Just bought a 2005 Yaris for $1400!

[Self-employed-swami]

I was perusing Kijiji yesterday, and saw an ad for a 4 door hatchback 2005 yaris in the town my Dad lives in, for $1800.  The catch is, it has a fried engine in it, like melted the radiator cap onto the engine block bad.  Anyway, I called the guy selling it, and had my Dad go take a look at it.  The ad had been up for 20 hours, and 3 people had already been to seen the car when my Dad got there.

My Dad is a mechanic, and he'd gladly be paid in baking for the labour to put an engine in a car, so I authorized him to pay the $1800, if the car wasn't sold already by the time he got there.  But, my Dad being as frugal as he is, negotiated the guy down another $400 from what was already a HUGE discount for me, considering the engine is only going to cost me $800 and a few pies.  The car even comes with 2 sets of tires on rims, although the summer tires might need replacing next year.

It will be a few weeks, but I can't wait to have a new car!!  I'm so tired of driving around in a gas guzzler!

[James]

Great deal!  I looked at a yaris a while back, very cool car.

[Will]

Sounds like a very sweet deal (for your Dad too!)!

[Posthumane]

Nice deal swami! I just had a similar experience with helping my GF upgrade to a smaller car a few weeks ago. We got rid of her POS mid-size chrysler and managed to pick up a 2003 Hyundai Accent for $1600. It was listed at quite a bit more but had a massive exhaust leak which caused some pretty bad looking symptoms for non-car people: lots of noise, billows of smoke coming from under the car (especially in -15C weather), and a check engine light. I spotted the issue and knew it was a simple fix, we bought the car, and $200 later the car is in mind condition with about 130k km on the clock. Win!

Btw, which region of Canada are you in? I notice some places are active on Kijiji, whereas other regions seem to prefer Craigslist for some reason.

[Self-employed-swami]

I'm in Alberta, and almost no one uses Craigslist here, it's all kijiji.

[Self-employed-swami]

And just another SWEET update!

My Dad found someone selling a slightly used (90,000km) engine for $700!!

Yeah!  The going rate for this car is $6,000 - $6,500!!

[PJ]

As the saying goes, "I love it when a plan comes together." 
 
Nice going, Swami!

[Self-employed-swami]

And in the string of good news from today, my husband just called, and he also sold the truck today!!!

YAY!!!  Back down to the right number of vehicles for a 2 person household! 

[Posthumane]

Sounds like you're making great progress. We finally sold my GF's previous car yesterday, which was the final part of our vehicle switch. By the way, there seems to be a couple wrecked Yarises (Yarii?) listed on Kijiji in Alberta, so if that engine doesn't work out it looks like you may have a few options. I live in Alberta as well and the GF wanted a Yaris, but we settled on the Accent as there weren't any in our price range when we were looking.

[Self-employed-swami]

Thanks for the tip. :) 

My Dad works for Toyota, so he has access to all the engines and other parts we might need.

[BPA]

Excellent!  R drives a Yaris and loves it!

On the weekend I did tell him how attractive it was that he wasn't afraid to take the bus.  :)

[thurston howell iv]

Maybe you could take this one step further and drive the yaris while you shop for something even cheaper. Then, sell the yaris for $6500 or thereabouts and pocket the rest of the money for use in debt re-payment or adding to the 'stach...

We've fixed and flipped a few cars in the past. It's a nice way to make a few extra bucks...

[Self-employed-swami]

Thurston,

If I was actually the person putting the work in, I'd be all for that.  However, with my Dad doing the labour basically for free, he will be losing a 1/2 days pay that he could be earning from paying clients.  I don't want him to be paying for this with decreased wages, so I won't be flipping this car.

But, if I had the knowledge and time to put engines into cars, there are some great deals to be had!

[capital]

Thurston,

If I was actually the person putting the work in, I'd be all for that.  However, with my Dad doing the labour basically for free, he will be losing a 1/2 days pay that he could be earning from paying clients.  I don't want him to be paying for this with decreased wages, so I won't be flipping this car.

But, if I had the knowledge and time to put engines into cars, there are some great deals to be had!

Maybe you can help your dad swap the engine, so you can learn his car secrets, and also have some quality time?

[Self-employed-swami]

Thurston,

If I was actually the person putting the work in, I'd be all for that.  However, with my Dad doing the labour basically for free, he will be losing a 1/2 days pay that he could be earning from paying clients.  I don't want him to be paying for this with decreased wages, so I won't be flipping this car.

But, if I had the knowledge and time to put engines into cars, there are some great deals to be had!

Maybe you can help your dad swap the engine, so you can learn his car secrets, and also have some quality time?

I would be all for that, but I'm away at work at the moment, and likely won't be home in time for the big switcheroo.

[carolinakaren]

You've done very well with this deal!  Do you know what the average MPG is for the 4-door Yaris?

[Self-employed-swami]

I don't know.  I know our old Yaris (same year but slightly larger 4 door sedan) was rated for 6.5L/100km so I imagine this one will be equally as good, if not better!

[carolinakaren]

Ok, thank you.  I ask because I've been watching the local used car ads and am considering the Yaris if one comes available.

[Posthumane]

I recommend that if you're interested in average fuel consumption for various cars, have a look at fuelly.com. Rather than giving you the EPA ratings, people post their fill up amounts and miles/kms driven so you end up with a fairly accurate cross section of real life fuel consumption figures (at least if the car is popular). You have to be careful sometimes to throw out some obvious outliers, and select only cars with the engine option you're interested in since things like hybrid options can throw off the overall average for a specific car line, but you should be able to get a good idea. The average for Yarises in all years does indeed seem to be about 6.5L (http://www.fuelly.com/car/toyota/yaris/gas%20l4).

[Self-employed-swami]

I thought I'd update on exactly what the new car is cost us:

Car: $1400
Engine: $700
New Tires (Dad said the ones on it, weren't actually safe, and he's very utilitarian about stuff like that, so we bought new snow tires): $417 (including a $70 rebate)
New windshield (The old one had so many pits/cracks that night driving was crazy hard to see) $130
New rear wiper arm: $42
One case of beer and a lot of lemon tarts: ~$30

$2719.

I filled the tank from gas-light-on-empty yesterday: $39!
And, the insurance is only $38/month!

[Another Reader]

You must bake some darned good lemon tarts!

[Self-employed-swami]

Yep :)

And he'd have done it for nothing too.  Gotta love my Dad!

[Tom Reingold]

This is an example of how know-how pays off in a big way. I can't buy a car with a fried engine because I couldn't know how well the car is likely to work after replacement. If I have it done, I wouldn't save any money, and it's a bigger risk.

And this gets me to another point about mustachianism: the DIY mindset is really growing on me. I don't know if I want to learn to be that good a mechanic, but I'm considering doing some repairs I've never done before.