Ok, My poor little putt putt seems to be reaching the age when it 
becomes as expensive to keep her on the road as it would be to replace 
her -- so: 

What kind of car do you drive?
What has your experience of it been?
Would you buy the same sort of car again given similar circumstances?
What are the biggest factors Pro and Con in owning your kind of car?

63 responses total.

I'll start!

I drive a '91 Geo Metro.  All in all, I've been satisfied with owning 
her, and would probably buy a Metro again, given the need for a quick 
set of wheels with very little budget to work with.  (She cost me just 
over 8,000 dollars.)

Pro

* cheap
* easy to find parking
* good gas milage
* reasonable pick-up for a 3 cylinder engine
* pretty reliable  
* very light - rather than damaging her in a minor fender bender, the   
  bigger cars just throw her off.
* cheap to insure, and an excellent theft record!  (No one wants to 
  steal a Geo Metro)
* Cute as a button
* front seats are reasonably comfortable both for me (fat) and my long 
  legged, six-foot tall son.
* Good visibility from the drivers seat

Con

* interior is very flimsy.  Most of the buttons and switches were gone  
  within a month.
* small -- easily thrown around in windy conditions on the expressway.
* small - the front has room for two adults comfortably, but the back 
  seat isn't *comfortable* for anyone.  It can hold two adult or three 
  small children, but the bench is hard.
* the battery is tiny, so putt putt has some real trouble with her      
   electrical system in wet weather.
* lets hope my "fender benders only" luck holds out.
* no cup holders - have to wedge pop in next to the parking brake.

1995 WV Jetta (base model).  Nice car, looks cool, solid WV engineering.  

Good:
Great driving car
Passenger space is good, huge trunk
Not that expensive, compared to Taurus, etc.  

Bad:
I should have bought used, but (then) I didn't have time to properly look.

'86 Chevy Nova.(Same as Toyota Corolla.)  113K miles and it's been in
my hands since new.  Great car!  It's small on the outside but one of the
first trips I did with it was to the UP with four adults in the winter.
I got no complaints about lack of space and there was enought room in
the trunk for all our stuff and the six sets of skis on the roof rack.
I'm 6'3" with a 36" inseam and I didn't have to install seat extenders!
There was also room behind my seat for a normal sized adult...amazing.
It won't set any speed records, but to this day it cruses nicely down
the freeway at even 80 MPH.  Wind is only a problem when we have our 16'
canoe, a couple bikes and the Yakama Space box on top.  Quite a site
but we did it all the way to New York and back one year.  I keep my
tires at about 40 psig and she gets anywhere from 35 to 55 MPG!
I take _good_ care of my cars and run them into the ground.  I do much
of my own work too.  I go for basic when I buy a car since basic cost
less in the first place and over the life of the car.  Parts for Toyota
and Honda are priced about the same as for American cars.  Other imports
are more expensive.  Mechanics have always told me that they love to
work on our Nova.  Last year I found out why!  I had taken it in to a
shop to get an estimate on getting brakes, strut, cluch cylinders, etc.
fixed.  When they said $1,400, I said no way!  I took a day off work,
bought $400 woth of parts and did it all in my garage in one day.  It
was very easy to work on!  Really well designed and thought out.  It
has been extreamly reliable and has had no significant maintenance till
it hit 10 years and 100K miles.  (Even that was minior when I consider
other cars I've owned.)  My only complaint is that the exhaust system
rust out every two years and needs replacing.  Next car I buy will get
a stainless system if it doesn't come with one.
 
I have grown to consider Toyota to be one of the best cars on the road
today.  I would buy another in the blink of an eye if I needed a new
car.  Give me another five years and I'll tell you what I think of the
'95 Subaru Legacy.  So far so good.  A little tinny but well engineered
and a very nice ride!  (Also a real mountain goat when there's a lot of
snow and such on the road.)

I've got two of them.

'83 Nissan pick-up truck.  156,000 miles.  I paid $600 for it almost two years
ago, and put 15,000 miles on it before I bought another car.  It's still
running ok, and I keep it around because it's occasionally useful to be able
to move big stuff, but after I started commuting from Ann Arbor to Livonia
every day I had some time consuming problems with it and it was making me a
little nervous.  Also, it's not air conditioned.  Still, at 156,000 miles and
almost 15 years old, I'm amazed that it's doing anywhere near as well as it
is.

