New guy, 98 Cavalier.
 

Hey folks!

My name is Sean and I recently picked up a 1998 Cavalier from a friend on the cheap to keep miles off my 2011 Frontier Pro4X and attempt to break even on purchase price, insurance and fuel on the Cavalier. The Frontier is 4WD, lifted and has knobby tires, so it gets just under 16mpg at best.

I bought the car off a friend who owned it for 8 years and he bought it off another friend who bought the car new in 1998, so, I know it's full history. With that said, I plan to spend little to no money modifying the Cavalier for MPG gains. It is a $700 car with 216K miles on it.

The only mods so far are upon getting home with the car I removed the mud flaps and tossed out any and all junk in the car including the floor mats. I already had a Bluetooth OBDII scanner dongle and the torque app on my cell phone, so I have been casually monitoring my driving habits.

At a purchase price of a mere $700, I'd say your economizing began at the point of sale!

Welcome to the party.

You're a little limited by the automatic, but there are workarounds to be had, no worries there. And with just a bit of poking around, I find that different final drive ratios can be had in that automatic. It may be a pretty simple matter to change but that's beyond my ken.

Save up your campaign coroplast for zero-cost aero!

The entire purchase of the vehicle was based on the fact that my friend was daily driving this thing up until he stumbled upon a cream puff 99 Toyota 4Runner and asked me if I knew anyone who might want to buy his Cavalier. So, of course I jokingly asked what my "buddy price" was. He was asking $1000, so he told me $800. Since I had just had Central air installed in my house and had a pile of window units laying there I offered him one of the old window units for a $50 credit which brought the price down to $750. Then, he remembered that none of the door locks worked, so I told him $700...
I also sold the rest of the window units to another friend for $100, so, Technically, i'm in $600....

I should also mention, he replaced the front brake pads, rotors and hubs a couple of months back and would not let me take the car until he did the same on the rear. So, it has all new brakes and hubs on all 4 corners. Also, the AC blows ice cold.

The main reason for the car is to keep miles off my truck. I have a 35 mile round trip to work and my truck is my pride and joy, so, i'd rather put the miles on a beater but, the benefit is nearly doubling the MPG's over the truck.

And, there is no way I am swapping transmissions in this car. it has 216K miles, so, it's getting nothing it doesn't need and will be tossed if any major issues pop up.

I got excited when I saw Cavalier, then I realised that you meant a Chevy Cavalier and not a Vauxhall Cavalier.

nice of the seller to do the extra work to the back before you got it. far to many wouldn't bother or would say the bits are in the back do it yourself.