Need ideas for possible (new-to-me) used car
 

Hey guys. As much as I want the FR-S, I need to get real with myself and realize that my gigantic student debt isn't going anywhere. Therefore, buying a brand new car is probably not the most sound financial decision to make right now, knowing how much debt I have and how much I actually make at my job. So, it looks like I may be in the market for a used car and I'm looking for some help on some models I should be looking at. I have the following requirements-

1. Lower mileage -

• I drive 150 miles a day, which equates to around 35k a year. I need to start off with a car that has relatively low miles, probably something under 70k, preferably under 50k.

2. Reliable -

• Like I said above, I drive a ton. Hopefully I can move closer to my job in the next couple of years but right now I need to stay where I'm at (its cheap living with your folks :bonk:) So I need a car that's going to last at least 3 or 4 years so we're talking 200k.

3. Fun to drive

• I don't require it to be a speed demon, but it's got to be fun to drive, something with a little power behind it.

4. Body Style - preferably coupe but will consider a 4-door.
5. Good MPG - I'm shooting for 30mpg highway.
6. Price - Under $15k, preferably closer to $10k as I only plan to keep it a few years.
7. Must be manual transmission - I'm freakin' sick of auto.
8. Something decent in snow would be nice, but I plan to keep the elantra for winter driving.
9. I prefer honda, toyota, and nissan and their subsidiaries, but will consider others. I will not buy Hyundai, Subaru, or pretty much any American car, period.



So far, the cars I've been looking at consist of-

• Acura RSX Type-S
• Honda Accord Coupe
• Honda S2000
• Nissan Altima Coupe
• Nissan 350z
• Nissan Sentra Spec-V

I love creature comforts like leather, auto climate control, and heated seats, but I can live without them. What I need most is a car that brings me at least a little enjoyment, is reliable as all hell, and can take a beating and keep coming back for more. So guys, any other cars you can think of that I have missed?

Have you considered a 2ZZ-GE like the final generation Celica GT-S or the first gen XRS models (Corolla and Matrix)?

1st gen Audi TT?

Yes, I have considered and looked at the Celica GT-S, just haven't found anything with decently lower mileage. I'm definitely not a hatchback kind of girl so the matrix is out, and idk, the corolla feels a little too cheap for me but I could check it out. Thanks!

Manny, I said reliable haha. One of the last cars I would consider is an Audi TT, the first gen was a complete mess in terms of reliability. Also, as much as I like them, german cars repair bills scare me.

Perhaps this S2000?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2006-...#ht_735wt_1182

or this?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2003-...#ht_500wt_1182

or even this?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2004-...#ht_879wt_1182

WRX, TL type S, CL type S, Integra Type R, E36 M3

Those would be my top choices. My two good friends drive drive both the WRX and TL, both very quick and fun.

Reliable to me means assembled in Japan, 2WD, naturally aspirated, piston engine. That cuts down the choices by a lot. Here's a few I'd add to your list:

Acura TSX
Honda Fit
Honda Prelude
Infiniti G20
Infiniti G35
Lexus IS300 (hard to find manuals)
Lexus SC300 (hard to find manuals)
Mazda MX-5 and Miata
Mazda Protege and Mazda3
Scion tC
Toyota Celica GT and GT-S
Toyota MR-2 Spyder

Wow that's freaky...I was looking at that same car earlier today...

...along with a Laguna Seca Blue E46 M3 :drool:

lol, I just searched S2000 in eBay...


and WRB>LSB :bonk:

RSP>WRB...if you can find one of the 19 or so ever made lol

Sorry for thread jacking Suprachica...:scared0016:

I won't argue that! AMEN!


But yeah... I think S2000's fit the bill perfectly and the ones I posted are pretty damn affordable with pretty low miles!

Miata.

Thanks Guff. I definitely want to stay under $15k but s2000's are at the top of my list for sure and they are some of the cheaper insurance options!

