldn't be too easy on gas), but if we're talking less than five grand, there's a ton of options; while Integras get creaky quick, they still are mechanically sound, which can be said for most 90's Honda products. Anything diesel is a good idea, whether or not you are willing to go down the veg-oil route, it'll still beat the hell out of regular gasoline mileage.

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Dismal talks sense. In the UK you see plenty of 20 years or older mercs beemers and volvos on the road, not shabby and running well. The few Japanese cars that make it to that age just look like heaps of crap.

Just get in a German car to know the difference. I like Japanese cars and think they are great value but they are not built to last forever like a German car.

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I second the Benz. Diesel would be nice but I currently have a 300E and it's a tank. Sure it sucks on gas but shit is comfortable and not much breaks. My last 3 cars were all Mercedes and it's going to be hard to let go of the brand. You can find something for 1.5-2k especially in your part of the country and drive it till it falls apart, which won't be any time soon. Plus, it's a Benz BALLA!!!

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anything can be broken into, you think just because you're driving something german/euro it's impossible to steal? No. the resale value I definitely don't agree maybe it's your region but here there are tons of 90's civics/integras being sold for over 5K, people are snatching them up left and right because they want better mpg. his insurance shouldn't cost that much more significantly, but I don't know what happened if he was at fault or not.

Look here genius: if he is buying, how is it going to benefit him to buy a used car with high resale value based on market conditions? When it's sub-$10K cars we're talking about, that is even more applicable. Japanese cars in our used car market have overinflated values that makes them good new cars to own for awhile with the intent to eventually sell, but used I think they're not the best deal. Anyhow, most of what you've said thus far Methimphibian, is complete rubbish and represents hearsay car knowledge like that of an Asian high schooler, which I suspect is not far from the truth, right?

Here in the USA, we have a different car ownership culture, and a used car market that is driven primarily by supply and demand, it's very different from what you have in the UK, Japan, Australia, continental Europe, etc. New cars, regardless of being domestic/imported, sell for a minimal markup over cost and are fairly tax-free, and then when they become used cars, their values are subject to market demand. We have good infrastructure in this country and most climates keep cars in good running condition, and our gas, registration costs and insurance rates are low, so those are not factors in a used car's value as they are in most other countries. The only other real variable is if you live in California and have to have a car that passes smog.

The used car market has been turned on its ear this year and last year, and anything large-engined is unsellable and are being dumped as used cars, while 4cyl Japanese cars are the hot go-to cars, but more than anything, this is mainly based on consumer perception, and the difference actual mileage between the majority of cars, barring the high end and low-end of the spectrum, (i.e hybrids vs. big-displacement V8's and V12's) is negligible. If anything, most Americans would do better by just inflating their tires a bit more and going lighter on the gas pedal than they're used to/dropping a bit of speed on the freeway.

I second the Benz. Diesel would be nice but I currently have a 300E and it's a tank. Sure it sucks on gas but shit is comfortable and not much breaks. My last 3 cars were all Mercedes and it's going to be hard to let go of the brand. You can find something for 1.5-2k especially in your part of the country and drive it till it falls apart, which won't be any time soon. Plus, it's a Benz BALLA!!!

How many miles on your car currently? The thing about old Berlin Wall-era German cars is that they're usually not the hottest model on the block nowadays, but you have to have owned one to appreciate them, they certainly grow on you.

Merc diesels get slept on, but they have such consistent value, after a few years their resale value starts flattening out until they start resting at 3X the value of their equivalent gasoline counterparts. The diesels are actually part of that really rare group of used cars that are increasing in value. If oil continues it's rise, I suspect the values of those '80's/'90's E class diesels will increase a lot in the future.

I don't need to buy a used car for transportation currently, but I swear that if I had to get a cheap used car right now in DUM's situation, I'd personally go looking for the cleanest possible W124 300D at a reasonable price, or even one of the rare W210 '96/97 E300 diesels, and run it on veggie oil for doing mileage. I too, honestly couldn't be fucked to go collect free oil, but I would go to Costco and buy cheap veggie oil most of the time, and just drive it forever. It's about as close one will get to a front-loaded car purchase as you're gonna get. The car would have solid value with the real possiblity of actually increasing in value, the lowest real insurance rate you're going to get, the choice of what you want your fuel to cost, they're real-world safe and comfortable, durable, and are reliable after they get some mileage on them.

My 2 cents, obviously. I don't hate Japanese cars and they are good cars, but in terms of buying them at the end of their depreciation cycle or having to go in on one and make car payments on top of insuring and fueling it, that shit sucks.

Last year, I sold my 4L BMW 540i (best car I've ever had BTW, among the 10 or so I've owned), and it made something like 22-24mpg, as long as I wasn't caning it. The 1.8L A4 I have now might make 30mpg cruising at 70mph, but for real purposes it doesn't make much better mileage than my old car, and is certainly slower.

I also just very recently bought a beater E36 M3 that I got to turn into a track car, it makes about the same mileage as well.

DUM, if you can go on base, I'd go and watch the lemon lot and see if any good deals come up. It's coming on PCS season so you might get a nice cheap car that way. Military cars are usually better maintained as well.

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