New cars are fantastic with their smart safety features, high-tech conveniences, and advanced powertrains, but there’s a price tag attached to keeping up with everything modern cars have to offer. If you’re willing to do without the latest and greatest, there are some excellent old machines out there that’ll do every single thing a car needs to do without much money.
This morning, Mark published a Shitbox Showdown featuring a 2000 Toyota Corolla against a 2008 Chevy Malibu. Reader Shop-Teacher understands the beauty of a cheap car that just works:
I currently bang around in a ’99 Corolla CE, when I don’t need to haul anything or don’t have my family with me. That car is tough as nails. I beat the shit out of it, and it just takes it. Parts are HILARIOUSLY cheap too. I replaced all 4 struts this summer for $173+tax and shipping. Full brake refresh, front and rear, not the cheapest parts but not the most expensive either, that was like $230 in parts. I replaced all the light housings up front for something like $60. The only time it failed me, was then the (original) fuel pump died. I spring the $70 something dollars for a new Denso unit, so I didn’t have to go into the gas tank again, and also another $40ish for an OEM in tank fuel filter, and a few more bucks for a pressure regulator and sock while I was in there (it’s all in the pump housing). The heat gets hot FAST too, so it’s a perfect winter beater. Thankfully my AC still works for summer errands.
I also briefly owned, for most of 2014, a CPO 2011 Malibu. It’s a much roomier and “nicer” car than the Corolla. It was also, shall we say, lemon scented. I’d hesitated to call it a full on lemon, because I’ve owned worse, but within a year I didn’t want anything to do with that car, and sold it at a small loss just to be done with it.
So, yeah, Corolla all the way. When you’re broke and need to get to work, you just gotta get there. The Corolla will get you there.
I concur. If you don’t have a lot of cash and just need transportation, don’t buy that $1,000 Volkswagen. Get an old Toyota or a Honda, you won’t regret it.
Now, if you do have tons of cash, you can buy a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and then buy a backpack to put on it. But, it’s going to look weird. From Ottomottopean:
Looks like it’s giving birth to another sprinter honestly.
And IRegertNothing, Esq.:
David Attenborough voice- The newborn Sprinter is able to hit 80 mph less than an hour after birth, allowing it to keep up with its mother and evade predators.
Later, Mr. Attenborough would note that a hungry Ford Transit predator can be found riding the rear bumper of the mother Sprinter. The mother Sprinter increases speed, but the Transit is still faster. If the mother Sprinter can escape, she will be found preying on self-wounded Ram ProMasters.
Have a great evening, everyone!
I have yet to hear of a ‘90s Corolla dying a natural death. They are either running or totaled.
Awe, look at that little white car! That’s an old picture, before I did anything to it. I paid my friend $200 for that thing. Yeah, friend price. That’s what CarMax offered him for it when he was done for it, and he was good enough to call me and ask, “Hey, do you want this car?” I call it the Cracker Box, because it’s just a little white box. It’s been more that just a work beater though, I’ve made some good memories in that car over the last couple of years, and had a few great adventures in it. Yeah, it burns a quart or so every thousand miles, but it also gets 30ish miles to the gallon, has hot heat and cold AC, and the cassette deck even works!
It handels amazingly well on dirt too! I’ve rallycrossed it a few times, and it does great.
For shiggles, I got a Carvana quote for my 2001 BMW e46 with 215k miles. $200!!! I always wondered if it was a real offer or a “fuck off” offer.
For me, my cheap beaters of choice have always been a BMW 525i 5-speed, specifically in the E34 generation from 1991-1995. They used to be plentiful for $1500 or less (the last one I bought was in late 2023) and they’re tough as nails.
