Do you drive a beater car?

[...has left the building.]

Lets just put it this way, I jack my car up on each side, every weekend, just to polish the exhaust canisters...



I'm planning on buying an EK Civic hatchback next year and dropping a B18 in it. Even though it won't be too glamorous, I'm sure I'll take as much care of it as the other car. In bushido, it is important to keep a certain level of cleanliness to things. From that viewpoint, not taking proper care of your things is just a sign that you don't take other things in life seriously. I'm not trying to crap on anyone, but I believe that if you can't or don't want to take care of the small/easy things in life, it is going to very hard for you to tackle major obstacles in life. Or maybe I'm just OCD when it comes to my cars

[doczinn]

My 99 Sentra is cluttered but clean on the inside, and as dirty as it gets on the outside.

No-one will ever steal it.

[zahc]

I'm 21 years old, and I've always driver beater cars. My current ride as a 99 toyota corolla with 140k that I bought for 500 bucks. It gets 30mpg under brutal pizza delivery conditions. Not a thing wrong with it, except that it looks like *expletive deleted*it. Many of my friends have cool, customized, or pimped out cars. For me, I consider a car nothing but an expense. If I could get away with it, I would go without one. My bicycle is worth 4 times as much as my car.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

My bicycle is worth 4 times as much as my car.

Amen, brother!

[Monkeyleg]

The delivery driver last night offered to trade me even up: pizza for my car.

:neener:

[cfabe]

Right now, no, I drive a bought-new 2005 Mazda6. It's comfortable, quiet, safe, and easy on gas, but given the choice agian I wouldn't buy it. Signing up for 5 years of payments and a few thousand dollars depreciation on a new car just isn't worth it. Through college I drove a 94 chevy caprice police car that was ugly, huge and loud; a great college car, but it did leave me stranded a couple times and kept breaking even after I thought I'd already replaced everything possible. I needed a more reliable car, but I should probably have spent around $8000 cash on a newer used vehicle rather than $20k financed on a new car. But I guess that's a mistake one gets to make once in a lifetime, it will be the last time I buy new, that's for sure. Hopefully I can pay off this car quickly and keep it well past 'beater' status.

[CAnnoneer]

CAnnoneer, I didn't mean to imply that my Saturn was unsafe. It's the cosmetics that have suffered. I keep up on all of the mechanicals.

Ah, okay then.

It is a sore spot for me since as a gradstudent I drove an old Buick Century that constantly had something dying on it and in need of repairs worth an amount comparable to the value of the car itself. Later, when I bought my first new car, I could not be happier. It was a big stone off my shoulders.

A "beater" may be disadvantageous from another perspective. You get stopped more often as well as attract the attention of "neighborhood watch" etc.

[Monkeyleg]

"A "beater" may be disadvantageous from another perspective. You get stopped more often as well as attract the attention of "neighborhood watch" etc."

While that was certainly true years ago, it isn't today.

As I mentioned, the car in question is a 1991 Saturn. Still looks good from the outside. Plus, I still have my wife's Endangered Species plates on it. Combine that with my receding gray hair  and non-confrontational look,  and most cops/regular folks probably think I'm some sort of anti-gun, anti-violence pacifist.

The only tip-off is the "Rice '08" bumper sticker.

One other advantage I've found about having beater cars is that they don't get stolen. In my case, I think potential thieves look at the junk inside the car and say, "eeewww, I'm not going in there."

[Lee]

I wouldn't call any of our 3 cars beaters...but they have a combined age of 33 years and the total mileage runs  about  400K.   We haven't made a car payment in over 5 years.  All three run great and look good.  All three are imports (Toyota, Isuzu, and Volvo).

[Northwoods]

Well, my daily driver is a '92 Civic with 191,900 miles.  Looks like hell as the clear coat is gone on the hood and starting to go in a few other places.  Oh yeah, it's also been broken into 3 times ($50 stereo's taken each time), stolen, vandalized, and sideswiped and rear ended while parked.  But the damn thing still starts every time I turn the key (so long as there's enough gas), and as long as I keep up on adding oil (leak I think in the pan) and coolant (cracked radiator) there's no problems.  I've tried to get rid of that car 3 times, to no avail.  Probably just as well.

My wife gets the '97 Camry that had been driven by her step-grandma until she had the keys taken away.  Nice car, only 65K on it when we bought it ($4500).

I've also got a 2001 Ranger 2.3l.  Plenty of Arizona pin-stripes from taking it hunting and hauling all kinds of crap.  It is now officially the spare vehicle and only gets driven when we either need to haul something, one of the other cars is down for repairs/maintenance, or I'm going hunting.  Once the Civic pukes and dies (might be a while yet) it'll probably become my daily driver once again.

