First car was a '93 Mazda 626 that my parents had originally owned, then sold it to some friends who let it sit in a field for 2 years, so when they bought it back for me to drive it had a whole lot of mechanical problems and after about a year of driving it it ended up needing engine/transmission work that would cost far more than the car was worth.
Got pretty good mileage when it would start though.
>field for 2 years
>bought back
Are you still giving your parents shit for paying for it? You should be.
My first car was this 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited
[t]http://i.imgur.com/PhilcLk.jpg[/t]
Bought it for $800 at a repo auction in February 2012. Missing the serpentine belt and the power steering pulley. The fabric covering under the hood was shredded and little bits and pieces of belt and plastic pulley were everywhere inside the engine compartment. We tried everywhere, Advanced Auto, Napa, O=reilieys, everyone has a 5.2l power steering pump, but none of them fit. We took the whole pump there and watched as every single store clerk sat there scratching their heads. We eventually found a metal pulley that fit at the local JY.
Now by this point we were 2 months in and never drove the car. I read up on the "you know you have a ZJ when..." posts and had a laugh. Little did I know every post was very, very, real.
We drove it for the first time some time in May. A short, routine 30 mile trip from Ashland City to Clarksville. The radiator exploded at a stoplight 20' from our destination, it was actually relieving that we didn't have to listen to the 4 mismatched tires squeal and whine on the way back.
I got my permit in August and drove it home from the tire shop for the first time. It had all the regular ZJ issues; overheating, no a/c, alarm works when it wants to,party pool in the passenger floorboard, bad solder joints in all the electronics, VIC telling you the car is about to explode after you hit a bump, etc. Slowly but surely I fixed most of these.
In August of 2013 I got my license, and drove it to school every day. Now you don't know me, but I'll say it myself, I drive REALLY freaking slow, so I found the 11 miles to the gallon I was getting quite alarming. I looked into this and as winter came in I found a ton of other issues with my car. It would overheat in the summer, but never warm up in the winter. It would throw codes for the catalytic converter only in the summer, and O2 sensor in the winter(replaced the O2 sensor, figured the cat was the source of the horrifying MPG).
Then on one very special March morning (TN residents may remember this very well) it snowed. It snowed like a whole freakin foot. Snowplows didn't even know what hit 'em. And on my way back from checking if school was in (it was not), it hit me too.
I slammed into the side of a hill at 30mph, the angle caused the car to turn 180 degrees and slam into the hill again. I don't have any pictures of the ditch, but the front bumper was on the road, the rear bumper was on the other side of the ditch, and all 4 wheels were in the air, my NP249 was not saving me this time. I was only 1mi from home, so it was easy to get the tractor and pull her out.
[t]http://i.imgur.com/QEXTyLE.jpg[/t]
[t]http://i.imgur.com/dkh9dd5.jpg[/t]
The airbag didn't deploy, but I'm not sure if I didn't hit it hard enough or if it was just broken, we will never know. I drove it for the next 2 weeks without realized the crash broke both of my taillights. Whoops. I fixed it all myself, though they didn't have any white bumpers, she was never as prettyfull as before:
[t]http://i.imgur.com/R3lE9l9.jpg[/t]
Drove it the rest of the year like this, graduated, got a job(whohoo!), then on one particular morning of May 27th, the VIC unit blew a fuse causing my radio to stop working. I didn't care about the VIC, but I did want my radio. I should never have stopped to fix it. I replaced the fuse and the VIC unit caught on fire immediately. The fire went out after about a second, and I angerly drove it back home (I was already late for work at this point), parked it in the front yard, and asked my dad to pull the unit (we had several spare).
Well my dad has this habit of half-assing shit. And you also have to move the gear shift to remove the unit. He parked it on "flat ground", left the handbrake off, left the keys in the ignition, didn't put another unit in, came to my work, dropped the unit off, and left for his girlfriend's house.
I came back, and there was no car. I didn't think anything of it until my dad opened the door and asked me where it was. My first mental response was that it got stolen. It took my dad 3 seconds to find it. It had rolled down this "flat ground", across the road, into a ravine, and hit a tree.
