Meet my new car: (almost the) same as my old car

[zolotiyeruki]

Meet our good ol' reliable cars:

On New Year's Eve, my '95 Corolla was rear ended on a snowy road.  The damage was pretty minor--the car was still very driveable--but given the age (27 years) and mileage (245,000 miles), the insurance company totalled it and send me a check for $1,733.  I was a bit bummed--my fiancee and I purchased that car almost 19 years ago, and I had done almost all the maintenance/repair over the ensuing 160,000 miles, and I knew it inside and out.  When we bought it, I stated that I wanted my future kids to learn to drive in it, and two of them did!

But like it or not, we were back on the market for a new-to-us car.  Lo and behold, a few weeks later, this beauty showed up:



It's a 1997 Geo Prizm, which is really a Corolla with some tweaks.  Some of the interior is different (dash, gauge cluster, console, and body are slightly different, but everything else is straight-up Toyota.  Same rock-solid reliable engine and transmission, same switches, same suspension, etc.  It also has nearly 100,000 miles fewer than my old Corolla.

Our price?  $1,750, $17 more than the insurance paid us for my old car.  I've put a couple hundred bucks into it in the form of new fluids and filters and such, and it has some body rust that I hope to tackle this year (yay, I get to learn a new skill!), and the upholstery could use a good scrub, but it runs great, and I appreciate its honest simplicity.  And given the mileage we were putting on my Corolla (roughly 5k/year), unless/until one of my teenage drivers get in a wreck, we'll be driving this thing for a long, long time.

[former player]

Nice job, well done.

[Askel]

Nice score, especially in this market! 

Curious if your insurance company offered you an opportunity to buy it back from them?  I'm pretty sure if either of our cars see even minor damage, they'll be totaled by the insurance company.  Trying to decide if I want to stop paying collision/comprehensive or not. 

[Dicey]

That extra hubcap and upgraded paint job were worth every bit of the $17 they cost you. Congrats!

[zolotiyeruki]

Curious if your insurance company offered you an opportunity to buy it back from them?  I'm pretty sure if either of our cars see even minor damage, they'll be totaled by the insurance company.  Trying to decide if I want to stop paying collision/comprehensive or not.

The damage was significant enough that the trunk wouldn't close and the bumper wouldn't go back on.  I'm willing to drive an old beater, but even I have limits!

It was the other driver's insurance that paid out.  IMO collision/comprehensive isn't worth it unless the vehicle is worth a lot more than what I usually drive. :)

That extra hubcap and upgraded paint job were worth every bit of the $17 they cost you. Congrats!

Heh, you're not kidding.  My old car only had 3 wheel covers when I bought it, and I never bothered replacing the missing one.  I *do* appreciate the aluminum wheels--they're definitely an upgrade.  And it has a CD player!  And ABS!

[JAYSLOL]

Curious if your insurance company offered you an opportunity to buy it back from them?  I'm pretty sure if either of our cars see even minor damage, they'll be totaled by the insurance company.  Trying to decide if I want to stop paying collision/comprehensive or not.

The damage was significant enough that the trunk wouldn't close and the bumper wouldn't go back on.  I'm willing to drive an old beater, but even I have limits!

It was the other driver's insurance that paid out.  IMO collision/comprehensive isn't worth it unless the vehicle is worth a lot more than what I usually drive. :)

That extra hubcap and upgraded paint job were worth every bit of the $17 they cost you. Congrats!

Heh, you're not kidding.  My old car only had 3 wheel covers when I bought it, and I never bothered replacing the missing one.  I *do* appreciate the aluminum wheels--they're definitely an upgrade.  And it has a CD player!  And ABS!

Nice!  Pro tip for the alloy wheels, oven cleaner works super well to clean that really hard to remove brake dust off.  Just don’t leave it on longer than needed and rise it off well

[uniwelder]

Wow. I just learned something new. Geo Prizm = Toyota Corolla

[AccidentialMustache]

Those cars have some Toyota/GM confusion... you get a turbo button on them, but they labeled it "A/C" for some reason. Also they mis-wired the LED, because you go fast when it is "off".

More seriously, mom had an early-90s geo prism when I was a younger. She had the hatchback, which was superb for hauling me to and from the dorms. She lost hers when it got totaled as well.