The 2.5L M50 straight 6 will run on whatever gas you put in it, it doesn’t care what oil you use or how often you change it, it has no timing belt and the timing chain is generally good for well past 300k miles. I’ve owned quite a few of those cars that made it to 300k on the original fuel pump, original engine mounts, and even the original clutch. And it still gets fuel economy in the mid to upper 20 mpg range if you don’t drive like a maniac. They’re not fast, but they’ll get to 100mph+ and sustain it if needed.
Parts are cheap and plentiful if you know where to look, all the mechanical stuff is still readily available, you can just throw Rock Auto parts at it and it’ll be fine. I have a real soft spot for those cars because they have gotten me through times when my bank account was deeply negative and I had only $20 in my pocket for gas. They never let me down even when everything else in life did.
Now that I’m a little better off, I still drive an E34, just a much nicer 540i/6 that I paid real money for. It’s got nice paint and a perfect interior and a V8 + 6-speed manual + LSD, so it was a worthy upgrade.
I had a totally clapped out e34, but it was a 530i with the small V8. It had a very bad transmission leak, and one day it broke down on the way to work. Had it towed to a mechanic. Transmission was bone-dry. They filled it back up with fluid and it was good to go.
The car was totally falling apart around me, but it ran well and made glorious V8 noises.
It is a real joy to squeeze value out of a well-made car by driving it long past the point where it’s ugly (and maybe smelly). Once you stop caring what others think of your ride, you start saving money and stop replacing machines that still do their jobs. We live in “show-off” neighborhood of nice cars, but our fleet of three has an average age of 18 years and average mileage of 175k. Sure, we need to shell out now and then for a crucial repair, but I’ve learned to live with the odd electrical gremlin. Our 2010 Toyota Highlander is the newest and it does everything, every time, and asks for nothing in return. That is joy.
My current daily driver is a hideous 2002 Corolla with 191,000 miles. It’s cheap to operate and maintain and I don’t care about it beyond making sure it’s reliable and gets me to work. I spent more than it was worth to repair the air conditioning but otherwise it’s been great. The much newer truck I have feels completely luxurious when I do need it and I can have it parked at home not burning far more gas in the meantime.
Back in October, my Corolla was hit and run by some jerkwad. I chased him down and got his plate number, and much to my surprise the police were able to track him down and get me his insurance info … yeah, he actually had insurance. We think he ran because he was drunk.
Anyways, I had to park the Corolla for a couple weeks while insurance settled things. I felt so wasteful driving my full size truck to work everyday with just me in it.
My son now drives the ’99 Prizm that was my brother’s first car (bought in 2000 with 10k on the odometer). It’s been in the family for 25 years now and has had a lot of creative reconstruction, but damned if it isn’t just the most reliable, honest, little thing. Sure, the paint is flaking off the primer, and there are a myriad of battle scars, but it’s a good car. He hit a drifted section of the road yesterday (he’s 16 and his first winter driving) and spun out into the ditch. After my wife picked him (and his brother) up and took them to school we went and pulled the car out and I drove it to the school so he’d have it at the end of the day. No problems, no serious damage. The lower front valence is split from hitting the packed snow on the side of the road. Who cares? Drill a couple holes on either side of the split and “drift stitch” it back together with zip ties.
Honest little cars that just run and only ask for basic maintenance. I’ll forever love the NUMMI cars!
Having a shitbox can be liberating. After several post college years of nice cars, I picked up a $1000 dollar ’89 XJ Cherokee (4.0L) as a winter car (this was 2002 or so). I found myself driving that cockroach everywhere all the time. The interior cleaned up well and it was a well equipped Laredo model. I patched up the rust and sprayed the body in dad’s driveway – yeah orange peel. Door dings – who cares? Foul weather – bring it!
Older, cheap cars are fun. I’ve bought several that were not much to look at but after doing all the deferred maintenance, were just fine. Usually a good tune-up, brakes, tires, belts and shocks will get you a couple good years of service. The tell on how long they last is proportional to how much my wife hates the car (aesthetically).
