Whatever happened to the beater

[myntik1]

Can someone please explain to me what happened to the 1500 beater?  In 2 weeks my commute is going to go from 15 miles a day to 42. When I got my Xterra in 01 I wasn't concerned about the mpg since fuel was cheap.  Now that I'm staring at 3.22 I was thinking about getting an older, more fuel efficient beater to fly up and down the highway with.  So for the last few days I've been looking for a cheap beater.  It wasn't until 96 that I paid over 6 hundo for a car. And those cars I could keep glued together for almost a year.  Now 11 yrs later I can't even find a 3 tone early 90's Escort for 15.  What is the world coming to when beaters now start at 4-5K?

[ChadTower]

They are in demand now. 

[Ed_McCarron]

Settle down, shmokes.  He's talking about cars, not discipline.

My guess?  All the low end fuel efficient cars are Japanese, and are still in better shape than what you or I consider a beater.

[shardian]

Sucks, doesn't it? I was more in the market for a $3k slightly better beater, but those are selling for $5-6k right now. I then gave up on that and the started looking for you 1500 beater - they are in the $3k range. I gave up and accepted the fact I'll be driving my beater 740GL Volvo until at least the Fall - when fuel efficient car prices should go back down.

The Volvo gets a whopping 20-21 mpg average. Its a 4 cylinder, but weighs a TON.

[ChadTower]

I gave up and accepted the fact I'll be driving my beater 740GL Volvo until at least the Fall - when fuel efficient car prices should go back down.

What makes you think they'll go down in the fall?

[shardian]

I gave up and accepted the fact I'll be driving my beater 740GL Volvo until at least the Fall - when fuel efficient car prices should go back down.

What makes you think they'll go down in the fall?

Fuel economic cars w/ AC go up in the spring, 4WD's go up in the fall. That's the way it works.

Prices of gas will get back down to $3 or so in the fall.

[myntik1]

I think at this stage of the game the X gets 15 highway due to a recent complete tune-up.  I remember driving my old VW Golf 30+ miles a day to and from school and work while only filling up once a week.  I thought I would be able to find a mid 90's Geo Prism, or an Accord, nothing pretty but somewhat mechanically sound.  I can't even get a rusted out 89 Sentra for 15 hundo.  Now I'm thinking about a Schwinn with a bannana seat, but I haven't been to the bike store in a couple of years those might be out of my range as well.

[AtomSmasher]

I remember driving my old VW Golf 30+ miles a day to and from school and work while only filling up once a week. 

I remember when I first bought my Ion I was surprised that I had to fill it up just as often as I had to fill up my GTO (around 310-320 miles per fill up), then I realized the Ion had a 12.5 gallon tank and the GTO had a 19.5 gallon tank     (if anyone does the math to figure out mpg, remember that theres generally 1.5 gallons left in the tank when I fill them up.)

[mr.Curmudgeon]

$8

[Ed_McCarron]

$8

Someone wanna smack him?

[ChadTower]

A good beating is in order.  Any beaters in the thread?

[shmokes]

(if anyone does the math to figure out mpg, remember that theres generally 1.5 gallons left in the tank when I fill them up.)

FYI, You don't have to guestimate about anything when figuring out MPG.  It's easy to figure out exactly how many miles per gallon you got. 

Next time you fill up your tank, make sure you top it off. Reset your tripometer.  Now drive for a while.  Doesn't matter if you use the whole tank or a quarter of the tank.  Go back to the gas station and fill up the tank again, make sure you top it off.  Check how many gallons you put in.  Now look at your tripometer.  Divide the number of miles on your tripometer, by the amount of gas you just put in your tank, and you know exactly how many miles per gallon you your car got.

[NiN^_^NiN]

I know you can get a 2.5l Ford Probe GT or a mazda mx6 for $600 i see it alot on probetalk.com (i have a probe)

They are great cars good on gas and nice looking

They also have a 4 banger version aswell if you want even more savings

check out you local places or www.probetalk.com you could get a very nicely done one for $2000 and under sometimes

[AtomSmasher]

(if anyone does the math to figure out mpg, remember that theres generally 1.5 gallons left in the tank when I fill them up.)

FYI, You don't have to guestimate about anything when figuring out MPG.  It's easy to figure out exactly how many miles per gallon you got. 

Next time you fill up your tank, make sure you top it off. Reset your tripometer.  Now drive for a while.  Doesn't matter if you use the whole tank or a quarter of the tank.  Go back to the gas station and fill up the tank again, make sure you top it off.  Check how many gallons you put in.  Now look at your tripometer.  Divide the number of miles on your tripometer, by the amount of gas you just put in your tank, and you know exactly how many miles per gallon you your car got.

Yup, I do that pretty often.  I just figured I'd throw the disclaimer out there since I know someone would of calculated the numbers I stated and said how horrible the milage is.  When I originally thought it was odd the two cars seemed to use the same amount of fuel was actually when I burned a quarter tank going to my parents and back, so I only knew the rough percentage of the fuel used was the same in both cars.  This was before my first fillup, so I ended up looking in the manual to see how big the tank was because I figured it was pretty close in size to the GTO's, obviously I was wrong.

