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Would appreciate feedback on this list I have tweaked some.
The used car market is not quite as crazy as it was during covid but prices are still kinda inconsistent for what's offered.
Less likely
G1 Honda Insight, manual- tough to locate with a good IMA at a price competitive to the rest of these, high miles as the norm being a slight negative also to me.
92-95 Honda civic VX, 96-98 Honda HX-l, CRX HF- only ratty examples within a few hundred miles of me, consistently.. most have a cyl head swap for more power, that I assume quite hurts the mpg of the vehicle.
Festiva- I either find well-preserved examples for the price of a newer vehicle, or rusted apart projects, so far. Can these go fast in a pinch?
Geo Metro- drove an auto for a month, really need a manual if you do a lot of freeway. 75 in this one day (at 4400 rpms), was.. yikes! 😂 Also mostly rotted out around here.
VW TDI- price and diesel cost knock most of these options out.
More likely:
Saturn SL1 and Saturn SC1- most I find aren't manual, and they burn so much oil it hurts the fuel savings.
SOME do not and still watching out for that- Are they capable of almost bumping 50mpg on the freeway, with speeds under 65? SC has how much aero benefit? Significant, I would think..
Favorite:
Toyota Tercel, Paseo, Echo- I'm finding these are less often performance swapped than the Honda crowd, but not a lot easier to find consistently. Which manual trans, which generation etc I am still trying to narrow down.
Toyota Corolla- 8th gen has oil burning issues, but the 4 spd auto I had a few years ago only used 1/2 qt between 3k changes at 130k. These have a 1.8l motor (too big?), 40 on the highway but are they capable of 50 if you slow down, improve your habits and have a 5 spd. I'm looking at the echo, Paseo etc as a smaller and more mpg friendly version of this.
Corolla 9th gen manual I'd get in a heartbeat for the right price, but would have quite a few miles at my budget number.
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