I drove a TL for a couple years and while I love that car, it's a bit of a boat and not good on gas. I'd love to find an ITR but finding one with low miles is really tough. The M3 is a possibility, I'm just concerned about maintanence costs. Thanks for the ideas!

Thanks for the suggestions!

Haha, no problem MannyO, you were my first friend on here, no way I could get mad at you lol

Thanks everyone for the ideas!

And I'm coming to realize the s2000 doesn't have great gas mileage either...

I'd say I was in the same predicament 2 years ago. Things changed since then, but I was considering a used Subaru STI or an Honda S2000 at that point.

The 2dr. or even the 4dr. Honda Accord is worth the money and easy to maintain. I'm not much of a fan of the 8th gen. accord 4drs and up.
I would say go for a Subaru cause of the awd for winter, but you already made your mind up on that.
And my friend love's her altima coupe. She let me get behind the wheel and I thought it was a little fun car for an auto so it maybe equally as fun or better in a manual transmission.

The s2000 has much better gas mileage than a WRX, but I wouldn't want to drive it 150 miles a day. Honestly, it seems like it would be in your best interest to get a comfortable, efficient, reliable car, and save money towards getting something faster later. I know that isn't really want anyone wants to hear, but, as the saying goes, patience is a virtue.

Why can't you get a decently equipped accord coupe and a track-rat, first gen miata on the side?

With the S2000, I think you could get 26 mpg, if you were careful. And the fun factor would be to die for. Where you would make sacrifices is with lack of room to carry stuff. Also, the s2k is very reliable and super easy to work on.

If you get a Fit, don't get 2007-08 models.

Good luck. It will be interesting to see which way you go. :happy0180:

Apparently someone got 32mpg pulse and gliding the S2000 with engine on http://ecomodder.com/forum/em-fuel-l...vehicleid=3551

Seeing that even pulse and glide couldn't even get respectable (it's 2.2L, most cars with an engine like that do 30 easy) fuel economy out of an s2000, a 150 mile commute might hurt the wallet a lot.

I usually am pro type-r but as a daily driver in Cali you'll be lucky to keep it or a year before it gets stolen :(

Edit oops you are in CT. Near new York? Lucky to have it 6 months then :)

Yeah, I found an 05 accord LX special edition coupe with 32k for $13k which I thought was a good deal, and I think I could talk them down even more with a cash-buy, but I'm just not all that excited about it. 3000lbs and 160hp doesn't do it for me, but I should go test drive it. I also want to test drive the altima coupe, but both my brother and my sister have newer altima's and I vowed not to get one haha, but if it's a fun little car, it's worth looking at. Thanks!

I don't do any track at all so I don't need a designated track sort of car. And I don't plan to get rid of my elantra unless it completely sh!ts the bed so I'll already have 2 cars at that point, can't do a third, we have no room in the driveway as it is haha. I am certainly trying to be patient, and my first step is not buying an FR-S, but after all the years of college, I want some sort of enjoyment when I drive, I miss that. There have got to be cars out there that make economical sense that are also fun to drive.

Definitely won't be getting a Fit lol and I'd love to test drive an s2000 to see what it's really like, I think it'd be a ball but I am concerned with such a long commute everyday if I won't get tired of it. We will see!

Yeah, that's one of my main concerns with most of the fun-to-drive cars. When you drive 10 miles to work everyday, mpg doesn't necessarily make a huge impact on your monthly expenses, but as it is with my elantra I spend $500 a month on gas and that's with getting between 25-30mpg average per tank, so even a small decrease would become a lot more expensive, but I also need to factor in the insurance premium. When I did quotes online, an 05 RSX-S was a full $110 more a month than an 05 350z and $75 more than an 05 s2000. A Sentra Spec-V was only $10 less than the RSX so the insurance premium is a big difference as well.

Haha no, right smack in the middle between NYC and Boston, about 2 hours to NYC and 1 1/2 to Boston.

I am from Providence, RI. And let me tell you a Type R would be lucky to last 15 minutes here. I had a friend who bought a EP3 and it was literally stolen within a week of him purchasing it!

I would buy a used civic hybrid, or used prius.