[crt360]

I've got an 85 Toyota that must be hanging out with sumpnz's Civic.

Looks like hell as the clear coat is gone on the hood and starting to go in a few other places.  Oh yeah, it's also been broken into 3 times ($50 stereo's taken each time), stolen, vandalized, and sideswiped and rear ended while parked.  But the damn thing still starts every time I turn the key (so long as there's enough gas), and as long as I keep up on adding oil (leak I think in the pan) and coolant (cracked radiator) there's no problems.

Mine's only been broken into and had stereo stuff stolen once, but it's also been sideswiped on both sides while parked and not only rearended, but the front has been backed into, and a body shop light fell on the roof while they were repairing one of the sideswipes.   It leaked oil and coolant, but I had a gasket and the radiator replaced and it's been leak free (knocking on wood) since.  A few months ago some a-hole in a new Dodge truck knocked my taillight out with their door.  The A/C hasn't worked since the late '90s - I got tired of throwing lots of money on repairs that only lasted a few months at the most.  It looks pretty ratty - seat cover is wearing out, dash is cracked.  It has shotgun shells, phone books, bottles of water, oil and various other things drifting around inside it.  I took it hunting Sunday and it didn't mind that I came back wet and muddy.  It runs well, handles well, and is still pretty solid - it just has A/C and cosmetic issues.

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

I'd say one of the following three qualifies as a beater.

1989 Volvo 240 sedan in gold; 118k miles, clean and quiet; the best one I've ever owned.  Mine, but the wife drives this one until I replace her mini-van early next year.

1991 Volvo 240 sedan in black; 179k miles; lived for 12 years in Maine and has rust issues; it's the beater, but it's also the fastest and best-handling of the 3 (I've done a few things to enhance that)

1992 Volvo 240 wagon in silver; another cherry with 128k miles on it.  Daughter drives this one.

I'll buy SWMBO a Chrysler Town & Country, low mileage and roughly turn of the millennium model year once I'm finished with this MCSE I'm working on and go back full-time into the workforce.  It's her preference, and I've learned the value of making mama happy, so everyone else is happy.

[Art Eatman]

For the best part of 20 years, I'd hunt for beaters that weren't all that bad in the sheet metal.  Preferably, the blown-engine deals that I could buy for under bank-loan.  I'd borrow bank oan against the title and rebuild the engine.  I'd de-bug other stuff and drive it for six months or so and sell it for wholesale.  I usually had a future project waiting, and maybe one underway, a lot of the time.

I figured out one time that between 1962 and around 1981, to own three cars was a total capital cost of maybe $50 a month.

I bought my 1985 toyota 4WD PU new in January of 1985.  I've done all my own work.  The total cost of everything, purchase, insurance, repairs, tires, gas/oil?  About $0.14 per mile.  290,000 miles on it.  $160/mo seems affordable.

That doesn't include the scar tissue, of course...

Art

[mtnbkr]

The only car I've owned that qualified as a beater was the 95 Nissan Altima I traded in earlier this year.  It didn't start out as a beater, but in the few short years I owned it, it completely fell apart (not through abuse either).  By the time I got rid of it, it left a superfund site wherever I parked it.

Otherwise, I keep my cars for a long time, but I keep them in good tune mechanically and reasonably clean.  I'm not as uptight about it as Daniel Flory, but I'm no slob either.

The 97 4Runner has roughly 135k on the odo, the 03 Camry has 85k.  Barring any unforseen issues, I'll keep both till at least 200k, probably much longer in the case of the 4Runner (it's my hunting and camping vehicle).

The 95 Nissan?  It had just over 100k when I traded it in this March.  It had a bad oil leak, a bad water leak via the water pump, slipping transmission, dead airbag sensor, and rattled like crazy.  The O2 sensor bung rusted out, so that was held in with jb weld.  After redoing that twice in a year, the sensor died and I was left with a permanently on CEL.  Any one of those problems would've been worth fixing, but the fact that all of them occured within 15k miles was a sign to me that the car was on it's way out.

Chris

[Art Eatman]

'97 4Runner?  About every 50K to 75K miles, get the front hubs and seals checked.  It's worth the inflated dealer cost.  Maintenance is a bunch cheaper than repair.

If it's a V-6 and the bearing in that plastic shroud of the fan system craps out, the bearing can be replaced, instead of buying a $700 shroud assembly.  A trifle bit tricky, but doable.  A dealer won't do it, of course.

Art

[mtnbkr]

I haven't had the hubs checked that I'm aware of (unless the dealer did that as a courtesy when I had the timing belt done).  I'll have to look into that.