[t]http://i.imgur.com/BQpEp3u.jpg[/t]
[t]http://i.imgur.com/EJPxiqA.jpg[/t]
[t]http://i.imgur.com/Uu8X6Z4.jpg[/t]
[t]http://i.imgur.com/YZTfABZ.jpg[/t]
Now some people say that this was fixable, but the unibody is bent, and the only door that will open is the passenger front door, they usually shut up after I tell them that.
Needless to say, I was pissed. But that Jeep started right up and drove itself out of that ravine. Parked it into a barn and put a tarp over it a few days later, so in 50 years someone can rediscover it and call it a classic.
I still don't have another car.
Sorry for the long post. If you wanted to know if it ever got me chicks, it didn't, sorry ;)
Thanks dad!
[editline]18th September 2014[/editline]
Seriously, if your dad doesn't help you get a new car, he's an asshole.
technically my first car was a '65 olds 442 that I bought for 100$ outta some dudes yard. Spent two years getting the thing running and sold it for 1100$ (100 for the car+250ish in parts still came out ahead) would of kept it and drove it but the suspension was shot and while still working the transmission was on it's last legs.
The first car that was mine and I actually drove was a '95 olds cutlass ciera
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/vK8TDtel.jpg[/IMG]
Pretty decent car but I flogged the ever loving dog shit out of it finally killed the fucker after putting 98K on it in a little over 2 years
I was considering this, any comments? [URL="http://www.cargurus.com/Cars/inventorylisting/viewDetailsFilterViewInventoryListing.action?sourceContext=carGurusHomePage_false_0&newSearchFromOverviewPage=true&cgLocale=&inventorySearchWidgetType=AUTO&entitySelectingHelper.selectedEntity=d74&entitySelectingHelper.selectedEntity2=&zip=08844&distance=MILES_25&searchChanged=true&maxPrice=10000&modelChanged=false&filtersModified=true#listing=87367745"]Linky[/URL]
I don't know anything about Mercedes but I imagine they're incredibly expensive to maintain in the US.
I also refuse to buy an automatic transmission car.
[QUOTE=Banana Lord.;46039454]I don't know anything about Mercedes but I imagine they're incredibly expensive to maintain in the US.
I also refuse to buy an automatic transmission car.[/QUOTE]
The maintenance is insane here, my mother has one.
They're also very difficult to find any brake parts for. Dealing with that with my sister's C230 right now.
ALso the particular Mercedes you pictured is seen as one of the "girl" cars, so I hope that's ok with you. That's a mom-mobile.
[URL="http://www.cargurus.com/Cars/inventorylisting/viewDetailsFilterViewInventoryListing.action?sourceContext=forSaleTab_false_0&newSearchFromOverviewPage=true&cgLocale=&inventorySearchWidgetType=AUTO&entitySelectingHelper.selectedEntity=d571&entitySelectingHelper.selectedEntity2=&zip=08844&distance=MILES_25&searchChanged=true&modelChanged=true&filtersModified=true#listing=87557973"]This[/URL] was another option, but it's 20 years old.
[editline]21st September 2014[/editline]
I'm very picky with cars
[QUOTE=lope;46039439]I was considering this, any comments? [URL="http://www.cargurus.com/Cars/inventorylisting/viewDetailsFilterViewInventoryListing.action?sourceContext=carGurusHomePage_false_0&newSearchFromOverviewPage=true&cgLocale=&inventorySearchWidgetType=AUTO&entitySelectingHelper.selectedEntity=d74&entitySelectingHelper.selectedEntity2=&zip=08844&distance=MILES_25&searchChanged=true&maxPrice=10000&modelChanged=false&filtersModified=true#listing=87367745"]Linky[/URL][/QUOTE]
that will be astronomically expensive to maintain/fix my brother is a mercedes tech and some of the prices for service he tells me are fucking crazy aka the 40000 mile service is somewhere around 600$
Mine was a '98 Opel Astra
Most painfully average and boring car imaginable.
Buy something older, it's gonna be cheap and easy to fix.