At 150 miles per day, you would spend $255 a month on gas with a prius, vs $480 a month at 26 mpg.

On top of that, they have retardedly cheap maintenance.

With that $230 a month you saved, you could get quite a few nice used sports cars for leisure use, and not worry about gas mileage. You could sell your hyundai, and put that as down payment on another < 10K sports car.

+1 on the Prius. I've got nothing but good things to say about mine (2nd gen.) so far. I'm gonna have a hard time letting go of the +/- 50 mpg avg. (~500 miles per tank :)).

I know a prius is probably the smartest option, I just hate the look of those things. My friend has a 2010 jetta tdi and he is getting around 50mpg in that so I was thinking about that as well, just concerned with maintanence as they haven't gotten the best reviews for reliability so I've kind of squashed that idea. I'd be happy finding a turbo diesel that got 40+ mpg and actually lasted for a while.

Would you consider a hatch? I'm driving now a Honda Fit and I freaking love it to death. It gets me about 31 mpg combined, its lightweight, and if you put a little bit of work into it, it can be fun to drive. Not to mention its very reliable and pretty damn cheep.

I guess I should open up my options a bit, I just hate the look of them and I figure if I'm going to drop $10k+ on something, it should be on soemthing that I actually want so that's my dilemna. But I do need to be realistic, I drive a ton of miles and need something that won't kill my wallet with gas.

Mazda3 all the way!

oh, and add to the list?

Nissan Maxima (2003 and earlier assembled in Japan)

Yeah, I was thinking mazda3 as well. I think the maxima would be too much of a gas guzzler.

Mazdas aren't very good on gas though are they?
A 2ZZ powered car sounds right for the job IMO...although the gearing is very short. You might want to pull the 6th gear from a Matrix XRS or something and swap it in, that could save you several hundred dollars a year in gas as it cuts your rpms down 12.5%. I wonder if you can pull the 5th gear from one of Toyota's 5 speed manuals. Probably not. Actually, probably not even worthwhile.
Or, an MR-S which has a low cruising gear would do the trick too.

1. stick to FWD, less things to break

2. stick to a FWD car that uses a solid rear beam in the back, contributes to less things to break (and if you ever happen to bend it, used ones are cheap in the rip-and-pulls

3. get a 4 door to pay less insurance (although not always the case)

so i would suggest a VW Citi (or City?) Golf/Jetta or toyota yaris, the ford fiesta also fits.

these cars will cost you very little up front, and little in long term care, they are comfortable and more than adequate for all of a persons daily car driving needs.

Thanks for the suggestions. I would love to see some actual real-world mpg tests rather than EPA, you never know if it's really accurate.

Interesting, my car meets all three points. Awesome ;)

When it comes to mpg the EPA city number is probably pretty good estimate for stop and go driving. When it comes to highway you can either dig up a BSFC chart and do some extrapolations or go on the internet and search forums for that specific car where people report their highway cruising mpg in highest gear. EPA highway test doesn't represent normal highway driving.

Considering what you have said, I would probably steer clear of an S2000. I owned a 2004 S2000 (AP2) for close to 2 years. I loved the car and it was a lot of fun. I also had the OEM hardtop on it which was nice. Here is why I would probably steer clear of it considering your situation.

First, I drove 70 miles round trip to get to work. It was all highway miles and the best I ever got was 25mpg and that was being "easy" on the throttle. Second, you go through rear tires at the cyclic rate. Be prepared to change rear tires every 20K miles. Third, road noise (and it gets worse as the rear tires wear). At 150 miles round trip every day, you might have a headache every day you get home. Fourth, if you don't have the hard top they are easy to break into and car thieves love to steal them (I was military so my car was either on base or in my garage so fortunately I didn't have to worry about this as much). Fifth, I see you are in CT? Driving a RWD sports car in inclement weather conditions is not always the best idea (especially if you are driving 150 miles round trip). Last but not least, good luck finding a low mileage one that doesn't have any issues for around 10K (yes, they occasionally show up but you have to be in the right place at the right time). They are fun and reliable though and someday I will own another one.

