Ok, car most likely to get you there and back for $3,000?

ebonyandivory wrote:

Gearheadotaku wrote: Saturn S-series. Just add oil.

Can anyone speak to the later Saturns? SL etc.

The sweet spot is 1996-2002. The S-Series cars are the small 1.9L motored plastic body ones. SL1/2 sedan, SC1/2 Coupe, and SW1/2 wagon. The "2" indicated a twin cam car. They had more power, better suspension and upgraded interiors. Nothing wrong with a single cam, but the twins are basically the same price now for a nicer car.

The "L" series came later and were much larger. 2.2 4 cylinder 5-speed cars are the best, but a tough find.

nicksta43 wrote: On the Corolla front, while most of them seem to be reliable my experience with one is the opposite. My wife got a hand me down from her mother who was the original owner. Had under 100k miles on it, well maintained. Three days later she was stranded on the side of the highway, in 100+ heat, 7 months pregnant with a rod hanging out of the block. For three grand shop condition over brand, but sometimes those flukes still happen. My motto is life is too short to drive boring cars, go with the Golf

I once spun a rod bearing in a 180k mile 5S-FE Camry so hard it stalled and locked up, in a straight line, accelerating normally, autopsy reveled no cause, clean engine aside from the big pile of metal on the balance pack under bore #2. Then there was the time I wiped out the mains on a Buick 3800 S2.

My first rolla I holed at 81k of post rental car.teenage levels of abuse. Current rolls turned 181, yesterday. I berkeleyin love these cars like poopshovel loves him some integra.

4th gen Maxima

I would say a few cars fit the bill. But my first two I will mention is a 90s Camry and a 00s Cavalier. Neither of those cars are known to break apart on a regular basis.

The LS400 posted earlier or the BG-chassis Mazda Protege with a manual transmission. I've owned both.

edwardh80 wrote:

GameboyRMH wrote:

mndsm wrote:

Came here to say this.

Very this. Uh huh. Yes. An added feature is the fact that they (often?) burn oil later in life, so every so often you dump in 1 Litre of oil. Regular oil changes, just like that, right?...

In my experience they start to burn oil at around 200k miles. But then the 4AGE in my AE92 donor car was in such good condition, the mechanic said he would've recommended not opening it up if it were going in a DD.

ebonyandivory wrote:

Gearheadotaku wrote: Saturn S-series. Just add oil.

Can anyone speak to the later Saturns? SL etc.

this would be my pick. For $3,000 it seems like you'd get the nicest '02 left on earth. I do a good business buying ~2000~ish s-series cars for $700-1500 dollars, fixing a handful of little issues (they're never really broke), and selling them for $2000-3000.

then again, everybody has their niche.

Just took a '98 SL-1 back in on trade. I sold it to him in 2001 for $10k. He put 200k miles on it. You know what he bought? Another one.

GameboyRMH wrote:

edwardh80 wrote:

GameboyRMH wrote:

mndsm wrote:

Came here to say this.

Very this. Uh huh. Yes. An added feature is the fact that they (often?) burn oil later in life, so every so often you dump in 1 Litre of oil. Regular oil changes, just like that, right?...

In my experience they start to burn oil at around 200k miles. But then the 4AGE in my AE92 donor car was in such good condition, the mechanic said he would've recommended not opening it up if it were going in a DD.

the real oil burners are the 1zz motors. I've replaced a lot of them that failed for reasons that could be attributed to being run low. earlier corollas aren't as bad in my experience, though they're also getting kinda old by now.

In reply to belteshazzar:

If you have a 1zz not yet burning oil, and don't neglect it, it wont burn oil. I run mine hard on M1 0w40, burns ~1 qt/6000miles.

that's probably a universal automotive truth

Or, as a certain UK tv show proved:

They did that with a W123 MB too!

Travis_K wrote:

carbon wrote:

Are these really as reliable as the others in this post? I actually kinda like them and they are pretty cheap now. </blockquote They are more so according to my research. I've been shopping them for a while now and there are hundreds of them with huge miles on them on craigslist as well as a really impressive amount of them in the high mileage forum on clublexus. Check it out. http://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls400/97991-who-has-the-most-mileage-on-their-ls400-the-mother-thread.html

Travis_K wrote:

carbon wrote:

Are these really as reliable as the others in this post? I actually kinda like them and they are pretty cheap now.

Think "Toyota builds a S class". Runs like gravity, built like a tank.

EDIT: 1980s W126 Chassis S class, not the later cars that age like a 90s Cadillac.