[zolotiyeruki]

Those cars have some Toyota/GM confusion... you get a turbo button on them, but they labeled it "A/C" for some reason. Also they mis-wired the LED, because you go fast when it is "off"

Ha!  Growing up, we had an '87 Corolla that had the same "Turbo" button! :D

[Askel]

It was the other driver's insurance that paid out.  IMO collision/comprehensive isn't worth it unless the vehicle is worth a lot more than what I usually drive. :)

Ah, you're one of the lucky ones that lives in a state with sensible insurance laws like "If somebody crashes into your car, they should pay for the damage."  MI is no such place. But even if it was, the leading cause of accidental car damage I've suffered is deer and they are notoriously underinsured.   

[SpareChange]

Very nice! Extra points for doing it in the current market.

[Blender Bender]

Very cool. I have Pontiac Vibe 2003. I want to keep it as long as possible.

[AccidentialMustache]

Those cars have some Toyota/GM confusion... you get a turbo button on them, but they labeled it "A/C" for some reason. Also they mis-wired the LED, because you go fast when it is "off"

Ha!  Growing up, we had an '87 Corolla that had the same "Turbo" button! :D

Did you get told to hit the turbo when a parent was trying to merge on a busy highway and didn't have hands/brain to hit it themselves? Because that was totally a thing for me. It was also my job to turn it off when going uphill in the mountains of TN.

I mean, I like that the 09 Fit does it automatically -- go for max acceleration (like to interstate-70-mph from a rest stop) and it'll be blowing hot air from the vents by the time you're up to speed, but its taken a thing away, you know?

[JAYSLOL]

Those cars have some Toyota/GM confusion... you get a turbo button on them, but they labeled it "A/C" for some reason. Also they mis-wired the LED, because you go fast when it is "off"

Ha!  Growing up, we had an '87 Corolla that had the same "Turbo" button! :D

Sounds very luxurious, haha.  My 1995 Tercel doesn’t have the “Turbo” button, unfortunately. I guess it’s technically in permanent-turbo mode.   Also doesn’t have power anything.  Or even a driver’s airbag.  Doesn’t even have intermittent wipers lol.  I think if it had any fewer features I’d be hand-crank starting it and lighting little fires in the lanterns for headlights like one of the old-timey cars. 

[Chris Pascale]

I think you mean "Say hello to my little friend."

Great purchase. You've got a lot of good years and miles ahead of you.

[ChpBstrd]

Curious if your insurance company offered you an opportunity to buy it back from them?  I'm pretty sure if either of our cars see even minor damage, they'll be totaled by the insurance company.  Trying to decide if I want to stop paying collision/comprehensive or not.

The damage was significant enough that the trunk wouldn't close and the bumper wouldn't go back on.  I'm willing to drive an old beater, but even I have limits!

I wonder if there are opportunities for the ultra-frugal to drive "totalled" cars that are still reliable but lack some functionality like a trunk, or one of four doors that won't open, etc. I bet your old car will be sold at auction for $300 or so, and it's still perfectly drive-able and reliable. A family who needs an occasional 2nd car could hold onto that vehicle for years, suffer minimal depreciation, pay the lowest possible insurance, and be exposed to minimal financial risk if a major repair comes up.

Bonus: Insure the $300 car for liability-only and get another $1700 when someone totals it again.

[zolotiyeruki]

Curious if your insurance company offered you an opportunity to buy it back from them?  I'm pretty sure if either of our cars see even minor damage, they'll be totaled by the insurance company.  Trying to decide if I want to stop paying collision/comprehensive or not.

The damage was significant enough that the trunk wouldn't close and the bumper wouldn't go back on.  I'm willing to drive an old beater, but even I have limits!

I wonder if there are opportunities for the ultra-frugal to drive "totalled" cars that are still reliable but lack some functionality like a trunk, or one of four doors that won't open, etc. I bet your old car will be sold at auction for $300 or so, and it's still perfectly drive-able and reliable. A family who needs an occasional 2nd car could hold onto that vehicle for years, suffer minimal depreciation, pay the lowest possible insurance, and be exposed to minimal financial risk if a major repair comes up.

Bonus: Insure the $300 car for liability-only and get another $1700 when someone totals it again.

One of the rear tail light assemblies was pretty smashed up, though--turn signal, tail light, reverse light, brake light.  Without that, there's potentially a safety issue.

