As the J body cars have all but returned to the earth by now, I was pondering what car should replace them as the unkillable "cockroach" of cars. I am thinking it is either the Nissan Altima from the early 2000s with the round tail lights
or the Toyota Corolla from late 90s.
I would add the 1st gen Hyundai Santa Fe as a runner up. They are the only older hyundais I see on a regular basis.
Hard to argue with any of those selections.
Most of those Altimas have made it down to the level of ownership that can kill anything, though.
I've seen a surprising number of j bodies lately, in ridiculously good shape. Wondering if the grandparents that kept them garages forever finally kicked.
The Santa fes were good, but locally I know of several whose oil pans rusted out.
Hard to argue those other options though.
All the cars you listed were offered with manual trans. Is that a requirement? I ask because it is a popular requirement here at GRM.
If auto trans is acceptable and athletic driving dynamics are not a requirement, the answer to me of unkillable cockroach is '04-'09 Prius otherwise known as the Gen2 Prius.
Internet support/knowledge base is very good. Overall cost of ownership is very low. Many of these have been dealer serviced all their life. There is also a free and easy way to plug the vin into the Toyota website to see the history of all dealer repairs anywhere in the US.
My Prius thread of the 5 Prius I have owned over the past 4.5 years
Original Lexus LS
A well used Acura TL or RSX
Toyota Avalon
Those Altimas eat their cats. Yes, they sold a E36 M3 ton of them, but they are remarkably killable. I vote Camry and Corolla.
Around here it's the Altimas. Especially since they all turned brown once the paint baked off the roof.
wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) (Forum Supporter) said:... I vote Camry and Corolla.
Pretty tough to top an early '00's Camry, Corolla, or Accord for unkillability.
Edit: ...or a luxurified equivalent.
I've had an Avalon before too and highly recommend. We put 30k miles on that Avalon in one year and my total cost of ownership was $287 as detailed in this thread
The first gen Santa Fe is one I didn't expect until I noticed more than few running around Atlanta. My aunt had one with over 200k on it that only needed new paint, the rest of the little SUV was fine.
I would agree with both the Altima and the Camry, although the average Camry is probably a few years older than the average Altima. It certainly doesn't hurt that the manufacturers sold a E36 M3-ton of both models.
John Welsh said:All the cars you listed were offered with manual trans. Is that a requirement? I ask because it is a popular requirement here at GRM.
If auto trans is acceptable and athletic driving dynamics are not a requirement, the answer to me of unkillable cockroach is '04-'09 Prius otherwise known as the Gen2 Prius.
Internet support/knowledge base is very good. Overall cost of ownership is very low. Many of these have been dealer serviced all their life. There is also a free and easy way to plug the vin into the Toyota website to see the history of all dealer repairs anywhere in the US.
My Prius thread of the 5 Prius I have owned over the past 4.5 years
Another vote for the gen 2 Prius. A buddy was trying to keep to a tight budget and bought one. He changes the oil on it when he remembers and said it has cost him nothing to own or operate for several years and lots of miles.
Are sn95 mustangs in the running? They should be. At least around here. There's just so many.
We see very few Prius around here. Quite a few Camrys but they seem to be well cared for and driven by older people. The local Toyota dealer must not like the Corolla. I see fewer of them than I do the Prius.
I vote for the Altima. Nissan will apparently finance anyone that can see lightning and hear thunder. They sold thousands of those things around here to people who had no business buying a new car. Most of them are beat to E36 M3 or headed that way fast but they seem to just keep running.
There's certainly a lot of high mileage Accords around here, but I'd argue that the GM W bodies have kind of taken over from the J bodies as GM's car of choice when you want something that runs badly longer than most cars run at all. They stayed in production later, and many of the Buick Centuries and the like have the little old lady factor as well.
Trucks also seem to fit the bill, along with truck based SUVs. I see a lot of older Suburbans and Tahoes tooling around.
I guess the Cobalt is a Delta rather than a J-body? Because with the 2.2 and auto trans they do a pretty good job of running mediocrely but forever with minimal maintenance.
Maybe the cockroach has grown up into a palmetto bug and is now an SUV.
What????
Does this mean that there is a car question whose answer is NOT Miata? Or could it be that Miata's are actually cockroaches? There sure are enough of them. And I am pretty sure that somewhere there is a kitchen floor covered in Miata bits.
I bought one of those Altimas as a potential Challenge donor (abandoned it-junk engine), which put them on my radar. They are truly everywhere. The girlfriend and I modified "SlugBug" for them. It seems you can't go 10 ft without seeing another.
captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:A well used Acura TL or RSX
Isn't there a year range of V6 Honda's to avoid because the transmissions are suspect? I bought a 2000 TL couple of years ago that the po had the transmission fully rebuilt on 6 months before. I didn't know much about them at the time as I was just looking for a cheap dd, but found out about the transmission issues after buying it.
-Rob
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