How do y'all pick a daily beater?

This is not intended to be a "what car should I buy" thread, more of a "how do you narrow it down"?

Budget is $2500-ish. Kinda figure stay at that and plan $500 for immediate maintenance. No specific preference on auto/manual or truck/van/hatch/sedan/cuv whatever.  Just need something with good A/C that'll last a couple of years blasting up and down the freeway.

Problem is deciding what to buy in that price range without doing weeks of research on something that may/may not be available to buy.  Do I risk a Kia with a potential timing belt change in it's future or try to stick to something with a timing chain?  Do I be practical and buy the 160k mile Camry or is it ok to not want the soul of driving sucked out and instead get a 180k mile BMW?  BMW parts are more expensive (in theory).  Do I buy another early 2000's GM truck and call it a day?

For example, found an '08 Fit Sport 5-speed.  Everything works, only 90k miles.  Has a rebuilt title (I'll own it quite a long time), and the seller sent pics from the auction prior to rebuild.  Front bumper was off and right front headlight/fender were crunched.  Airbags didn't blow.  $2800.  Seems like a good deal with that low of miles.  The other local Fit is a $2250 5-speed, but double the miles.....

Found an '03 Ford Focus ZX3 5-speed at a dealer.  Looks clean, 191k miles and they're asking $1695.  Is it better to risk the $1695 and save the $1000 for repairs or risk the rebuilt title Fit?

Is an '08 Mazda 3 automatic with a clean title a better car than the Fit or the Focus? 

Would an '01 Camry with 130k miles be the sensible choice above the others?

Should I drive the 30 miles south to look at a 2006 Lexus LS 430 with 133k miles from an auction house because a Lexus LS is damn near bullet proof?  It's above my range, but doable at $2900.  However, it was brought to auction for a reason....

Basically, when shopping, do you pick a certain type or make or model you're interested in and look for those?  I'm afraid doing that I'll stick to manual transmission hatchbacks instead of an appliance type of car.

Ugh, it's frustrating. On top of finding something, I dread the lack of response from sellers that'll have me chasing cars all over the city, I don't relish looking at the Fit that's 30 miles north of me and then driving back and then another 30 miles south of me to look at the fly by night dealer Focus.  Looking at just those two will chew up 4 hours or more.

I'll add, this board is excellent at finding really cool cars.  But, I've had to stop looking at the Builds and Projects sub because a new neat car shows up every day that pulls me in a totally different direction.  The Traccord?  Yes please.  A Miata is always the answer, but my fat rear won't fit in one (and the only ones in my range are clap out and slammed).  P71's are thin around me right now.

Luckily trucks in Texas are priced high at the moment (low gas prices?) or I'd be looking at a 3rd GM truck for my fleet, which just feels wrong because I'm not really a truck guy, they're just cheap to maintain and I found a couple of decent deals last year.  A 2006 Silverado with 230k miles at $2650 just seems like a "what major thing will break 10 minutes after signing the paperwork".  Then again, whatever breaks the parts will be cheap (ish) for and can be done with simple tools.  I'm about to pour some sweat and tears into my '02 Silverado with only 130k miles.  Which is why I'm thinking another car because we only have the truck.  If I get stuck needing something in the middle of the work, I'm screwed because I have nothing else.

Sigh.  Total first world problems.  Just hoping someone can give me a formula to follow so I'm not trying to look at 300 cars over the next week.

-Rob

I don't look for today, rather I ask myself what I will need to drive until the wheels fall off. 
In other words I don't "trade anything in" because after I'm done using them they go to the scrap  metal place.  
I buy new. Never pay more than 80% of the list price.  My last one I got at 74% of list.  Shop like crazy from the comfort of my arm chair, On line buying.

Maintain   them properly, don't cheap out but buy good oil, filters etc. wash them in the car wash.  Wax them myself with Turtle wax a few times the first year and at least once a year afterwards. 
My last one lasted  lasted me 371,000+  miles and still ran nice right up to scrap time.  Too rusty to be safe anymore. 
It cost me*. counting payments and  repairs. But not counting gas or   maintenance $110 a month. ( All repairs done at dealership ) I did maintenance. And waxing. 
Hard to know for sure  but I think my new one will actually be cheaper. 
* that's not true. I collected a lot more in payments for company use than it ever cost me. In other words over those 20 years  well over $100,000 was put on my company expense account. ( They paid as high as .54 cents per  documented mile)  Or whatever the IRS standard mileage rate was. ) 

In reply to rob_lewis :

When do you expect to stop driving?  Buy new,  drive them until they are ready for the scrap heap. Not one penny of depreciation that way, just pure cost. 
  Repeat every 20 years or so. 