A used 350Z may be a good compromise, but once again don't expect stellar MPG and be prepared to replace rear tires just like the S. I had a 2003 and I think I averaged around the same as the S with the exact same drive. You do pay more for insurance too so that has to be taken into account and the Z is probably just as limited on room as the S when you take into account the rear strut bar.

Now, I would highly recommend looking into an Accord coupe. I've owned 2, a 1999 EX with the 4 cylinder and a 2003 LX with the 6 cylinder. Both were fun, got great mpg, reliable, comfortable and the insurance was cheap. The 4 cylinder was "only" around 150bhp but it was still "peppy".

Remember, the money you save on gas and insurance can go towards either a) paying down your college debt quickly so you can get that "fun" car you really want or b) put into savings that can later be used to buy that "fun" car as a 2nd weekend warrior type car. Just a thought.

I mean, I just found a mx-5 mazdaspeed and EPA says 20 city/26 highway. I get that it has a turbo, but it's a 4-banger that weighs 2600lbs, how is that even possible? And my highway driving for the most part is put it on cruise control and forget about it, so I have a feeling I could get better than that. And after looking at different insurance costs, I'm almost leaning towards a miata, it's by far the cheapest car to insure, $50 cheaper a month than an accord, altima, fit, or prius, $75 cheaper than an s2000, and $120 cheaper than a sentra spec-v or an rsx. Amazing lol

How is it possible? Well for one thing, Subaru engines got complete crap mpg despite being only 2L. When you throw a turbo on, you end up invariably losing a little bit of energy through the turbo when it attempts to produce boost when you don't need it. Turbo engines are also lower compression, which hurts low load economy a lot.

But the most important factor for mpg is gearing. The maximum efficiency level is obtained at somewhere between 70-100% load at any given rpm, you increase the rpm, you decrease the load. Oh may I add, the efficiency usually falls slowly until around 30% load, and then drops off very fast. On an S2000 for example, the highway rpm is so high that the engine is operating in abysmal conditions for efficiency. I reckon if they took that stupid 0.82 or whatever 6th gear and dropped it to 0.6, the car would be doing 35 mpg easily. Now as for why it can't get say 45-50mpg, it has horrible aerodynamics and since the engine revs to 9000 there were probably a lot of low end efficiency tradeoffs.

For Mazda, I think the situation was similar to Subaru, their engines were just not very good in the efficiency department (otherwise Skyactiv wouldn't be claiming huge friction reduction numbers just to match the fuel economy of competitors like Hyundai and Honda), and I believe the MX-5 has short gears. And since it's a convertible, it has shit aerodynamics.

The 2ZZ is pretty remarkable in that it doesn't get total crap mpg despite short gears and high revs :)
Thanks to toughening EPA standards, in a few years time we'll stop seeing these nonsensical cruising gears, and 6 speeds will become the bare minimum in a transmission.

Well I'm definitely not going with an s2000 now haha, I figured it was probably a bit impractical for someone who commutes as much as me. I'm looking hard at the accord and altima coupes now, they are just damn heavy for the power, but I need something that is good on gas and they are relatively cheap on insurance. Thanks for letting me know your experience, it's really helping me to get real world situations, there's only so much information I can read about specs haha

Thanks man, you helped me learn something lol.

Geo Metro 1.0L, manual, hatch. Gets same real-world economy as a Prius (C&D test). It's fantastically cheap. And it could probably last long enough until you can buy a FR-S/BRZ. Problem solved. ;)

Early S2000. Within budget, dead reliable, 30 highway mpg, best freaking mass produced sports car on the market since the 240Z.

Totally disagree with the notion that FWD implies "less things to break".
I've only ever owned rwd, and I've NEVER had a driveshaft, diff, or halfshaft failure. On any reasonably designed rwd car, these components will last an ETERNITY.

In a way, fwd is more complicated! And it sucks.

If not S2000, Miata.

Life is short, don't dd an fwd car.