Good fuel efficient sedans/coupes?
 

I am a young man who has been looking into options for cars. I don't like hatchbacks for the most part. I want to know of a good sedan or coupe that can get very good mpg without the modifications most people on the street would cringe at. I know of the Metro and HX but I want to know more.

What do you consider good fuel economy?

If you give this a paint job is it cringe worthy ?
https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...ver-39752.html

Standard economy cars that can get good fuel economy are a pretty long list of manual transmission vehicles

Yeah Olde Saturn
Cobalt XFE
MITSUBISHI MIRAGE

How old do you want to go

How about a Camry or Corolla hybrid? Less storage than a Prius and lower fuel economy, but they're still among the best passenger cars.

Thanks for asking. Understand use case and total cost of ownership.

Use case: the 80/20 rule. Don't go oversized or too small. Consider the average occupancy and cargo.

TCO: All cars depreciate on a descending curve, but some go back up later. My favorite example would be the Type III Notchback, Squareback and Fastback. They represent the three categories although the Squareback is technically more of a shooting brake. The Fastback I think is too fast, like a Beetle. You can check with aerohead.

Anyways, if you get a 50-year-old car that only gets 40 MPG and maintain it, the resale value goes through the roof. Old VW buses are unobtainium at this point.

Would you drive this?

https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-f...6-100-0949.jpg

A $5K car in 2015. I had one the same color. Looking at www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/newads.php?type=cars, I find one Type III, a red Fastback.

www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=2503823
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/pix/9419729.jpg

California car, the tree jumped out in front of him. Parts included, if it were driveable and in Michigan it would be a good example of sweat equity.

Check out the TheSamba ads. There's a Porsche 356A for $157K. :eek: the 1964 Karmann Ghia has a nice interior, but they don't show the exterior: $17K.

Heck even an early 90's Civic is selling for nearly 10 grand lately, if they're largely intact. Unfortunately none of those came in a high fuel efficiency version in either sedan or coupe body styles.

My range is 1995 at the earliest. I tend to like older cars. I am now considering the Versa as an option if I could modify it like that poster here is doing and preview potential modifications some way. I consider 30 mpg in city to be good mpg and 30 something or more on highway to be good.

I had a 1993 Mazda 323 with 5 speed manual (admittedly hatchback, but there is the Protogé which is the sedan version) and got great fuel mileage (around 40mpg) by advancing the timing a little and hypermiling.

I also got a solid 30mpg out of a 1972 VW Super Beetle.

My best fuel mileage was in my 1985 VW non-turbo diesel Golf (again, there are sedan options if you don't like the hatch).

I drive a Saturn I picked up only because it was cheap and checked the correct equipment boxes of manual trans + 4cyl

I think the sweet spot in economy is a car new enough to be OBD2 and old enough to be a tinfoil deathtrap in a crash. This realistically puts you in roughly a 10 year range from 96 to 06 give or take.

As long as you avoid anything Mitsubishi or Chrysler Corp it’s actually a pretty good bet that a 4cyl 5 speed car will be a fairly reliable machine

Those are your criteria 4cyl 5 speed, late 90’s to early aughties. One car that strikes me as slept on as a small fuel efficient sedan that’s still cheap and doesn’t have a cult following is the B15 Nissan Sentra

I chose a Mazda3 sedan as a great combination of room, reliability, price and economy. It's my second Mazda, and I've never been disappointed in them.

Passat B5 1.9 TDi would be great for highway fuel economy right from the factory.
Plus it's a very reliable car.

So 1995+

Whats your price range?

*I would be careful with Nissan. They were very unreliable in the 00s.

Post French connection Nissan is as bad as it gets and should never be considered as a cheap car if you don’t like walking

But the particular Sentra I alluded to is a design that just barely predates that.

I also got pretty good fuel mileage, around 30mpg, in my 1996 Buick LeSabre, which is really good considering it's a huge car with 6 seats and a large trunk. But newer Buicks, like around the early 2000's, actually got a lot worse fuel mileage.

This is true.

If driven right a Versa with a CVT can deliver great mileage. I have a '16 Versa with a CVT. The majority of my driving is secondary roads with the c/c set at 40-45 MPH range. I'm consistently exceeding 50 MPG but I do little town/city driving in it. I also do lots of coasting to stops/turns and try my best to time traffic lights so I don't have to stop. The CVT makes the car deliver some great mileage but the JATCO CVT's used by Nissan are not the most reliable transmission out there. I have a fuel log for the Versa here on site. The EPA numbers on my '16 are 31 city, 39 highway and 34 combined.

My brother used to have an '08 Versa with a 6 speed manual transmission. I remember him making a comment once that it didn't get very good mileage. I remember it was turning about 3K RPM at normal highway speed so it was geared pretty low.

If you could find a good 3rd generation Escort they do decent. I've got a '97 and an '02. The '97 is a 5 speed and the '02 is a 4 speed automatic both will get low to mid 30's in everyday driving at around 55-60 MPH.

If you could find a Toyota Tercel...