I had a 74 Maverick that I had to abandon in a shopping center parking lot due to a snow storm. It got buried by a snowplow and spent several days there before I could retrieve it. I was contacted by their insurance company about damage from the plow. I had to explain the car looked that way when I parked it there.
When I’m bored at work I imagine that my tasks are being narrated by David Attenborough. Try it sometime! “The office worker slowly tips the coffee pot forward. One false move, and he’ll have to wipe down the counter.”
I just last night came across Mountain Drifting narrated by David Attenborough.
Multiple good lines in it: was certainly worth my time
I have to haul around a lawnmower in the summer, and a snowblower in the winter, so I’m all about cheap, ridiculously-tough small trucks. For the last 25 years, I’ve had great luck. in 1999, I bought a relatively cheap 1995 S-10 for around $6K. 2wd, regular-cab, 5-speed, manual windows and locks, no A/C. It started every day, got 30 mpg on the highway and 25 mpg in town, hauled what I needed it to haul, and got me where I needed to go until it rusted so badly that the driver’s door didn’t want to stay closed if I turned right at an intersection. I sold it in 2016 with 260,000 miles on it (original clutch!) for $500 to a guy who said he was good at welding. I wished him luck, as there was no floorpan left, and the pillar containing the door hinges didn’t have much left to attach to down there.
In 2015 I bought a 2010 GMC Canyon for $8K. Another 2wd, regular-cab, 5-speed, manual windows and locks, but with A/C. It starts every day, gets 25 mpg on the highway and 20 mpg in town, hauls what I need it to haul, and gets me where I need to go. The rockers are pretty much gone already, and I had to replace a water pump on it this past summer. It’s up to 160,000 miles already, but I figure it’s got another 100,000 miles of life yet, provided nothing breaks due to rust.
Ah, yes! There’s no real Autopian article without some “kind” words to VW.
Just get a Pontiac Vibe. It’s a Toyota without the Toyota-tax (purchase or insurance), and it’s all Corolla parts except for a few HVAC things and the body cosmetics.
Bingo – did exactly that for daughter’s first car.
Toyota Corolla CE? I’d rather take the bus. There’s only so far that reliability can make up for.
Enjoy your smelly strangers’ farts while I cruise around in my Corolla CE in the summer with ice cold AC and only my own farts to smell.
Piff – the best cheap car is a Volvo 740. Waaay tougher than a Corolla in every way (especially in rust resistance), far more comfortable, and no harder or more expensive to fix.
My first car was a 1991 740. I assume it was constructed from smelted-down Soviet tanks because the damn thing was indelible as Gorbachev’s birthmark. It won in a crash with a full size pickup truck and lived to see another day.
They are *seriously* tough cars. Basically the car that Panther lovers think Panthers are, but aren’t.
My old Subarus were as tough and cheap, but didn’t suck to drive. Bonus for the early ’80s models, they had those good old impact bumpers. It was awesome having absolutely no cares—there were no mechanical worries, they cost almost nothing to run, could be fixed by an above average raccoon with a handful of general tools, and were theft repellant. Since their life clock ticked off on inevitable cancer, there was no need to worry about preservation and both of them ran fine when they were junked. I used to leave the large aftermarket sunroof panel off on nice days at work so I could step up on the bumper, over the hood and enter through the roof when leaving for home. I could ram stuff, jump it, drive foot to the floor most of the time, redline it in top gear for hours even low on oil, and they never cared. The cheap cockroach: yet another category of car that’s dead.
At one point, there were *11* of the 1980-1984 generation Subarus in my extended family in Maine. Not one of them lasted more than 8yrs before being junked for rust, and nobody in the family has bought another one since. An ’82 GL sedan handed down from my grandmother was my first car in 1986. I tried mightily to kill it in my first year or so of driving, but couldn’t manage it. But the tinworm did.
