(no subject)

[austin_tycho]

A sad panda am I.

My mechanic has told me that my car is getting to the point where fixing everything that's wrong with it is more trouble and expense than getting another car might be. I've had that car since about 1988, and it has over 270,000 miles on it. The a/c is about to go out, which is costly and in Texas, for me, is not an optional feature. The front end needs work, and other things down the line will need replacing and parts are getting harder and harder to find. The parts that can be found are sometimes used, which means that they aren't necessarily a good fix for the problem.

The rest are recommendations he's made to me about what kind of car to look for, since I will have to look into buying a car for the second time in my life. Feel free to read on and make recommendations, if you're so inclined. In spite of my otherwise green tendencies, I appreciate a larger car so he made his recommendations with that in mind.

His first recommendation is a 95 or newer Toyota Camry, 4 cylinder. A Rav-4 or a 2 wheel drive 4-Runner might also be a good choice. They cost more to repair, but the parts last 3-4 times as long as many American made cars.

Basically, all late-model American cars are crap. If I want a minivan, though, the GM Safari or the Chevy Astrovan are not bad at all, as long as I get a '95 or newer with less than 50k miles on it. The Voyagers and Caravans have gotten worse over the years, and need lots of work between 100-200k miles.

Honda Accords are excellent cars. Nissans are every bit as good as Toyotas or Hondas, but the dealer in Austin sucks and that's who you have to get parts from, so avoid Nissans.

*sigh* I didn't want to deal with this for another few years, but I guess I'll have to. My Catalina cost me $400. I don't think I'll be as lucky this time around.

Comments

[scorpionis.livejournal.com]

Basically, all late-model American cars are crap.

Hmmm, he must know something we don't. I and a friend both have late-model Dodge cars: he an Intrepid, and we have a Neon. Both of us have had our cars for at least two years and both are approaching 40,000 miles. Neither of us have had nary a problem, and it is only now that our own Neon is requiring any sort of major repair (the struts/shocks need to be replaced, but we put our little car through its road trip paces for sure). I say 'little', but it is deceptively so. The trunk and backseat held enough to take the both of us quite comfortably on two week roadtrips whose total mileage came to around 9,000 miles. The Intrepid is more expensive, but is larger by far and rivals many 'luxury' cars I have been in and is much cheaper than they are. I will hopefully replace the Neon (if we don't keep it) with an Intrepid. From the research we did when we were looking for cars a couple of years ago (and I spent about two solid months looking up reviews), our Neon gets the most bang for its buck, with Subarus coming in a close second. The only car that gets better gas mileage is the Geo Prizm, but you couldn't pay me to buy one of those cars (anything Chevy touches turns to shit). We stayed away from Hondas and Toyotas because, frankly, I couldn't find anything about them that was more exceptional than the Dodges, except for their price. And a word of warning: mechanics love Hondas and Toyotas because they're so damned expensive to fix when they DO break. So keep that in mind.

Granted, two years and 40,000 miles isn't that much in comparison with how long one expects a car to last, but so far, we've had no complaints whatsoever. We love our Neon, and my friend adores his Intrepid. Dodge is very easy to deal with. I'd recommend getting the extended warranty (about $3000): pretty much anything except brake pads/rotors that can break on the car will be covered up to about 75,000 miles.

Sorry to hear your car is crapping out. The same thing happened to our Geo Metro (probably another reason I'm jaded against Geos): it was less expensive to get a new car than to keep fixing that piece of junk.

Re:

[mielikki.livejournal.com]

I know this mechanic isn't that way- I've know him as a friend, and he's given me solid reasons for his comments. And anyway, he doesn't profit from parts sales, which is why foreign are more expensive to fix than domestic- he gets paid labor, which is the same either way. In fact he said that parts cost more, but they last so much longer that it ends up being worth it.

His thinking is that he knows whatever I get I want to drive until it falls apart, and made his recommendations that way. He told me of a lot of cars that run fine until you hit 100,000 miles, then need tons of work (Voyagers and Caravans, in this case). But thanks for the advice though; I'm glad to know about Geos, because if I didn't get a camping-sized vehicle I was probably going to get the best MPG econobox I could get my hands on, and Geos are up there.