What is the most economical car?

[seanbrenna]

I notice no one as brought up safety. Are the subcompacts mentioned less safe than a larger sedan?

[Sclass]

@M and @JohnnyH I'm blown away by your great mpg. I want one of these Geos. My mom had one in 97 and it had a resale far below a Corrolla. My cousin had the 97 Corrolla and it looked identical under the hood. If you didn't need the Toyota name it was a steal used.

My take with these cars is to let somebody else eat the depreciation. Yahoo autos has a good cost of ownership estimate for the first five years. If you can get a three year old car you can do well. Honda seems to be an exception. I have a 99 Accord that seems to fetch about $4k on the local Craigslist. It commands a high price for such an old car, but come to think of it, it has only broken an O2 sensor during its 120k miles. It is the most trouble free car I've owned, so I'd be tempted to get another at the right price.

My 30 year old Mercedes diesels are total cheapskates cars. I use junkyard parts. Run on free vegetable oil. One has 350k and the other has 175k. Both run well. They eat a quart of oil per month but thats $2 per month! I paid $1500 for one and $2500 for the lower mileage one. I have to wrench on them a bit so they aren't for everyone. Just mentioning because they are darn cheap. Depreciation, insurance, registration, fuel, opportunity cost, are dirt cheap. The diesel engines stink but they last longer than your interest in the car. I mean if I'm not careful, I may never get to try another car in my lifetime. My passengers complain I don't have air bags and ABS but I think these 80s Benzs are safe. They were real pioneers of vehicle safety back then with features like telescoping steering columns and crumple zones. I've seen wrecked ones in the yards and they seem to do well.

If I bought again I'd look at a 2000 to 2004 Civic HX 5 speed as a cheap second hand fuel saver.

Staying on topic with economical cars, my friend gets old crown Vic cop cars (already mentioned above) for his whole family. He's a real cheap guy. His hobby is hitting the govt auctions and low balling. What they waste in gas is made up in depreciation, insurance and reg.

[seanbrenna]

I guess this is common sense; but, the subcompacts really are less safe. Why aren't you guys considering this in your calculations?

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/04/14/iihs ... rly-again/

[Sclass]

@Toska - great article! Always suspected this from physics. This article has the 2x likelihood of injury in a 1-3 yr old micro car figure. Not good. You can see the small/large extreme when a semi or train hits a car.

I did some body work on my 99 accord. It sure had a thin skin. I almost didn't need a hammer. The majority of the protection in the door came from a horizontal tube like a 1" electrical conduit. It was easy to bend back into place. It was clear the engineers were trying to make the car light for obvious advantages.

I used to have a Honda N600 and I'd just convince myself I was safe while tootling long...kind of like I do on my motorcycle.

[susswein]

If CNG is readily available in your area then a dual fuel (gas/CNG) ex-government vehicle bought at auction is probably your best bet. CNG runs about $1.50/gallon here (in utah) and city/county owned vehicles (mostly crown vics and full sized pickups) can be bought at auction for $2000-$4000.

[JohnnyH]

Got new tires for the Prizm, turns out the tires were rather oversized (about 7-8%)... That means I'm getting MPGs of up to 44-45 without hypermiling! 0_o

also, might explain the first speeding ticket I've got in 7 years.

[retired@48hahaha]

I've always had pu trucks. I buy 'em cheap, and do all the maintenence myself and drive 'em til I'm tired of looking at them. My last truck I bought in '99 - it was a '95 Sonoma with a bent bumper and broken headlight. Got it cheap, and recently scrapped it @250,000 miles. I ran it too hot and warped the head, causing damage to the head gasket. I could fix it myself for about $100, maybe I will, but it'll probably grow moss on it in the backyard. I'm kinda sick of driving that rig. It stinks in there after all these years.

My new rig is a '90 GMC fullsize. The drivers door hinge was worn out and the door wouldn't open or close, so I got it for $700. Runs and drives great, and i went to the GM dealer and got door hinge pin bushings for $15, now there are zero issues with this rig. Should go another 200,000 plus. Maybe I'll sell it for $1800 now that the door opens and shuts. <snort>

Used cars in good mechanical condition that use inexpensive parts and are easy to work on are the ticket. Avoid European cars - parts cost an arm and a leg, and specific knowledge of those cars are needed to keep 'em going.

[steelerfan]

I am partial to the Crown Vic. It was even sweeter for me as my Dad scaled back to one car and gifted it to me. At 115K miles, It should last me another 6-7 years! The thing most people don't realize is the Vics get over 20 mpg in mixed driving. The other benefit is that repairs and parts are cheap. I can't for the life of me get over why I never considered this car before.