And yup – I did everything to that poor car that you did (except I had no sunroof). It was really dumb of Subaru to not put an actual redline on the tach, wasn’t it? 🙂 I once checked the oil and there wasn’t any showing on the dipstick at all. Oops. I honestly don’t know how I survived that first year without killing myself or someone else. There were at least two occasions where I legit could have died, and should have totaled the car, but sailed through without a scratch on either me or it. Damned tough mechanicals to survive 17yo me, shame what they bolted them into.
And more cars should have nipples for controls. 🙂
They didn’t need a redline on the EA81 cars in my experience: valve-float was my limiter. And I could just keep it there seemingly all day as long as the cooling system held water
Same, but it still seems like a rather glaring omission.
I loved those pods! I could flick the switch with a finger without taking my finger off the wheel. I noticed the Lexus LC500 has sort of versions of them, but they don’t look as ergonomic. I thought there was a redline indicated at 5500, but maybe that’s just what I used. Valves would float much above that, anyway. If it weren’t for the damn rust, I’d probably still have one.
Later ones got different instrument faces with white markings and a red redline, but through 82 no indication at all of a redline just orange hash marks right around the dial. The redline was probably supposed to be 5500, but mine would definitely go to 6K. Not that it was making anything but pained noises past 5K. I beat that poor car like somebody else’s rented mule with a damage waiver on it.
I loved my 80s Subarus dearly. Tough little billy goats that never let me down. Sold my last in 09 as parts cars were mostly gone—and the parts stores weren’t keeping consumables like cv axles anymore 😉
My Legacy ate them, too. I think for all the failures I had, the issue was the boot tearing open in one of the pleats. I learned to keep an eye on them and, as soon as I saw one blown out, I’d get one of those replacement boot kits, slice it down the side so I didn’t have to take anything apart, fill the torn boot with more grease, and zip tie the new boot over it with the slice opposite the failure and the zip ties in the pleats. I never had one fail with that ONE CHEAP TRICK MECHANICS HATE! CLICK HERE NOW!
To be fair, I beat on mine hard: up the hollers & down the crick beds.
Every 6months I’d replace wheel bearings & cv axle on one side—then the other next time. It kept my eyes on tie rods & ballpoints too.
Early on, I bought a pair of the lifetime warranty cv axles, and always had a junk pair around to trade out
I beat on mine, but never had any other failures. I hit a set of uncovered RR tracks at about 50 mph and bent the trailing arm on the front suspension of my ’84, but bent back and reinstalled, it didn’t even need a re-alignment. I drove through static flood water up to the headlights (bow wave at the top of the hood) in my Legacy and the only issue was having to replace the steering rack a year later due to water having gotten through the seals. Somehow, 270+k miles with that flood water, dozens and dozens of handbrake and J turns, frequent left-foot braking, regularly bombing a gravel road the PO stopped delivery on for its condition, driving over traffic islands to get around problems, and sliding into a curb hard enough to bend a wheel, I never needed a wheel bearing. That was the Legacy, but I never needed them in the GLs, either, though, but neither one even got to 150k miles (rust killed one, rust and half an oak tree falling on it while driving conspired to kill the second).
The freedom of parking in whatever spot and not worrying about door dings is a huge plus. But at least make sure it is a car that is fun to drive.
Beaters are awesome, if I pull up to my house and the trash cans got moved a little too close I just ram them. Free car washes via rain too.
No fear of bushes when offroading.
For the first time in my life I’ve got a garage, and I’d never realised how handy it was having the rain constantly washing my car, especially the windows. I might actually have to go to a car wash now!
I had a Chevy Prizm (basically a Corolla) for a summer and it was fantastic. 90s Toyotas will outlive cockroaches.
Not in the northeast.
Or the Great Lakes
I’m in Chicago.
So am I. My recent rear-brake-line job gave me a great look at the rear subframes. Or at least what’s left of them.
Mine is surprisingly solid.
I do have spray foam and duct tape sealing up the lower trunk extensions though.
Not anywhere that road salt is a thing.