What would be really cool would be a car company that, in addition to producing full cars, also produced a boatload of extra bodies, and designed the cars so that you could easily take all the innards from a crashed car and put them into a new body.  Yeah, yeah, body-on-frame and replaceable panels have existed, but I can dream, right?

[AccidentialMustache]

I wonder if there are opportunities for the ultra-frugal to drive "totalled" cars that are still reliable but lack some functionality like a trunk, or one of four doors that won't open, etc. I bet your old car will be sold at auction for $300 or so, and it's still perfectly drive-able and reliable. A family who needs an occasional 2nd car could hold onto that vehicle for years, suffer minimal depreciation, pay the lowest possible insurance, and be exposed to minimal financial risk if a major repair comes up.

Bonus: Insure the $300 car for liability-only and get another $1700 when someone totals it again.

Crumple zones are designed to dissipate energy safely, not look pretty afterwards. Ignoring that they've already done their job and are so over it means next time you get hit, there's no buffer and you or your passengers are eating all that energy instead. Not my sort of opportunity there, for any amount of money.

Now, of course, that does depend on how much crumple you have. Little ding? No biggie. Serious damage? No good.

Also, the car should be worth more than $300. Back on cash-for-clunkers, the scrap value of the old MPV was around $900 and that wasn't a large/heavy car.

[iluvzbeach]

Those cars have some Toyota/GM confusion... you get a turbo button on them, but they labeled it "A/C" for some reason. Also they mis-wired the LED, because you go fast when it is "off"

Ha!  Growing up, we had an '87 Corolla that had the same "Turbo" button! :D

Did you get told to hit the turbo when a parent was trying to merge on a busy highway and didn't have hands/brain to hit it themselves? Because that was totally a thing for me. It was also my job to turn it off when going uphill in the mountains of TN.

I mean, I like that the 09 Fit does it automatically -- go for max acceleration (like to interstate-70-mph from a rest stop) and it'll be blowing hot air from the vents by the time you're up to speed, but its taken a thing away, you know?

When I was a kid we had a VW bug that had this round button on the dash and it tested the brakes or something like that, but my parents told me it was the button you pressed to make the lights at an intersection turn from red to green. It was my job to press the button and it worked! The light would turn green…eventually. 😂

[Askel]

I wonder if there are opportunities for the ultra-frugal to drive "totalled" cars that are still reliable but lack some functionality like a trunk, or one of four doors that won't open, etc. I bet your old car will be sold at auction for $300 or so, and it's still perfectly drive-able and reliable. A family who needs an occasional 2nd car could hold onto that vehicle for years, suffer minimal depreciation, pay the lowest possible insurance, and be exposed to minimal financial risk if a major repair comes up.

Bonus: Insure the $300 car for liability-only and get another $1700 when someone totals it again.

I know quite a few people who have bought cars totaled by insurance companies and fixed them up enough to use.  Heck, often times you don't even need to be that handy to get them back to something resembling roadworthy. The disparity in price of car body work between you paying out of pocket vs the insurance company can often be rather large.   

[HenryDavid]

Re-badged cars, as in Geo = Toyota, Vibe = Metrix etc. can be a good way to get more value.
Our hatchback is a Saturn, but in reality it’s an Opel, as in “GM in Europe.” So it has European-level fuel efficiency. (Also no cup holders, since who drinks coffee  . . .  inside their car?)(In Europe, I mean.)

Anyhow, old Saturns have crappy resale value here, and Opel is unknown. But from experience renting inEurope we knew these things are economical and durable. Fun to drive too. All for the price of an OK new bicycle . . . .

[Peaksandvalleys]

Now that is a badass new car

[terran]

Very cool. I have Pontiac Vibe 2003. I want to keep it as long as possible.

That's another good one. Pontiac Vibe = Toyota Matrix.

[Seamster]

Very cool. I have Pontiac Vibe 2003. I want to keep it as long as possible.

That's another good one. Pontiac Vibe = Toyota Matrix

And one more: Matrix = Corolla!

[oneday]

It's a 1997 Geo Prizm, which is really a Corolla with some tweaks. 

Yep! Built in the same factory by the same crew.

Eons ago, I had 96 Corolla; it was a very good car!

[zolotiyeruki]

Well, last night DW got the call we've been dreading for nine months:  our teenage son got in an accident, while driving our Geo-ta.  Fortunately the damage amounted to a dented front fender, which I un-dented this morning, and a simple, fist-sized dent in the other vehicle, which I'm hoping will be similarly easy to fix.  No injuries, except for a couple of traumatized teens.