1979 Pontiac Catalina or Bonneville, old as shit but fucking cheap as shit to maintain and no ECMs to worry about.
I'd personally recommend the Catalina as it has the 301 "Odd block" V8 known to be, as myth goes, "Two 4 cylinder engines mated at the middle" and gets superb MPGs, when it's in good shape.
Also, this thread is getting a bit up in age-days, haven't you gotten a car yet?
[QUOTE=Del91;46087117]Buy something older, it's gonna be cheap and easy to fix.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Del91;46011314]Thanks dad!
[editline]18th September 2014[/editline]
Seriously, if your dad doesn't help you get a new car, he's an asshole.[/QUOTE]
Yes, on top of that any luxury car is going to cost fortunes to maintain compared to say, a normal car with some luxuries.
I'd go with a older Camry if I were OP, I don't know if they have leather seats, but I do know that my sister's first car, a Green 93 Camry, was a brick. It had somewhere around 281k miles on it when we sold it. The only problem it had was the passenger interior door handle was broken, and that was only because we could not find a Camry that had a green interior. Yep, Green and Green, and surprisingly wasn't ugly.
My dad has helped me try to find a car, we went to a different repo auction, and bid on a couple cars, went to look at a few around the neighborhood as well, haven't found anything yet.
I also remember North Carolina getting slammed pretty good back in March. I'm pretty sure the rest of you remember as well when this happened:
[img]http://wwwcache.wral.com/asset/weather/2014/02/13/13390408/image_1_-363x485.jpg[/img]
My first ever motorized vehicle was a restored 87' Vespa 150.
I love it but really in all sense, do not get one.
It barely does 60kmh, has horrible everything, stupidly difficult to maintain and is not reliable as the Italians claim to be.
Only get one if you wanna be some kind of dapper hipster ride a scooter to starbucks lol.
My first ever car (well not actually mine, it was more of a company car) was a Proton Waja. (Also known as the Impian in the UK). Its a funny little car really, it was both amazing and completely horrible at the same time. My first impressions with the car was super positive, amazing leather seats, comfortable steering, leather lining and what not. Its only after you started driving it you then realize how god awful the plastic bits are, you slide around because of the slippery leather seats and everything starts too look like its going to fall apart.
But the biggest problem with the car is this (blue line):
[IMG]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32814946/4g18_campro_chart.gif[/IMG]
Check out that torque.
Unless you step the gas really hard it feels like the car would barely even move. Which is disappointing because the engine sounds fantastic. To get up to speed when exiting corners into main roads you'd have to push the pedal all the way down and the engine starts making this amazing growl until you realize you only got to 50kmh. And the air intake makes a whistling sound so you can pretend you have a turbo.
But one thing I genuinely loved about the car was its suspension, Proton brought Lotus engineers to design their suspension and its simply amazing.
But unless you live in Malaysia/UK/AUS you'll probabaly never get your hands on a Proton.
I have so many mixed emotions about that post I don't know what to rate it
[editline]29th September 2014[/editline]
Here, just have a wrench because it was about a car
My first was a beat up Porsche 924 (pronounced: nine twenty poor). Drove this weird ass volkswagen-audi-porsche-ish thing 100 miles home when it blew the headgasket right in front of my door. Spend all summer fixing that shit up and now it's time for body work, which will be shit because the car is pre-1980's, so for Porsche that means they aren't galvanized and thus suffer a lot of rust. Then two weeks later I bought another beat up Porsche, a 944 I stumbled across. Boy do I love that car, even beat up as it is. Misses it's powersteering, alternator belt weeps like hell, car overheats like hell due to a faulty thermostat and faulty radiator sensor. It was guards red...once, now its dull white/red. But it drives like heaven, if you forget about the stiff german-sportscar shocks for a second (I swear you will feel [b]every[/b] little detail in the road.
Too bad the 944 costs a fuck ton to keep on the road in maintenance, would've been a fun keeper if it weren't for that.
As a suggestion, I just say go with whatever you feel comfortable with, and as long as you research you'll be good. My first (First I own) car is my current 2007 Dodge Charger Pursuit.