What do you mean by fan shroud bearing?  Do you mean some bearing in the fan itself?  Sorry, I can't quite visualize it.  I haven't done much poking around the fan portion of the engine...

Chris

[...has left the building.]

Otherwise, I keep my cars for a long time, but I keep them in good tune mechanically and reasonably clean.  I'm not as uptight about it as Daniel Flory, but I'm no slob either.

Yes, yes...it is admittedly an illness I'm sure people enjoyed watching me pick every leaf off my car in the parking lot as I left this afternoon.

[Monkeyleg]

It could be worse, Daniel. When I had my black Jaguar XKE, I kept a quality feather duster in the car. Damn near wore those feathers down to the quills.

[mtnbkr]

Yes, yes...it is admittedly an illness I'm sure people enjoyed watching me pick every leaf off my car in the parking lot as I left this afternoon.

That's ok, I do that too.  Mainly because I HATE seeing a leave trapped near the windshield fluttering in the wind...

Chris

[Kharn]

You bet, '94 Chevy S-10 Blazer that was the first car I could call my own (bought it at the end of sophomore year of college with money I saved from working during semester breaks).

But, in return, I'm 25yo and own my own house.

With that said, I am looking to buy a ~2002 Tahoe or Suburban (I need a bigger vehicle for taking friends to the bars/range and road trips for work) this winter when I recieve my next promotion. The Blazer will remain my beater, I'm not trading it in anytime soon.

[...has left the building.]

It could be worse, Daniel. When I had my black Jaguar XKE, I kept a quality feather duster in the car. Damn near wore those feathers down to the quills.

haha! nice I'll be jacking the S2000 up in a few minutes to clean off my canisters!

[Monkeyleg]

I don't doubt it, Daniel.

One of the reasons I sold my Jag was that I couldn't drive it without getting it dirty, and I didn't have the time to be constantly cleaning it.

The engine bay was completely detailed, and keeping that clean was more work than keeping the exterior clean.

Once, at a car show, I could see that rain was coming. I pulled the car into an underground garage, and called for a flatbed. I covered the car with plastic, and had it towed back to my studio. Driving in the rain would have messed up the engine bay so bad that it would have taken days to clean.

I'm nearly as fanatical with my Harley. I've ridden it through every type of weather imaginable: snow, sand storms, dust storms, hail storms, thunderstorms, etc. But those times were when I was travelling, and had no choice. And, when I'd get home, I'd spend a full day or more cleaning the bike.

Around town, I don't take the bike out if it looks like it's going to rain. Too much work to clean.

[Leatherneck]

Mrs. Leatherneck here: Leatherneck has a large Dodge Ram pickup that I took to the dump today as well as running some other errands.  I have always had a little problem parking it  because of its long wheelbase! I decided to stop at a McDonalds drive thru to get some iced tea and managed while turning a sharp turn to sidescrape that huge yellow pole they all seem to have thus resulting in a pretty major 4 ft. deep dent in the driver's side with lots of yellow paint on it.  Hard to hide indeed.


My fault - I wasn't paying attention and didn't realize I was so close.  Why do they put those things there anyway?  You can tell that darned thing has been a nuisance to other drivers by the dings and paint on it.   At any rate, I felt awful and stupid and came home with my tail between my legs and "fessed up.  I couldn't blame it on anyone else could I?! So now Leatherneck has a beater truck and it's all my fault and needless to say he is not a happy camper!!

[Monkeyleg]

Mrs. Leatherneck, my sympathies go out to you.

I just hope divorce is not in the future.

When I kept my Jag at my studio, it was wayyyy at the back of a 5,000 square foot space.

Now, I don't know what kind of tender loving care Leatherneck gives to his truck, but let me tell you this: I spent a full year priming and block-sanding the paint on that Jaguar before I shot the color coats.

Then, I spent another several months block-sanding the color coat before finally buffing it out.

The result was the one of the smoothest paint jobs I've ever seen. You could use it as a mirror for putting on makeup. That's how perfect it was.

One day, while sitting in the office, I heard a crashing sound. My assistant came into my office, with a look on his face that immediately told me he was anticipating either being fired or shot, or both.

He had knocked over a heavy light stand  onto the hood ("bonnet," to be proper) of my Jag.

Nice big dent.

If you want some advice on how to deal with Mr. Leatherneck, email me. I'll put you in contact with my EX-assistant.

[Tallpine]

About "worshing" cars ....

Um, well - when the mud get 4-6" thick on the underside of my pickup or suburban, I try to hose it off, assuming the weather is above freezing

That extra ton or so of mud really weighs down the vehicle