Help me figure out the car,,,

[AP_piano295]

I think that a lot of people misunderstood what AP_piano295 wants.

From what he/she said about an old, manual transmission, and small fun to drive car that would suggest that AP_piano295 doesn't really need a car for transportation but more as a toy or a fun thing to play with. So reliability is shouldn't be as much an issue as most people anticipated.

One thing that you should aware though is that unless you are a mechanic and/or know someone who are willing to fix your car for you're going to end up paying more than the price of your car for matainence. If you can fix the car yourself then you'll have an option of getting parts from auto wrecks so even if it is a european car (ie BMW) that should be too bad to fix. However, unless you know how to do the work yourself I do not advice anyone to get an old vehicle.

If you want a really fun to drive car you should be looking at may be a VW Rabbit, Jetta, or an old MINI (no, not a new mini cooper), or what as you mentioned earlier BMW .

Geting an old mini would be very cool but they are distinctly hard to find in the us. I have seen one in my town with the distinct vanity RMINI I assume they mean real mini. I do sort of (need) a car but not to the point where my most major concern is perfect reliability. And I do know how to work on them myself to a fairly large degree.

 

[Xtremehkr]

Older Subarus are are fun. The Wagons with four wheel drive can be taken all over the place.

Volkswagens from the 60s and 70s are fun too. They take a little work when it comes to maintenance, but are fun and cheap.

 

[40167]

I think it mainly depends on if you can fix the car yourself or not. If you can't fix the car then i'd go with a Toyota or Honda as getting it fixed for you is going to be a heck of alot cheaper. If you can fix it, surely I would get the BMW. I got my '89 525i for $1,000 but it had an engine knock; ended up replacing one burnt piston myself and getting extremely lucky at the junk yards to find things like very nice leather seats; the car came with seats that were fairly bad.

A 3 series is probibly what you see driving around though, they seem alot more common on the street and in the junk yards. The junk yards here around Los Angeles have 15 to 20 of the 3 series, but generaly 1 or 2 of the 5 series. Now that mine is fixed, it's very nice to drive... Quiet, smooth, you can either take it out and listen to classical on the 10 speaker system or go out and race the thing. It doesn't accelerate like mad (unless you shift it in semi-manual or whatever its called, no clutch but you get this button you hit if you want to shift it yourself; automatic takes like 7 seconds 0-60mph) but the top speed of 153mph, without the limiter, is pretty nice. The 3 series either comes with Automatic or more commonly a proper Manual transmission and they are small; so that's probibly what you'd want. It won't lavish you with tons of gadgets but it's sporty and when I was looking at prices (about 4 months ago) you could even get a convertable 3 series for pretty cheap.

Sure, even fixing things myself it might have been cheaper to get a Toyota or a Honda, but I don't think i'd be having nearly as much fun in one of those.

 

[AP_piano295]

Older Subarus are are fun. The Wagons with four wheel drive can be taken all over the place.

Volkswagens from the 60s and 70s are fun too. They take a little work when it comes to maintenance, but are fun and cheap.

I like subarus