Pro:
Cheap.  
Big.
Lots of cargo space.
I never have to worry about it getting stolen.

Con:
No air conditioning
No power steering
No back seat
Really noisy at high speeds
A bit too old at this point for me to feel comfortable depending on it.

I've also got a '94 Saturn SC2, that I bought at the end of April.  I've
already driven it almost 10,000 miles, and have been quite happy about it.
My only real complaint is an occasional squeaking noise that it will only do
when the mechanic isn't around, but I'm assuming that's something specific
to my car (and fixable if I can get it to do it for the mechanic).

Pro:
Comfortable even on long drives
Handles quite well.
Good gas milage (about 30 mpg for my usual driving, 40 mpg for pure highway
trips).
Fairly quiet at freeway speeds
Quite reliable so far.
Good accelleration.

Con:
Back seat is tiny (but apparrently bigger on newer models).
Cup holders only in back seat (I'm assuming because of the former owners'
weird choice of option packages).
I keep finding myself in places where I only have the car, and wanting to
carry something that would fit in the truck but won't in the car.

'90 Mazda 323SE (big little hatchback, been out of production for years).
I bought new; currently about 129K miles on it (mostly highway).  Very good
indeed for a bottom-of-the-line budget set of wheels.  Isn't and doesn't 
feel like a tiny car (Festiva/Metro/Civic/etc.), but was priced about like
one and can do 40 MPG in summer mostly-highway commuting (about 30 still
in city-only driving).  Only a few parts are cheapo break-o-matic quality.
Japanese-import level of quality, but much more acceptable in redneck
areas (Mazda's Michigan plant is UAW and Ford owns much of Mazda).  Best
(most comfortable) front seats for long drives I've ever sat in.  Awesome
ability to handle any winter road condition short of it's ground clearance.
Factory AC hasn't worked for years, original tires were garbage, dealer
(not A^2 area) was slimy, rear seats fold down poorly when carrying cargo
(bad engineering, still carries quite a bit).  Oil filter designed to
be changed by a contortionist.  I'd seriously consider buying another if
they existed.  (The more-expensive sedan version (Protege) does, & CU
rates it well, but I've a lot more use for the money & flexibility than
4 doors & a trunk.) 

A 1993 Honda Civic with a hatchback.  It's a five speed 
manual that drives like a truck but I like it just fine
and I can slip a cello into the back no sweat.

This response has been erased.

Are you sure about the consumer guide/reports?  Consumer Reports is put out
by an independant testing agency that does not accept advertising, and does
not allow its results to be used in advertising.  Consumer's Guide is a for
profit group that does not follow these guidelines.

This response has been erased.

Whenever Consumer Reports has reviewed anything I've known anything about,
it's been very obvious that they haven't known what they were talking about.
That makes me very reluctant to trust them on anything I don't know much
about.  In general, I've found that commercial magazines are a lot more likely
to have people who know what they're talking about, especially if it's a
specialty magazine devoted to that field.  Consumer Reports' claims of being
so superior due to their lack of advertizing really don't appear to hold up.

I may look at Consumers report when making a purchase, however, I rely
more on advice form friends, etc.

This response has been erased.

I'm with Steve on this one.  When I worked at Best Buy I'd have customers
regularly come in with Consumer Reports in hand.  They would say that a given
item was reccomended when I knew for a fact that the same item was much more
likely to be returned by dis-satisfied customers than other items.

I'm not sure the sneaker walker would be able to tell me which sneakers held
up best to real walking.  I don't just want to know how it walks straight.
Often I take off my sneakers without bothering to unlace them first.  Does
the sneaker walker tell me how something will survive that?

Also, how well did the sneaker walker simulate real walking?  When I walk my
feet tend to twist a bit, which is what puts most of the wear on my shoes.
I'm guessing their mechanical device probably wouldn't have done that.

