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Old 06-11-2018, 08:46 AM   #5 (permalink)
Ecky
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroMPG View Post
$7000! For a car!


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In Vermont, most cars under $3k won't pass inspection (rust). People typically come over from NY to buy them, because NY's inspections are less rigorous. Between 4 and 7k, you're looking at a couple of years, tops.

If you want a car good for more than 2-3 winters in that price range, you have to drive south 12 hours to get the car.

~

I recently went through this same search for my partner, and we ended up going with a manual Fit. Looks like you can get one with closer to 100k miles for $6-7000, whereas as you approach $3000, mileage approaches 200k. We opted for a higher mile car, picked up from North Carolina and not even the beginnings of surface rust on anything. Rust will probably still take it off the road before the drivetrain fails.

40mpg is what a careless driver gets in a Fit. 50mpg is achievable in a stock car with some technique.

I basically ruled out sedans. We use our cars for things like moving bicycles (plural), furniture, construction materials, etc. and even if a Civic HX can get a bit better gas mileage, having to rent a truck every time I want to move a dresser or bookshelf negates that. Try fitting two fully assembled bicycles inside a sedan.

Some other contenders were a Toyota Yaris and Mazda 3. The Fit drove better than the Yaris by a mile, and the Mazda doesn't have quite the same reliability, but both were possibilities. We also looked at a few Volts and while they're reliable, they actually do worse than the Fit on gas alone, repairs can be terribly expensive if something does go wrong, and usable interior space is a lot lower. Driving around one electricity is attractive but her commute is long enough that she'd be burning gas on the way home every day anyway, and electricity is on the high side here.
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