[t]http://i.imgur.com/U3DjKqS.jpg[/t]
It's super roomy and feels like your driving a tank. Being a past interceptor it has a lot of performance upgrades from Mopar already installed including Borla headers, trans cooler, larger radiator, perf suspension, and so on.
Got it for $8000 at 80,000 miles.
You can see my fuel mileage here:
[URL=http://www.fuelly.com/car/dodge/charger/2007/WarlockSyno/276924][IMG]http://badges.fuelly.com/images/sig-us/276924.png[/IMG][/URL]
While not amazing, I think it's pretty good for having a muscle car sedan.
[QUOTE=Banana Lord.;46105201]I have so many mixed emotions about that post I don't know what to rate it
[editline]29th September 2014[/editline]
Here, just have a wrench because it was about a car[/QUOTE]
Jesus Christ I didn't even realize I wrote so much. I was in a "I can't sleep because the knowledge of the whole universe is in my mind" state at that time.
[URL="http://www.cargurus.com/Cars/inventorylisting/viewDetailsFilterViewInventoryListing.action?sourceContext=RecentSearches_false_0&newSearchFromOverviewPage=true&cgLocale=en&inventorySearchWidgetType=AUTO&entitySelectingHelper.selectedEntity=d558&entitySelectingHelper.selectedEntity2=&zip=08844&distance=MILES_25&searchChanged=true&hideFrameDamaged=true&maxMileage=121000&modelChanged=false&filtersModified=true#listing=88875215"]2006 Lexus ES 330[/URL]
[t]http://static.cargurus.com/images/forsale/2014/06/16/20/26/2006_lexus_es_330-pic-2148402544486119938-1024x768.jpeg[/t]
$11k with 82k miles and I'm paying half. Good idea?
My first car bought with my own money. Hyundai Verna 1.6 SX CRDi.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/6LvXBhV.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE=lope;46329436][URL="http://www.cargurus.com/Cars/inventorylisting/viewDetailsFilterViewInventoryListing.action?sourceContext=RecentSearches_false_0&newSearchFromOverviewPage=true&cgLocale=en&inventorySearchWidgetType=AUTO&entitySelectingHelper.selectedEntity=d558&entitySelectingHelper.selectedEntity2=&zip=08844&distance=MILES_25&searchChanged=true&hideFrameDamaged=true&maxMileage=121000&modelChanged=false&filtersModified=true#listing=88875215"]2006 Lexus ES 330[/URL]
[t]http://static.cargurus.com/images/forsale/2014/06/16/20/26/2006_lexus_es_330-pic-2148402544486119938-1024x768.jpeg[/t]
$11k with 82k miles and I'm paying half. Good idea?[/QUOTE]
If it checks out mechanically, it's probably a good deal if you're only paying half. It's a rebadged Toyota. Up until the whole uncontrolled acceleration issue tarnished the company's image, they were generally considered good, reliable (if somewhat unexciting) cars. I've owned two Toyota Corollas over the years, and neither had any unexpected problems. First one was an '82 that I owned for 4 years, second was a '99 I owned for 7 years. The '82 needed the master cylinder and brake lines replaced, but it was over 15 years old by that time.
Since the old 'Rolla was my first car, here's a pic of one that's a spitting image, except for the rims. Right down to the red-orange color. Got it as a graduation gift from my parents in '93.
[img]http://i32.tinypic.com/j82m4g.jpg[/img]
-oops, made myself sound like a ungrateful jerk snip :c-
[QUOTE=Mike16112;46587501]My grandpa is offering to give me his old 2001 suzuki esteem as my first car, does Fp think it's a good idea since I don't really have much of a choice?[/QUOTE]
Make him buy you a more expensive BMW. I hate when people offer me free vehicles that probably work just fine. I say tell your grandpa that you'd rather buy your own 2001 Suzuki Esteem.
Got me a 1995 BMW 328i Coupe M-sport, shit was ace.
Until the rear right trailing arm ripped out of the frame on the highway. :tinfoil:
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