First write down your list of priorities in order. Why do you want the car?

When I picked up my zx2 I had MPG first, fun second and FWD as third.

Then I looked at what was out there in the price range I wanted to pay, $2500.

The 2 that were the easiest to find were the zx2 and Saturn SC2. There were a few outliers in that range like Contour's, cougars, and cavaliers too.

Between all those the zx2 was a hell of a lot better, so I got a zx2

Typically I would look at my current fleet and see what it'll replace or if I even need it. Try to define the role of the car and how long I'll keep it.  I wouldn't bother with dealers at this price range you won't be getting the best value for your money. Unfortunately facebook marketplace is where cheap cars live now. 

I'd say reliable, easy to work on, not a penalty box. A fit/subcompact might be okay for some people but on texas freeways in texas heat? I don't think it'd be my first choice.  Up where we get snow newer usually means less rusty.

I prefer timing chains, coil on plug versus a timing belt and or distributor. I'd prioritize a stout drivetrain as cars in this price range are abused/neglected. 

Sometimes it's limited to what's available in your area. If you want an appliance that doesn't suck your soul you're looking at the right places with the mazda/honda/ford route. If going auto I'd look for a 5-speed auto if possible.

I know you said this isn't so much a what car but for an entertaining cheap econobox with a timing chain: Base RSX, 2000-2001 Sentra SE (sr20de), 03-07 accord 4-cylinder, 05+ focus (duratec instead of zetec),

I loved my Lexus LSes but parts are very expensive. They're built very well and once something is fixed they stay fixed for a long time. But control arms are $200+ (and you don't want to put cheap ones on or it won't ride the same) for example. The cars are comfortable, fast, and loaded with toys. But they're not sports cars - strictly luxury cars. 
 

I loved driving the Honda Fit Sport I test drove and the one I fixed for a friend recently. They're light, buzzy, and move around a bit on the freeway. They're closer to a hatchback Miata driving experience than the Lexus. But they're simple to work on, reliable, get good mpg, and are fun to drive. I would much rather have the 90k mike fit than the double mile Focus. Even at the same miles the Fit would be the winner. 
 

I guess those are details but what I would say about how to pick is just try to figure out what general type of vehicle you want and find the one that speaks to you. Cross shopping an LS460 and a Honda Fit seems ridiculous but also seems exactly like something I would do. 
 

In Ontario it’s about rust . . . and the cleanliness of the interior.  I can’t handle smoke, or pet odour in a car.  

First, no rust. There's no happy ending with a rusty car.

I don't care about miles. I look at condition. Was it clearly a well maintained vehicle? Are there service records?

Research the hell out of it online. What are the common problem areas? Are the fixes expensive or cheap? Is it easy to work on? This eliminates a lot of cars.

Are they plentiful in U-Pull-It yards? Because that's where I'm going to get a lot of my parts.

No orphan brands. I'm looking right at you, Suzuki.

A beater for me is going to be a base model, common vehicle with cheap parts. Manufacturer is not important as long as there are a lot of them on the road and junk yard. From there, condition is everything.  

If I was shopping right now, I'd be looking at the Chevy Malibu. $2500 will get you a lot of car and they are fairly well know for running a long time.

Beaters are fully depreciated so once you own it, it's yours till the end.  

For myself the choice would be what need the car fills.  Comfortable, somewhat sporty, reliable, safe, commuter?  I'd be shopping Saabs real hard.  Just the 4 cylinder turbo (no V-6) in the best condition I could find for my budget.  Orphan brands are actually good to get more car than you normally could.  I'd avoid popular cars for the masses (Camry) you tend to get less car for your dollar because people always think they are made of gold.

I finally got tired of beaters and bought a Nissan Leaf, but the approach that served me well was choosing entirely based on price/condition. Be patient, and a really nice car will always fall into your lap as long as you have cash ready. 

For a good value in the used market, I recommend non-sporty cars w/ manual trans.  

I have written about it in the past

Might be a F-150 V6 w/ 5 speed.

Might be a Hyundai Sorento w/ manual

Might be a Kia Soul

Might be a Chevy Sonic w/ manual

People just don't go shopping for manual trans vehicles any more.  They sell really slow which gives you time to shop and these slow sales can also mean a huge discount over their auto trans brethren.  These cars don't sell slow because the offers are too low, these cars sell slow because no one even bothers to call about them or come see them.  

Open up your CL/FB and sort by "manual trans only" and see what pops up.  

A quick search in Austin CL yielded me:

2010 Soul w/ 103k asking $3.5k

2006 Escape w/ 96k asking $3.6k

As was touched on above, keep an eye on the off-brand or off-model siblings of popular cars that most people aren't aware of.  IE: Pontiac Vibe instead of Toyota Matrix; Toyota Avalon instead of Camry. 
 