My first comment to DW: "And THAT's why we don't buy nice cars!"

[Turtle]

Another former owner of a 1996 Corolla here.  Excellent car, bought new at end of model year for a good deal.  Intended to keep it forever, but it wouldn't hold 3 car seats in the back so I had to let it go.

[Just Joe]

What would be really cool would be a car company that, in addition to producing full cars, also produced a boatload of extra bodies, and designed the cars so that you could easily take all the innards from a crashed car and put them into a new body.  Yeah, yeah, body-on-frame and replaceable panels have existed, but I can dream, right?

You can do that now. Some of the collector cars are being wholly reproduced in new steel! Just buy a new body and put the parts from your old car into the new one.

I'm keeping a 90s Honda alive forever. Planning a junkyard run tomorrow to acquire a few bits and bobs that it needs. Very reliable and still presentable. We plan to use as a commuter until we retire in a few years. We carpool. We have a nicer car for weekend trips that sits in the garage.

I hope that when EVs are more common that SOMEONE will build a 1990s type EV like your Prism or my Honda.

A simple vehicle with heat and air, ABS and airbags, maybe remote locks. And that is about it. The current EVs all seem TOO complicated to maintain long term when they ought to be the perfect "forever" vehicle. Just buy the biggest battery and hopefully it'll have 300K+ miles on it by the time the range fades to ~50 miles total. I could get by with ~35 miles of range a day - and that includes a stop at the grocery store. That might take ages if I started out with 300 miles of range.

[zolotiyeruki]

What would be really cool would be a car company that, in addition to producing full cars, also produced a boatload of extra bodies, and designed the cars so that you could easily take all the innards from a crashed car and put them into a new body.  Yeah, yeah, body-on-frame and replaceable panels have existed, but I can dream, right?

You can do that now. Some of the collector cars are being wholly reproduced in new steel! Just buy a new body and put the parts from your old car into the new one.

I'm keeping a 90s Honda alive forever. Planning a junkyard run tomorrow to acquire a few bits and bobs that it needs. Very reliable and still presentable. We plan to use as a commuter until we retire in a few years. We carpool. We have a nicer car for weekend trips that sits in the garage.

I hope that when EVs are more common that SOMEONE will build a 1990s type EV like your Prism or my Honda.

A simple vehicle with heat and air, ABS and airbags, maybe remote locks. And that is about it. The current EVs all seem TOO complicated to maintain long term when they ought to be the perfect "forever" vehicle. Just buy the biggest battery and hopefully it'll have 300K+ miles on it by the time the range fades to ~50 miles total. I could get by with ~35 miles of range a day - and that includes a stop at the grocery store. That might take ages if I started out with 300 miles of range.

I like the way you think.  Perhaps it's what the market is demanding, but it seems to me like current electric vehicles are marketed either to A) people who want the latest flashy gadgets with all the bells and whistles (Tesla), or B) those who are super concerned about the environment, so the design of the car is all about that efficiency (I'm looking at you, Prius).

I just want an electric car that just looks and works like a car, and doesn't try to be a status symbol, or a "look how good this is for the environment" statement.  In other words, take a "normal" car from the late-90's to late-00's period, replace the drivetrain, and be done.

Of course, I'm not willing to pay full price for it, so it's all a bit hypothetical...

[Just Joe]

Same. You can buy kits from places like EVWest to replace the drivetrain on a list of different cars. But the price!

For example: a kit a VW Super Beetle (antique aircooled variety) is $19K.

https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40

That's a 26 KWH battery. If it gets 3.5 miles per kwh that's about 90 miles per charge. That would get the job done for us as a daily driver but if the winter cold cuts 25% of the range and it is best to keep the battery charge between 20% and 80% - - - well, its an expensive choice.

FWIW a Super Beetle (non-convertible) is $10K-12K. A convertible is mid-$20s. With the safety of a motorcycle. I say that as a loving Beetle owner...

[AccidentialMustache]

I just want an electric car that just looks and works like a car, and doesn't try to be a status symbol, or a "look how good this is for the environment" statement.  In other words, take a "normal" car from the late-90's to late-00's period, replace the drivetrain, and be done.