Lots of what I've seen from Consumer Reports has been not just wrong, but
really irresponsable journalism.  If they're just recommending the wrong
product, that's ok.  The sheep who follow them will suffer the consequences
and those who know better will ignore it.  Instead, they do things such as
riding a bike, leaning as far over the front of the bike as they can, and
jamming on the front brake.  Then, when the rear wheel of the bike lifts off
the ground, they devote an entire page in a magazine that many people trust
to an article about how dangerous the bike is and how irresponsable the
manufacturer is for not recalling the bike.  Then they go on about how the
federal government should force the manufacturer to do a recall.  But, that
a bike will flip when they put the front brake on hard while shifting their
weight as far forward as they can is just simple physics.  If that won't cause
the rear wheel to lift off the ground at least somewhat, then the brake
probably sin't strong enough to stop the bike quickly when the bike is being
ridden corectly.  If bike manufacturers were to start caring about how their
bikes would be perceived by Consumer Reports, they would start churning out
much more dangerous products.

I'm not objecting to a magazine doing product testing.  Many magazines do
wonderful jobs of that sort of thing.  Most of those are more specialized,
but there must be a market for a magazine that tests a broader range of things
and actually does some research before they start writing articles with the
potential to put a company out of business.  Hopefully, one of these days
somebody will have a big enough lawsuit against Consumer Reports that they
will have to wake up.

This response has been erased.

This response has been erased.

I always buy the items that Consumer Reports gives the highest ratings - if
they are available. I have never been dissatisfied. My only problem with them
is that they can't keep up with the model changes. Their tests might not be
exactly what I would design, but you know what they are, and can judge what
they mean to you. I buy my Cars with CR in hand too.

My comments on CR are posted in the CR item. I'm with Rane and valerie, 
not scg and kaplan on this.

My car is 1990 Subaru Legacy Station Wagon. I was looking for a 
sports-utility vehicle when I bought it. I could find one that had 
decent ride. So I gave up the high drive position I was looking for to 
get this car.

This car works like a truck, has a small parking footprint, has a smooth 
and quiet ride, a peppy 2.2liter 4cylinder engine (cylinders opposed), 
and a very effective all-wheel drive system. I have never gotten it 
stuck.

I wish it had ABS brakes, but they came out the following year.

I don't put much mileage on it. It just hit 82K after 7.5 years.
It could get better gas mileage (30 hiway, 19 city), but that's my main 
complaint. It doesn't bug me much because my mileage is so low annually.
I love the roof rack, and towing capacity of 2000 lbs. I have used both 
extensively. With the kids gone, I leave the back seats folded most of 
the time. In another 7 years, I may need to replace it. I may buy 
another. I expect that they will still be making them.

I have a 1986 Subaru GT wagon and am thinking of replacing it with a
Subaru Legacy L. I have some use for my cars off main roads on woodland
"two tracks", so like better clearance than most US cars. Unfortunately,
they dropped the Legacy L about 1.6 inches from the old GT. And there are
no gutters for securing a good roof rack (I carry canoes and stuff, and
the issued rack is the wrong shape and too short).......but it still seems
the best short of the terrible SUVs.

My *real* quandry is whether to put some money into the 1986 GT and keep
it as a "winter" or "mud" car. A CV joint, the 4WD drive shaft, rear
wiper, windshield, clutch, and maybe cooling system seals need to be
replaced, and there is some significant rust.....but I really like that
car. And I could keep the Legacy out of the salt....

Look at the Legacy Outback.  That has the clearance you are looking for.
 
How much would it cost to fix your GT?  How many more miles / years could
you get out of the GT if you fixed it?  Is it worth it?  Last year I did
$1,400 *worth* of repairs for $400.  I took some shortcuts like soaking
a stiff steering U-joint with oil instead of replacing it or not turning
the brake rotors when I replaced the pads.  Stuff that doesn't compromise
safety but allows you to get a few more years out of something instead of
10+ more.  I also did my own labor.

There a multiple reasons I don't like the Outback (and neither does
Consumer Reports): it's ugly (IMHO!); you can't get it without the roof
rack and that and the roof "bump" makes mounting a *real* roof rack rack
difficult; it tends to fishtail (CR); and $2000 is too much for just one
inch more clearance.

"Is it worth it" (fixing my old Subaru) is the $1,000 (+?) question. I am
no longer into do-it-myself auto repair (my project list has more
interesting items) - and I don't have a 3 car garage..........

I looked at the Volvo on www.volvocars.com. Too bad the AWD only comes
with an autotransmission - and that it costs $14.5K more than the Legacy.

I wonder if they make a "lift kit" for a regular Legacy.  I think the
handling gets worse as the ground clearance goes up...  Adding a lift
kit would make an L as bad as the Outback or worse.
 