KyAllroad (Jeremy) (Forum Supporter) said:

Beaters are fully depreciated so once you own it, it's yours till the end.  

Or they are fully depreciated so as long as you keep them running you can get your money back out when you move on to the next one. 

Hard to say. My daily beater is my 2017 Grand Caravan GT.  It cost a lot more than $2500. It wasn't quite what I wanted when I went shopping (I wanted a new Pacifica), but now that I have it I love it.  I drive quite a bit and often for hundreds of miles at a stretch, so my #1 priority is dead-nuts reliability.  Then space. Then comfort.  I dumped my previous minivan because it was failing at the #1 part and needing constant repairs.  When I'm driving 350-400 miles to work, and my job is counting on me being there on time - and paying me fairly well for it - vehicle failure is not acceptable. 

Could I get away with a $2500 beater? Maybe.  But in reality, I can't afford to drive a $2500 car that I have to constantly maintain to keep going.

For my driveabeater cheap, cheap parts, easy to work on. Thoes are my big things. 

I usually tend to start with a category - there's enough cars near the bottom of the depreciation curve that just doing a search based on budget gets too many returns. For example, with the Buick, the category was "A family car with a real back seat that isn't completely boring."

I also try to see if specific models seem to have any interesting trends where you get more for the money. In this case, I noticed that with GM W bodies, the supercharged motors didn't seem to command a premium price over naturally aspirated models - and the Buick Regals seemed to be less likely to be ragged out than comparable Grand Prix GTPs.

So - I went searching for a nice, clean, compartively low mileage Regal with the supercharger package, and found one.

This formula works pretty well in a large metro area - in a small town with more limited pickings, you may need to expand the list. Same goes if you're really searching the bottom of the price barrel - for example, on the search where I ended up with a Ford Ranger, I was pretty much looking for any minitruck below $2000. But even there, I'd pegged Rangers as the most common one in the price range.

My "daily beater" is what I want the scratches that vehicle "itch" at the time. 
I drove my Dakota because I wanted something smaller to replace my F250. That got abused to the point and distance to work necessitated the switch to the dieselgate Jetta. That went away and I went with my overboard soccer mom mulletmobile Avalanche because I found a "good" deal on it and it's a truck but not a truck.

If I'm in the lower price ranges, I'm shopping exclusively for that "oh E36 M3, the main daily is broke and I'm waiting on parts or another day to fix it" vehicle. It probably isn't practical nor pretty but I can put some gas in it, turn the key, and go about my business.

I have never done a daily beater. I flip it. I spend good money on my daily and skimp on my play car. Of course my last play car that drove was my $2500 miata and my wife couldnt understand why I wanted to put it away for the winter and drive our new vehicle through the snow and salt.

Condition (and records)

Reputation for reliability

Comfortable seat

rob_lewis said:

For example, found an '08 Fit Sport 5-speed.  Everything works, only 90k miles.  Has a rebuilt title (I'll own it quite a long time), and the seller sent pics from the auction prior to rebuild.  Front bumper was off and right front headlight/fender were crunched.  Airbags didn't blow.  $2800.  Seems like a good deal with that low of miles.  The other local Fit is a $2250 5-speed, but double the miles.....

-Rob

 

Yes.

I bought a "GD3" (07-08) Fit Sport 5-speed to be my DD about 5.5 years ago. Had around 134k on it when I bought it and is now somewhere north of 180k.

It's been great. Even though I try to get it to chirp 2nd gear at least once everytime I drive it, it's been super reliable. On top of that everything still works and the interior is surprisingly immaculate given its age, miles and the fact that I clean it maybe once a year... maybe. It's also extremely functional for what it is. I've gone on long road trips with 4 adults and their requisite gear without any complaints, and it'll haul all sorts of long or tall items given how you can configure the back and passenger seats.

Here are some observations to consider depending on how or I guess where it'll be used:

-Since you're in Texas, sounds like you don't need to worry about rust or how it needed snow tires

-It's starting to rust pretty bad in the back - probably my fault since I was the exterior once every election cycle. That said, It's not nearly as bad as the Subaru it replaced that was washed regularly, or the Jeep Patriot my GF used to drive that was the same year as the Fit

-Highway MPG's are somewhat disappointing - While I get around 30 in the city, which covers about 99% of my driving, it'll average something like 33-36 on the highway. It's part my driving and part how the car is geared - at 80MPH it's screaming at around 4k RPM's

-It has a pretty small gas tank - Doesn't bother me because most of my driving is short, but if you take it on a super long trip, prepare to make some fuel stops

-Parts are sometimes either hard to find or expensive - They only sold the 1st gen in the US for two years, so they don't pop up in junkyards that frequently. I also got into a minor fender bender that I fixed myself, which required a new headlight and a bunch of stuff from Honda. All of which were rather pricey.

