Author Topic: Best cars for $75,000 or less?  (Read 4985 times)

accolay

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Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« on: April 25, 2019, 12:51:12 PM »
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/research-guides/these-are-the-12-best-new-cars-for-2019-that-cost-dollar75000-or-less/ss-BBVUjq8?ocid=spartanntp

The hilarity is mostly in the title of the article and it jumped out at me as insane. I get this type of click bait every time I sign out of my email.  I scrolled through to quickly see that there are much more affordable cars on the list, but cripes...

RWD

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #1 on: April 25, 2019, 01:29:28 PM »
What a weird list. Only two of the twelve are more than half of $75k. And no Porsches!

Indexer

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #2 on: April 25, 2019, 06:11:08 PM »
A very odd list of cars.

I highly doubt the person looking a Rav4 is also looking at luxury cars and luxury SUVs. I also doubt they are looking at pickup trucks.

ApacheStache

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2019, 08:50:53 PM »


The author must have forgotten that $75K is a lot of money. I also get the sense that the phrase "I'm looking for a car $75,000 or less" is rarely heard at a dealership. If you're willing to spend that much on the vehicle, there's a good chance you could easily be convinced to spend $100K.

RWD

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #4 on: April 25, 2019, 08:57:13 PM »
The author must have forgotten that $75K is a lot of money.
It almost seems like they were trying to make a "Best Cars for Under $40k" list but then at the last minute decided they had a couple ~$70k cars they wanted to mention too. Seriously, remove two cars from the list and all of them are less than half $75k...

Turnbull

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #5 on: April 28, 2019, 12:12:25 PM »
I can think of few things more terrifying from a reliability/repair standpoint than an electric Jaguar.

Bloop Bloop

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2019, 01:16:01 AM »
I can think of few things more terrifying from a reliability/repair standpoint than an electric Jaguar.

A non-electric Jaguar.

Metalcat

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #7 on: April 29, 2019, 05:02:56 AM »
I can think of few things more terrifying from a reliability/repair standpoint than an electric Jaguar.

Preach.
My old Jaguar is the reason I now drive a Corolla with rolly windows.

#JagPTSD

Just Joe

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #8 on: April 29, 2019, 07:30:36 AM »
In a perfect world Jag engineers would make electrical problems their priority problem to solve. Who knows, maybe the new ones are better. I'm not biting with my money though.

Turnbull

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #9 on: April 29, 2019, 07:04:53 PM »
I can think of few things more terrifying from a reliability/repair standpoint than an electric Jaguar.

A non-electric Jaguar.

You think an all-electric Jag is going to be more reliable than an ICE Jag?

Bloop Bloop

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #10 on: April 29, 2019, 08:02:53 PM »
Yes. Because it has no engine or moving parts to service or break down. The battery is covered under a longer warranty.

JAYSLOL

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #11 on: April 29, 2019, 08:31:55 PM »
Yeah, I'd rather take a sharp stick to my I-Pace before I owned a Jaguar.  Or slam my F-Pace against a wall repeatedly. 

Richard3

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #12 on: April 30, 2019, 01:05:21 AM »
Are all of these cars new? Because any new car is not going to be the best car.

Metalcat

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #13 on: April 30, 2019, 04:47:24 AM »
Yes. Because it has no engine or moving parts to service or break down. The battery is covered under a longer warranty.

That's funny, because the engine wasn't the problem in my Jag, is was all electrical issues and apparently unfixable.

Just Joe

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #14 on: April 30, 2019, 08:37:46 AM »
Depending on the era the electrical system may have been unnecessarily complicated and prone to corrosion.

Turnbull

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #15 on: April 30, 2019, 12:35:49 PM »
Yes. Because it has no engine or moving parts to service or break down. The battery is covered under a longer warranty.

That's funny, because the engine wasn't the problem in my Jag, is was all electrical issues and apparently unfixable.


Exactly

habanero

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #16 on: May 01, 2019, 05:23:06 AM »
I own a Tesla Model S. While I personally have been quite lucky the list of problems with the cars is endless for some. Despite the engine and battery being maitanance-free in almost all cases its all the other stuff that causes trouble. If you want a service appointment for something non-critical in Oslo (capital of Norway, Teslas 2nd(?) biggest market) you have to wait for like 4 months. That would not be the case if the car was maintanance-free, would it?

myrrh

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #17 on: May 02, 2019, 08:44:13 AM »
If I was a gazillionare I might buy a Tesla, they look fun. However I'd have to move (the closest Tesla shop is over 8 hours away) and dog forbid I ever get in an accident - apparently I'll have a rental forever...

https://www.sfgate.com/cars/article/tesla-repair-wait-time-complaints-electric-car-13796037.php

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #18 on: May 02, 2019, 10:31:16 AM »
We should have the more Mustachian response: Best Cars for $750 or Less!  Or maybe $7,500 for the very spendy.

Or Best Bikes for $75 or Less!
« Last Edit: May 02, 2019, 10:33:38 AM by Buffalo Chip »

ketchup

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #19 on: May 03, 2019, 11:09:49 AM »
We should have the more Mustachian response: Best Cars for $750 or Less!  Or maybe $7,500 for the very spendy.

Or Best Bikes for $75 or Less!
Best car I've dealt with for $750 or less was definitely my old 1992 Buick Roadmaster Wagon.  We bought that sucker for $700 in 2014, and drove the hell out of it for just over two years.