[ChadTower]

You won't know exactly - the tank size doesn't tell you how much gets stored in various places outside of the tank itself.  Nor does it tell you exactly how much the tank can store.  Ever put 11.5 gallons into a "ten gallon tank"?  My car supposedly has a ten gallon tank and I consistently put more than ten gallons into it even when there is still enough in there to get me around.

[AtomSmasher]

You won't know exactly - the tank size doesn't tell you how much gets stored in various places outside of the tank itself.  Nor does it tell you exactly how much the tank can store.  Ever put 11.5 gallons into a "ten gallon tank"?  My car supposedly has a ten gallon tank and I consistently put more than ten gallons into it even when there is still enough in there to get me around.

Huh?  A 7 gallon difference in tank size told me what I wanted to know.  The number of miles driven on a tank divided by the amount of gas it takes to fill the tank is what I use when I'm figuring out exact mpg, so knowing the tank size in that situation is a moot point.

[paigeoliver]

I haven't seen any lack of $1500 beaters at all. Looking at craigslist for my city (St. Louis) I can literally choose from dozens and dozens of cars under $1500. The super-high MPG cars are at an undeserved premium on the used market, but there are still tons of cars to choose from. You must be out there trying to buy a Honda or Toyota, those are great new cars but the used ones carry such a price premium that you aren't going to get anything but garbage ones in that price range (they are a poor buy at all points of the used market, only being a good buy when brand new). I found all these in like 10 seconds of looking.

$900 Cavalier http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/638053673.html

$1500 Honda CRX (one of those high gas mileage cars) http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/638047095.html

$950 Dodge Shadow http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/637922565.html

$1250 Chrysler Windsor http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/637355142.html

$900 Mustang Convertible http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/633894927.html

Also note that purchasing a second car that gets better gas mileage often takes years to break even financially, and in some cases it never will.

[myntik1]

My area seems to be the dumping ground for the Cutlass Supreme and it's big brother the Pontiac 6K.  I had a P6k and a buddy in college had a cutty and they were both plaqued with tranny issues.  The rest of the ones that don't need a ton of repairs are all 6 cylinder beasts.  My goal by purchasing a beater is 3 fold.  (1) Find something in the 23+ mpg range, (2) to extend the life of my Xterra, and (3) to cut down on the routine maintainence of the truck.  I know this probably isn't the most cost efficient way of doing things but it makes sense in my eyes.  I figure by running up and down on the highway in a beater I can effectively ward off a car payment by a year or two.  My truck runs fine now, but it's 8 years old and the repairs aren't cheap.  I figure 1500 on the car, 2-3 on immediate repairs, 4 on insurance and another 250 for tax/tags.  I'll exchange that for spending 40 bucks m/f on gas instead of 80-90, and pushing out a 350 car payment for another 2 years or so. Flawed logic, but that's how I think.

[shardian]

I haven't seen any lack of $1500 beaters at all. Looking at craigslist for my city (St. Louis) I can literally choose from dozens and dozens of cars under $1500. The super-high MPG cars are at an undeserved premium on the used market, but there are still tons of cars to choose from. You must be out there trying to buy a Honda or Toyota, those are great new cars but the used ones carry such a price premium that you aren't going to get anything but garbage ones in that price range (they are a poor buy at all points of the used market, only being a good buy when brand new). I found all these in like 10 seconds of looking.

$900 Cavalier http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/638053673.html

$1500 Honda CRX (one of those high gas mileage cars) http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/638047095.html

$950 Dodge Shadow http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/637922565.html

$1250 Chrysler Windsor http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/637355142.html

$900 Mustang Convertible http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/633894927.html

Also note that purchasing a second car that gets better gas mileage often takes years to break even financially, and in some cases it never will.

I can't believe you posted that Windsor as a "daily driver beater".

That CRX looks real nice and I would have bought that one.

[paigeoliver]

Well it isn't worth restoring, and it apparently works, so in theory it could be one. 

I haven't seen any lack of $1500 beaters at all. Looking at craigslist for my city (St. Louis) I can literally choose from dozens and dozens of cars under $1500. The super-high MPG cars are at an undeserved premium on the used market, but there are still tons of cars to choose from. You must be out there trying to buy a Honda or Toyota, those are great new cars but the used ones carry such a price premium that you aren't going to get anything but garbage ones in that price range (they are a poor buy at all points of the used market, only being a good buy when brand new). I found all these in like 10 seconds of looking.

$900 Cavalier http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/638053673.html

$1500 Honda CRX (one of those high gas mileage cars) http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/638047095.html

$950 Dodge Shadow http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/637922565.html

$1250 Chrysler Windsor http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/637355142.html

$900 Mustang Convertible http://stlouis.craigslist.org/car/633894927.html

Also note that purchasing a second car that gets better gas mileage often takes years to break even financially, and in some cases it never will.

I can't believe you posted that Windsor as a "daily driver beater".

That CRX looks real nice and I would have bought that one.

[shardian]

Well it isn't worth restoring, and it apparently works, so in theory it could be one. 

...you already bought it, didn't you?

 

[RayB]

I still drive my 91 CRX (dx model). Last time I measured its mpg it was getting about 35mpg (38 on a long high way trip). So its a good choice, unless its an SI, and unless it's been driven wrecklessly and not maintained.

[JeepMonkey]

I have had my eye out for a beater CRX off and on for the last couple years and I never see any for sale.  It seems like just five years ago they were always in the paper, and cheap.  I figured they must all be dead by now.