[Sclass]

That's so funny. As I said above I have this friend who standardized on auctioned crown Vic's. At lunch this weekend I saw his kid driving one of his cop cars and laughed. He hands them down to his kids too. They seem to be very reliable and long lasting. They use it like a minivan to move their two kids. Modern minivan probably gets close to the same mpg? Maybe.

We talked about the LTDs in the parking lot after lunch. Like all stable platforms, once you figure out its known demons (Internet forums help on this) you can make it reliable. He certainly knows all the common fixes and swears by these cop cars. If you can live with the mpg you'll win on overall cost.

He dug how I standardized on Mercedes diesels. Parts are expensive, but once you fix the common problems they're bulletproof third world taxis. I just filled my 240D with waste veggie oil and I'm good to go all month. Not for those who don't want to do their own work. MBZ can be pricey to fix outside.

Just illustrating the advantages of standardizing on a make. Another pal has three Volvo 240DL sedan/wagons for his family. He knows all their flaws and keeps on top of them.

[JohnnyH]

@Sclass: I am intrigued... What kind of work do you do the 240D to increase the longevity?

[Sclass]

JohnnyH,

Actually, I'm working on how to kill this thing. These cars inherently last a long time. The Mercedes diesels of the 70s and 80s can often do 500k with scheduled care. Sometimes more if you get a lucky engine. The chassis was built with no expense spared so they are made with better materials and more material. So the W123 diesel is already at an unfair advantage for longevity. They're made for the subsaharan desert.

I bought the car with 200k. Now it has 400k and the engine is going strong. With regular oil changes it just doesn't want to die. After 10yrs I'm sick of driving it. It just lost the AC evaporator which is hard to replace. I hate giving up a running car so I'm hoping it'll throw a rod. It just won't die. I stopped changing oil two years ago and just add what it loses. I abuse this car nowadays.

That being said the car has parts that break and wear out. I replace stuff like balljoints, wheel bearings, cv joints, brake pads, starter, hoses, lock motors, seat covers and shocks. But the motor and body are tough. To replace the known issues I follow the hundreds of enthusiasts who keep these cars. They walk you through all the routine repairs.

So I guess the answer is buying a long lasting car. No amount of preventative maintenance will work on a Yugo. For something more modern I like the 99-02 civics. They are built to last and have a following of enthusiasts.

In terms of what can be done to all cars to make them last is try to drive like a mechanic. That is, you drive like a guy who wants to make a car last so he won't have to fix it. Exceeding failure stress, high temperatures, etc. breaks stuff. Go easy on acceleration. That includes acceleration from going around corners fast. This will lower overall stress and the car will last longer. Shift gingerly on a stick shift - match speeds, don't use synchromesh cones to jam the car into gear(this is another way of saying don't use your clutch and transmission as a brake/accelerator). Don't burn your clutch. Just engage it deliberately and go. Coasting to a stop with minimal braking will save brake pads, wheel bearings, tires, suspension bushings and fuel, as opposed to screeching to a stop.

A 240D accelerates 0-60 in 30s. So it is so weak it cannot break itself. As a diesel it's exhaust gas temperature his hundreds of degrees lower than a gas car. So there's less heat stress. Also the car is so torquey that you can start off in first by just letting up the clutch without hitting the gas. This means you don't have to rub out the clutch so much...it's forgiving.

Hope this helps. After fixing so many cars I know how to baby them. I've seen a lot of worn and broken parts. I don't like replacing them so I don't wear them out.

[Kriegsspiel]

Great post, that was very interesting. One of the reasons I got an old Scion was so that I could learn how to fix it myself, without much risk of breaking a very expensive car.

[Sclass]

Scion has a great following. That is key to DIY maintenance. Pre-Internet it was a lot harder to debug the cars and fix them. With the forums you have people who have all been there done that with your particular model. And, if the car had good manufacturing controls, they all tend to wear out/fail in the same ways.

If you get a low mile model most of the issues are already identified and posted. I love it, it almost makes me feel like I'm good at fixing cars

In reality it's like a few hundred people are providing accurate free advice over your shoulder while you stumble through your problem. I don't even try to diagnose anymore. I just type the model, year, problem into Google and see what I haul up.

Mechanics tools are so much cheaper these days. All you need is a browser and some courage.

Edit - Oh, another tip is look for older cars on the road. Walk a big junk yard like pick and pull. If you see a lot of a particular older car still on the road like ten year old Accords they are probably pretty good. If the yard is full of them...like ten year old Tauruses beware. Case in point, if you see an 80s car on the road it is often a Mercedes diesel. I also pay attention to cars being towed or stuck on the side of the road with the hood up. Make mental notes and create a statistical database.