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15 years old is fairly young. My old car is 21 and I still drive it everywhere but I maintain it like you would maintain an airplane I spent 3,500 on parts 2 years ago and another 1,500 on parts this year but I do all the work myself. And the parts to change a timing belt might cost $200 if you change the belt, seal, water pump, tensioner, spring, v-belts, and cover gaskets. They are not that hard to change. I have to do my own work because most mechanics either won't work on it because they don't have the service manual or because most parts take a lot of time to get to. I changed the starter and had to remove the antilock brake pump to get to it. The other reason is that its a partial OBD-1 so they cant scan it you have to unplug sensors until you find the bad one.
I just recently had about $800 worth of maintainance done to it. Timing belt, water pump, all drive belts and hoses replaced. Well worth the piece of mind plus it still runs perfectly.
You can't really compare doing the timing belt maintenance, which if the rest of the car is in decent shape means you can drive another 50K or so miles (maybe more) without doing anything that expensive, and buying another car, which in this price range will have needs.
I bought the Scirocco for $1000, had new clutch, brakes, engine had just been "refreshed" (rings & bearings only) and had 4 new but horrible Firestones. Guy just wanted to get his money out of the parts. One of the very few cars I paid asking price for.
It was a good buy for the money, but it had 2 bad front wheel bearings, a bent rear axle, and the CIS fuel injectors were so dirty I needed to replace them before the car ran anything like right.
If you are in a position to give a car like this some TLC, it can be a good deal. Most grad students are not in that position - they don't have a garage, they don't have the tools, they don't have the money, and they don't have the time. Been there and done that.
I did some rudimentary browsing on a used car website and was surprised that there wasn't much inventory under $1,000. Is it relatively easy or difficult to find a somewhat reliable car for under $1,000? I'd define somewhat reliable as having 1-3 good years left without needing a repair that costs more than $250.
I ask because I currently drive a 15+year old car with only 150,000 miles that needs a new timing belt. The mechanic that diagnosed it said that it would cost $700 for the repair. For some reason, I had this notion that I could get a whole car for less than that. I figured that I would just wait out the eventual timing belt failure and then just buy a cheap car that would hopefully last me through the next two years before I am back riding the subway for the foreseeable future afterwards.
700 for a timing belt is too too much . Most belts only cost about 30 bucks and any good mechanic can put it on in 2 hours. The rule I use in buying used cars is to get one that shows great potential for giving me 1000 miles of service for every 100 bucks spent. For example a taurus with 120k on it that you buy for 3 k should give you an additional 30 k of service(other than regular upkeep) and most of them will. It is hard to find any car for 1k that can go 10k but they can be found.
I did some rudimentary browsing on a used car website and was surprised that there wasn't much inventory under $1,000
If you're looking at paid-listing sites such as cars.com or autotrader, you're not going to find many ads for cars priced <$999. Who would pay a fee to list such a car? You might want to try free places like craigslist instead, or visit forums dedicated to specific brands.
Heck I expect a 15 year old Volvo for $3k to give me 150,000 miles!! I guess that's the difference between Ford and Volvo .
when you find one that old and think it will run another 150k without repairs bills you will have found One in a million..........lol It ant going to happin
I guess it would be hard pressed to find one now, unless you run across a deal or something. I remember when I was younger it would be no problem.
I bought a 70' Nova , 6 cylinder beater for $50. It had no rear brakes and every bushing was gone in the front end. I drove that car for a year and a half then when a friend needed a vehicle I let him drive it for another year. I then sold it to a guy that was building a race car, he wanted the front subframe, and disc brakes. Got $100 for all that , but he had to take the car with him.
Another car I got was an early 70's Plymouth Fury.. I think I paid around $300 for that one, put a battery in it , drove it for a year and then sold it to a friend. He drove that for 3 years.
I picked up a 75 or 76' Chrysler Lebaron (a huge tank with a 440) , it was like driving a small condo around. Paid $500 for that and drove that for 3 years.. didn't have to put a penny into it. Other than a quart of oil on a frequent basis it was perfect. The heat from the exhaust manifolds always burned the valve cover gaskets out causing them to leak so it always had a smell of burning oil the first few miles in the morning.
Then there was the 77' Dodge Ramcharger. That one was around $800. It had a 400 in it. That was an incredibly reliable vehicle, drove that for 6 years and other than a few u joints , a timing chain and the occasional ballast resistor (expecially when it rained) it was a great vehicle.
Now all that being said, most of these vehicles had between 70k and 125k, and I wasn't putting 80 miles a day on them commuting to work. But they were dependable for what I used them for.
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