Quote:
Originally Posted by vskid3
Why not a Civic with twice as many miles?
The way I see it, the two biggest obstacles are that you want a car with low miles and an automatic. Low miles isn't necessarily better, especially in a car that's 10+ years old. Low miles generally means it wasn't used often, either for short trips or only occasionally for long trips. That can be brutal for some of the fluids. A manual tranny will generally get you better MPGs, especially if you're hypermiling (though your mostly highway driving may negate that advantage). They also tend to be low maintenance, and cheap when they do need fixed. I think you said something about having a bad back in another thread, making it painful to push the clutch, but have you tried it?
With your commute, it looks like you would drive around 20k miles a year. At 40MPG, that's 500 gallons. A quick search shows that gas prices are over $4 a gallon in your area, so that's at least $2000 a year for gas at current prices. At the 33MPG your Camry got, that would be over $2400 a year. So keep that in mind when looking at the money spent now vs later.
The best way to reduce your costs would be shortening your commute, either by moving closer or getting a job that's closer. Dunno how viable either of those are, but remember that commuting by car is pretty expensive and a cut in pay/increase in living costs may balance out a shorter commute.
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First off, yea your right about the low miles, but the guy that owned it changed the oil once every 8 months (if he wasn't driving it) and the tranny fluid once a year. (He has records to prove it). Second yes, I tried to drive a manual, I finally convinced my little brothers boss to let me drive it, and at first I was fine, but after about 20 minutes my back started hurting extremely bad and I had to pull over and have my brothers boss drive it home.As for a job that's closer, or moving, neither is an option at this point in my life my boyfriend lives up the hill near me and even then, I don't make enough at my job to move closer, the housing is double what I'm paying now, just for rent, let alone utilities and food. And getting a job closer, isn't easy either. I had a job that was more then 1/2 as many miles that was going well, but I had to lift 20-80lbs crates of soda and that just isn't possible with the way my back is now. I'm going for an MRI on Wednesday so I hope the damage isn't permanent but I have a feeling it is.
For the record VSkid, thank you for your help, I'm sorry if it seems im shooting everything you say down but I'm really not.