So a Chevy Bolt or Volt, take your pick if you want the range extender or not?

Seriously. The Bolt is the most "just a car" EV I've test-driven.

[Sandi_k]

MY DH is on his second Bolt (traded in and upgraded the first due to the recall). He LOVES it.

I find the ride uncomfortably harsh, but I cannot deny that not paying for gas right now feels pretty sweet. And we like how uncomplicated the Bolt is, in comparison's to a friend's Model 3. We both rolled our eyes at them when they had to use their phone to open the "frunk."

[Money Badger]

100,000 miles for $17?   Geez, thanks for killing car inflation for us!

[Car Jack]

I just want an electric car that just looks and works like a car, and doesn't try to be a status symbol, or a "look how good this is for the environment" statement.  In other words, take a "normal" car from the late-90's to late-00's period, replace the drivetrain, and be done.

There are companies who do electric conversions.  Heck, I remember one that started as a bunch of MIT grads and they used some GM little car and converted to electric.  They used to be pretty expensive for the conversion, but maybe parts are cheaper now.  You can also put a kit together using old, used motors and such.  Now and then the youtube channel Rich Rebuilds does a conversion into something.  I always find the builds interesting.  They do both directions, having put a Chevy LS engine out of a Camaro into a Model S, showing it at SEMA.  They call it ICE-T.  Anyways, other direction, they've done a number of electric vehicles including a quad.  These are the guys who started Electrified Garage up in New Hampshire.  They've even hacked Tesla code and "tuned" a model 3 performance to make it WAY faster to accelerate.

[GuitarStv]

If your Geo is based on a Corrola it's probably a great buy.  We bought our '05 Corrola brand new, and I kinda love that car.  It just keeps working flawlessly.  Had to replace the muffler after about 12 years (salty winters up here) but other than that it hasn't had any real problems to speak of.  Great automobile.

[ChpBstrd]

What would be really cool would be a car company that, in addition to producing full cars, also produced a boatload of extra bodies, and designed the cars so that you could easily take all the innards from a crashed car and put them into a new body.  Yeah, yeah, body-on-frame and replaceable panels have existed, but I can dream, right?

You can do that now. Some of the collector cars are being wholly reproduced in new steel! Just buy a new body and put the parts from your old car into the new one.

I'm keeping a 90s Honda alive forever. Planning a junkyard run tomorrow to acquire a few bits and bobs that it needs. Very reliable and still presentable. We plan to use as a commuter until we retire in a few years. We carpool. We have a nicer car for weekend trips that sits in the garage.

I hope that when EVs are more common that SOMEONE will build a 1990s type EV like your Prism or my Honda.

A simple vehicle with heat and air, ABS and airbags, maybe remote locks. And that is about it. The current EVs all seem TOO complicated to maintain long term when they ought to be the perfect "forever" vehicle. Just buy the biggest battery and hopefully it'll have 300K+ miles on it by the time the range fades to ~50 miles total. I could get by with ~35 miles of range a day - and that includes a stop at the grocery store. That might take ages if I started out with 300 miles of range.

I like the way you think.  Perhaps it's what the market is demanding, but it seems to me like current electric vehicles are marketed either to A) people who want the latest flashy gadgets with all the bells and whistles (Tesla), or B) those who are super concerned about the environment, so the design of the car is all about that efficiency (I'm looking at you, Prius).

I just want an electric car that just looks and works like a car, and doesn't try to be a status symbol, or a "look how good this is for the environment" statement.  In other words, take a "normal" car from the late-90's to late-00's period, replace the drivetrain, and be done.

Of course, I'm not willing to pay full price for it, so it's all a bit hypothetical...

The latest flashy gadgets seem to be what the market is demanding. There are fewer and fewer BASIC cars out there because cheap bastards like ourselves do not tend to buy new cars. I read somewhere that the average price of a new vehicle is now $48,000. W. T. F.

An average person with a commute only needs a car costing half that much when new, if not less. Yes, having 18 airbags contributes a lot to the price, but so does the $2,000 infotainment / distraction system, the $1500 alloy wheels, $1500 in dealer add-ons, and the extra $12k people pay to roll four or five seats around in SUV format rather than sedan format. There have been other posts on this forum about how all the available used cars are wasteful because so few people are buying reasonable vehicles, and small, non-luxury cars like the Fit and Yaris are being discontinued for lack of demand.