I didn't like the roof rack that comes on any of the Subarus.  When we
bought ours in '95 I had to special order it because I didn't want the
crappy, optional, roof rack.  I wound up going to the Yakama DIY gutters
and mounted a Yakama rack to that.  Forget their "Q" clips.  The rack
I installed is the envy of a couple Subaru owning friends and can
probably carry 1,000+ lbs. without doing any damage.  Just the other
day I transported a 300 pound trailer on it.  (I'm cheap.  The license
had expired ;-)  I had to remove the headliner and drill several holes
in the roof, reinforce the DIY gutters with epoxy saturated fiberglass,
etc. but I don't worry about it not holding under load.  It also looks
good and it is easy to take on and off.

Yakima racks can be mounted without having gutters.  I used to do that on my
parents' Honda Civic and it worked pretty well.

That's the "Q" Yakima rack Klaus mentioned - the towers sit on plastic
pads against the roof, and are held down by clips that go under the
roof trip. I don't like this style because it bends the roof metal
in a bit, and can even bounce loose (on a big bump). I don't think I
could stand drilling holes in the roof of a new car, myself. By gutters,
do you mean the Yakima *tracks* for the "railrider? Tracks are what came
on my 1986 GL (not GT), and did use them with a Subaru ski rack (until we
became paranoid about edges rusting). It would be nice if the Subaru
factory would install tracks (for Yakima racks.... :)). 

We test drove the Legacy L today, and the family liked it (our daughter
has grown up and was getting squeezed in the back seat of the GL). But
that front is sure low - I would imagine it would hit every curb one
parked against. Plenty of power, though (compared to the GL). 

There is no good rack for the Subaru Legacy that I was able to find.  The
roof is simply not designed to support a decent rack.  Yakama makes a
little
bent piece of  ~1/8" black painted stainless the measures about 6" X 3" with
two holes in it for 1/4" of 5/16" stainless carriage bolts.  You use standard
Yakama gutter-mount towers with these and you need to *bolt* them to your
roof.  They have another version of these mounts that get attached with
self
tapping screws, but I don't trust them.  Reinforcement between the cars roll
cage and the places where the Yakama pads mount also ads a lot of stiffness
to the rack.  I have the 48" long bars on or rack and you can grab hold of
those, bounce the car up and down with all your might and you won't see the
sheet metal on my roof budge.
 
The Subarus are pretty low to the ground.  It gets a lot worse when you add
a trailer hitch.  However, they are very stable cars!  A good friend of
ours was rear-ended by a Camaro doing 75 while he was doing 55.  Not only
that, but he was towing a full-sized Coleman pop-up camper behind his '95
Subaru!  The trailer was totaled, the hitch was totaled and he needed a new
bumper and tailgate(?) after all was said and done.   The crash sent the
whole "train" careening down the freeway sideways but the Subaru stayed
upright and its human contence intact.  He said his old Jimmy would have
flipped for sure.

I bought the roofrack from Subaru in 1990 when the car was new. I didn't 
like it as much as the one I had had on the car it replaced, but it has 
been adequate for *my* needs. I wouldn't put more than about 200 pounds 
up there.

I think the outback is ugly too. They also make a new, smaller, 
higher-clearance car, the Forester. I haven't driven one. It is *not* a 
SUV - it's much lower. But it has good clearance and a manual and 
all-wheel drive. All are pluses from my POV. Same engine as the Legacy, 
I believe.

It has a different body shape. I think it is better looking than the 
outback. You'll have to decide for yourself, though. The engineering is 
generally excellent on all Fuji Heavy Industries' cars.

The Forester (175.2") is quite a bit shorter than the Legacy (184.5"), and
the difference comes out of rear legroom and cargo depth. Roof racks are
also not optional on the Forester. Subaru does call the Forester "The
Sport-Utility Designed for the Real World" (?!). 

The Yakima brackets for a gutter rack would be OK (except for having to
drill into the roof - something I'd prefer a dealer did, like I preferred
a doctor to have removed by gall bladder.. :> ), except they fixes the
front-back span. I shift gutter towers for different loads that I carry.

Everyone's information is very helpful toward my decision(s) - thanks!

My understanding from CU is that Subaru based the Forester on the Legacy
every which way they could.