158,309 to 200,775.  42,441 miles driven. 

Note: it did have the common courtesy to die with only a quarter tank of gas left.

Nights of pizza delivery: 2-3 (let a friend borrow it for a few nights when a teenager totaled his car)
Pizzas delivered: unknown
Square feet of sod transported: 600
Couches transported: 3
Mattresses transported: 4
Box springs transported: 4
Freezers transported: 2
Deer hit: 1
Properly-blinking-without-help turn signals since deer impact: 1
Decks of cards left in glove box: 1
Chipotle napkins left in glove box: 17
Keys broken off in ignition: 1
Over-the-top enthusiastic thumbs-up from other drivers on the highway: 2
Exhaust pieces dropped: 1
Most passengers carried (including driver): 7
Hood ornaments mangled by misguided clearing of snow: 1
Maximum number of fire extinguishers on board: 3
Minimum number of usable mirrors: 1
Mirror-related fixes and "fixes": 3
Maximum number of fully-grown dogs at once: 6
Maximum average speed over a 24-hour period: 54mph
Speeding tickets on the Ohio Turnpike: 1
Holes in driver's seat: 2
Gallons of gasoline spilled on I-94: 18
Times exterior washed in 2016: 0
Comparisons to the Wagon Queen Family Truckster (including being addressed as Chevy Chase): approx. 4
Most idiot lights on at once: 4
Times it left the driver stranded in any capacity: 3
Times it left the driver stranded more than 100 miles from home: 2
Times it left the driver stranded more than 100 miles from home and it was the car's fault: 1 (when it died completely at 200,775)
Wiper blade replacements: 0
Batteries replaced: 0
Cassette tapes played: 0
Tires replaced: 0
Coolers left behind because they couldn't be strapped to the roof: 0
Most raw frozen dog food hauled back from Wisconsin at once: 600lbs
Fuel ups: 178
Times trailer hitch used: 1
Times trailer hitch used for intended purposes: 0
Maximum disparity between value of cargo and value of vehicle: approx. $4,000
MSRP in 1992: $23,040 ($39,518 in 2016 dollars)

3.4 cents/mi Maintenance and Repairs
13.9 cents/mi Fuel (18MPG "lifetime" average)
2.4 cents/mi Insurance
1 cent/mi Plates, renewals, etc.
1.4 cents/mi Depreciation (scrap value of $100)

Total: 22.3 cents per mile

It was a solid car.  I would recommend it to a friend.  Crappy gas mileage but loads of cargo capacity and dead reliable.  Only snags were hitting a deer (which went shockingly well), something on the road blowing a three-inch hole in the gas tank 250 miles from home (no big deal), a serpentine belt pulley bracket snapping for no reason (that was a fun one), a crappy Home Depot key breaking off in the ignition (was able to fish it out much easier than anticipated), and scraping the bottom going up my driveway when weighed down with 600 square feet of sod (probably damage but of no obvious consequence; looking back, this was extremely dumb - I don't even want to know how much that all weighed and how much I was overloading the suspension).

JAYSLOL

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #20 on: May 03, 2019, 08:09:45 PM »
We should have the more Mustachian response: Best Cars for $750 or Less!  Or maybe $7,500 for the very spendy.

Or Best Bikes for $75 or Less!
Best car I've dealt with for $750 or less was definitely my old 1992 Buick Roadmaster Wagon.  We bought that sucker for $700 in 2014, and drove the hell out of it for just over two years.


Nice, those Roadmasters were tanks.  I haven't bought a car for under $750, but one of mine is worth about that these days. 

TacheTastic

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #21 on: May 04, 2019, 02:04:46 AM »
We should have the more Mustachian response: Best Cars for $750 or Less!  Or maybe $7,500 for the very spendy.

Or Best Bikes for $75 or Less!

My 1994 Rover Metro cost me £500, which is roughly $660. I bought it in 2012, and it served for 5 years and about 80,000 miles. Finally became scrap when the bill to get it through the MOT was looking at about £800 just on the welding.

Years of daily workhorse use for cleaning contractor: 4
Wardrobes carried with one end sticking out the boot: 1
Times it ever let me down: 0
Times the vacuum poles nearly ripped the ceiling fabric: uncountable
Complements from people who loved it as much as I did: 8
Times I carried timber sticking out the sunroof: 3

I still miss that car.


talltexan

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #22 on: May 08, 2019, 07:42:21 AM »
I have to admit that I'm seeing all of these amazing stories about sub-750 purchases and I'm feeling like an idiot for not considering that part of the market more seriously. There must be some risk associated with playing at that level, isn't there?

ketchup

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Re: Best cars for $75,000 or less?
« Reply #23 on: May 08, 2019, 07:48:11 AM »
I have to admit that I'm seeing all of these amazing stories about sub-750 purchases and I'm feeling like an idiot for not considering that part of the market more seriously. There must be some risk associated with playing at that level, isn't there?
Of course there's risk.  And there's a lot of garbage in that price range in addition to gems, so you need to be careful and do a decent amount of legwork on the front end.

You also usually need to be willing to drive around a jankymobile.  Unfortunately GF is self-employed and has to look somewhat "presentable" so we've since upgraded to ~$2000 cars.  It's a LOT easier to find a decent car for $2000 than for <$1000.