The one thing to look out for when shopping a 07-08 Fit is interior water leaks. It can breach the vapor barrier on the back doors, which has an easy and permanent fix. Or it can come in somewhere around the rear of the car which takes a lot more troubleshooting to locate and remedy. That annoying "Regular Car Reviews" guy on Youtube uses a 07-08 Fit to get to the cars he's shooting and has a video where he shows how he covered the roof channel in some all weather sealant. So far, mine has only had the back door leak, which I fixed around 5 years ago and hasn't come back.

Another suggestion would be anything built by GM and Toyota at NUMMI... Specifically, the PrizRolla or Vibe/Matrix.

I had a 5-speed 1.6L 93 Geo Prizm that got over 40MPG on the highway, was surprisingly fun to drive, took an absolute beating and was hilariously cheap to own and fix. I then sold it to a buddy who beat it even harder and it still kept going.

My Dad bought a non-GT 5-speed 2006 (I think) Pontiac Vibe with high miles around 7.5 years ago to DD. I swear he never had to do anything other than brakes and oil changes for about 6 years. It also has more room and gets better gas mileage than my Fit. I don't if it's the plastic cladding doing a good job of hiding things, but it also looks fantastic on the outside after 15 years in the salt belt. He's since replaced it as a DD with something more appropriate and comfortable for someone in their 60's, but keeps the Vibe around as a back up because it'll get him where he needs to go and because the resale value of Vibes is so low that it wouldn't even be worth it.

For me the formula usually revolves around running on 87 and being able to get through winter while being reliable and easy to work on and cheap to buy, own, insure, maintain and fix. Usually always comes down to something Honda or Toyota.

Your price is set $2500 or under.

First thing I do is comb through the adds and mark off things I might like that fit my price.

Next is reliability..............a POS is a POs regardless of price.

Next is condition, if they have a stack of maintenance records it's game on. Generally people who do this take good care of cars

Cosmetics is last on the list, don't car if the clear coat is peeling as long as it's mechanically solid.

A couple of caveats  that apply to me; the car must be a manual and parts prices must be reasonable.

Sounds like you've already set a lot of parameters for yourself regarding budget, no preference on style of car, and time frame. I would start narrowing your search down to: What can you manage to work on with tools you have available, what is the most reliable car in that price range that interest you, what is going to give you the least amount of headaches, and what is going to be kinda fun? 

I typically stay with brands I know well and I hate it because there are cars like the VW GTI that I would love to try but know for a fact that they are plagued by issues later in their life so I always end up with a Honda. 

No rust.  Be familiar with the car before purchase.  (IE not a model that eats transmissions of blows head gaskets regularly.) Don't be scared of the car you are buying because there will be some work you will be doing.  Wing it.

Scott

Every dd beater I have ever owned has found me. 

1989 escort- bought for 350$ in approximately 2003 when I wrecked my dsm. My uncle's dealership had taken it in as a YMCA donate. 

1995 taurus- I sold a guy a really cheap Chevy prism my then wife when we met after we bought her a mini Cooper. He had the Taurus and I bought it for pocket change. 

1999 Chevy prism. I bought it back from the guy I sold it to three years later, for way less than I sold it for, after he bought an Altima I was going to buy but passed on because it got past what I was willing to pay for it. 

1988 mx6 gt. Bought after Ben texted me and told me it was for sale in some town called Woodbury. I lived 15 min from there and had that much cash on me. 

1994? Jeep Cherokee. I never actually even sat in this one. Traded the Taurus for it. 

1993 Corolla wagon- bought from erstwhile forum member sky_render in 2014 after I made mention that I really liked ae101 wagons. He lived 20 min from my parents place and dropped it there for me. I flew and drove. I still have it. 

2003 jeep liberty. I never actually wanted this one. I have a bad habit of offering people way too little money for their cars. Friends mostly. Well this guy got sick of tire kickers on Craigslist, and knew I had the cash on me when I bought it. Convenience at it's finest, the Corolla sneezed an alternator that same weekend. 

Common themes with me include Toyotas, weird E36 M3, and anything I can get with the cash on me, which is currently....248$. or so. 

Oh, and hatchbacks. I like hatchback/wagon/gaping maw vehicles. Beyond that, I don't really care. If it starts, runs and drives, has mostly working stuff (ac used to be optional because winter in mn) and isn't actively trying to kill me, game on.