Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Mechanic
Thinking about your elevation challenged situation I would be the absolute best car for you would be a Toyota Echo with a manual transmission. The basic stripper with AC would take less fuel to climb and coast down those grades just fine. They only weigh just over 2000 pounds.
Not expensive at all, no timing belt and utterly reliable.
I know you have pretty much decided to keep your car but if you wanted to get probably about 10 more MPG the Echo would be a great choice, but find a really nice low mileage example.
I averaged 57 in mine once using EOC.
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I have a friend driving an Echo right now and he says he's getting 42mpg and he's not a hypermiler, so I can believe they're capable of impressive results. What surprises me is how well they hold their resale value, at least locally. For such an inexpensive car to start with, I was shocked to see the only two listed locally with less than 150k miles selling for over $6k!
The Yaris and Echo are both on my short list right now if the right one comes up at the right time. There's a chance a friend will be selling her low mileage 07 Fit soon, which will likely be out of my price range, but it's on my radar as well.
What I'd give to get my old CRX HF back... Then again, I really doubt my two 'girls' would appreciate the "back seat"... on the otherhand, they've been in more awkward places...