I saw a Forester today, and it sure looked like a sport utility vehicle to
me.  It may be that just shortening the legacy gave it that shape, and without
other sport utility vehicles around to compare it to, a big size difference
wasn't obvious, or something.

I heard that the forester was based on the Impreza, not the Legacy..?

The Impreza is Subaru's smallest car & the Legacy their "bigger" car.  The
Foresters that i've seen certainly looked Legacy-size.  

In #28, i didn't mean that the Forester & Legacy share a common shape
(though we're not talking square & round here), but that the Forester is
mostly a SUV-ified Legacy.  It's certainly no (monster-size) Suburban or
(not designed to drive on paved roads) traditional Jeep, but it's a real
SUV.

Anyone happen to know what the wheelbase is on the Impreza?

I would say that the Forester is only a partly SUV-ized Legacy. One 
feature common to SUV's, and highly prized by most SUV owners is the 
height of the driver over the road. In the Forester this is only 
minimally greater than the Outback, which is in turn only minimally 
greater than the Legacy. True SUVs are much higher than the Forester 
(compare with Nissan Pathfinder, Ford Explorer, even the small Toyota 
Rav).

It is shorter than the Legacy, as Rane noted. SUVs are not known for 
their length, except in certain extremely large models.

I've decided that I don't want a 'truck'. I want a wagon with 'good'
clearance, a clean roof for fixing a rack, gas mileage at least 20 mpg
or better, manual shift, a 'bed' at least 6 feet long behind the front
seats, and 4WD (maybe, AWD) - and for less than ca. $25. The last car
like that is what I have - the Subaru GL wagon. I guess I will have to
sink money into the old rustbucket to keep it alive until people come
to their senses. 

Perhaps you should look into the used car marked down south where they
don't spread salt on the roads every winter.  You will have far less
luck waiting for people to come to their senses.
 
I wonder if Linseed oil would make a good rust preventitive?  I read about
someone using it inside bicycle frames to keep them from rusting from the
inside out.  I've been spraying motor oil inside door panels and such in
attempt to keep the rust at bay.
 
Subaru Model     Length     Width      Wheelbase
Forester         175.2"     68.3"        99.4"
Impreza          172.2"     67.1"        99.2"
Legacy wagon     180.1"     67.5        103.5

The wheelbase on the Impreza and Forester are pretty darn close.

Subaru GL        173.6      65.4        97.0

A fault of the GL is the too tight rear legroom. They did add more
in the Legacy. 

Yes...sigh...trucks won't fall out of favor unless the mileage requirements
get applied to them as well as "cars" - or unless fuel prices go much
higher. It has occurred to me to look "down south" for a GL in better
condition than mine - but that is such a gamble, buying a used car from
far away (unless one has a 'connection' with someone scrupulously honest...
know anyone?).

Re: 35, dunno about linseed oil, but I spilled a quart of motor oil in
my truck's engine compartment about ten years back and that spill is now
the least rusty part.  I imagine grease would be even better as long as
it wasn't tying up any moving parts.  But any oil is apt to be better
than nothing...  

I've been wondering what might be good to spray on the rust. It is tricky,
as moisture can get under many coatings, and then rust really accelerates.
If oil - motor or linseed - were really good, I would think there would be
spray-on preparations for sale to put on rust spots to slow them down. 
(The lower panels below a rear tire rusted out on my Subaru and a *lot*
of dust got into the car on dirt (dry) roads - until I just filled the
space with polyurethane foam. It occurred to me to fill *all* the spaces
with foam, so when the metal rusted away, I would have a foam car....)

Heh, I hear you...think mebbe I'll try that foam car...  Actually, since
my oil spill was in the engine compartment, it's still relatively
protected from the elements.  But compared to similar areas of the engine
compartment, the spill area held up the best.  I don't know what salt
and road grime would do to an oil-coated part--probably wear off the oil
eventually.  But inside doors, where there isn't constant abrasion and
contact with corrosive chemicals, maybe oil or grease would hang in there
(the problem there is in the application).

I know not all rust-proofing materials are created equal (cf. my 83 Subaru
GL wagon, which had rust-proofing but still suffered significant rust
damage) so not even paint or rubberized coatings last.  Probably the
main problem is that once the "seal" or "bond" is broken between the rust
inhibitor (be it oil, grease, paint, whatever) and the metal, then water
leaks in and oxidation starts.  Fiberglas...that's the ticket...yeah...

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss