How many of you drive an import for a daily driver? ill go ahead and say its safe to assume that i can take the number of answers to this post and multiply it by 3 since i know many wont admit to it :laugh: My daily driver: 1993 Honda Civic EX sedan 5spd DOHC 1.6 VTAK 2000 civic si transmission Exedy stage one clutch Steelie 14's lowered 2.5 inches front- 1.5 inches rear (i didnt do it!) dents, rust, cracked bumper etc retarded fart canister (too poor, dont care enough to removie it) hasnt been washed in two months.. me and my friends got bored and started writing on it with our fingers... i have about 700hp worth of nos "stickers" and a nice GOT RICE? on the rear bumper... has gotten a best of 30mpg city and unknown highway(no reason to drive highway for me) i dont have any pictures on this computer of it, but damn, you've all seen atleast one plainjane lowered black civic sedan so what is your commuter car?
I've posted photos of this car over in "Other Cars We Own" but what the hey... stock except for Carbotech brake pads (they're cheaper, dust less, and have more initial cold bite than the stock pads). Looking for something like what you're driving to commute in as my $1100 STOCK clutch change with a HUGE discount on parts is a bit excessive every 70k miles.
For personal use I've been driving nothing but Honda since 1984. My first new car was an '84 Accord. Our current daily driver is an '05 Accord V-6 EX leather with AT. We tried out the 2-dr Accord with V-6 & 5-speed. Wicked fast but ceiling too low for me. 22 years & absolutely ZERO problems. Only money we've put into these cars was for regular maintenance......oil, tires, etc.. The '99 Odyssey we just traded had about 100Km. on it, about 65K miles. Take it for a ride down the highway & then down a bumpy country road. Bring it back & take the new 2005 GM, Ford & Chrysler products down the same road. My bet is you will buy the used Honda.
Actually, it's not only my commuter car, but my only car at the moment. 1988 Volkswagen Fox 2dr wagon. Stock, stock, and more stock. Currently got a 4spd, but I've just bought a 5spd to swap in before the end of the summer. Bottom line: cheap transportation.
I've never owned an import, and don't expect I ever will. Just personal taste, I don't see anything wrong with them. Currently daily driver is my 68, out of necessity. Daily driver coming soon:
Trust me David, I'd like one of those... but to be honest, its cheaper (at this point) for me to buy a Honda (easy to find them sub 1500 dollars and reliable) than to buy something like that (perfectly good car, but just too new). I'd rather get a mid to late 80's big GM (Riviera, LeSabre, Caprice) or an ex cop car (Caprice, I'll pass on the composite intakes of the 4.6's), but people don't like to give them up until they are thoroughly run into the ground. Unfortunately, my 100+ mile round trip daily drive pretty much requires over drive. I get between 22 and 24mpg now, on 93. Even switching to one of those over drive semi-late model late 80's GM RWD cars I'd be getting at least 22-24 on the highway but I could use cheap gas. ITs a toss up. I'm keeping my eyes open for both of what I've already mentioned. I'm also keeping my eyes open for my driveway to grow another space. Already had to pass up a good deal because I didnt have the room (yet)
Well Eric, like I said, I have nothing against an import, just isn't for me. I am surprised you don't get better mpg than 22-24. The Riv will get me upper 20's mpg for most of my miles, 55-60 mph trips back and forth for work. What I REALLY love about it is the leg room, very comfortable. What sucks is how hard it has been to track one down with decent miles, in good shape, within a day's drive, and reasonably priced. But I did...
Hey, David - you're going to love the Riv! :TU: We bought our '96 SC Riviera new for my wife, and she LOVES it still....ten years later. In fact, we drove her Riv to Indy a couple of weeks back to go to the Buick Horsepower gig down there....set the cruise at 65 mph....got 29MPG on that trip! I was actually a bit surprised....had to double check my math and all, but it was accurate....very cool! (and a great, comfortable road trip car). She's got 100,000 miles on it right now.....and for the first time ever, my wife decided to take a car down the quarter mile track at Indy...and she took her Riv racing! :eek2: :laugh: The car is totally stock, but she had a blast...mid 15's in the 1/4 mile, then we drove it back home to Minnesota! :TU:
Cole, I can hardly wait to get it home! Been trying to get this deal DONE for about a month now, but there have been some unavoidable delays on the other end. With some luck, I'll get to drive it home in a couple weeks. I'd like to drive it to our little party in Sept in Lakeville, but Chris thinks I have to bring the 68 to get side-by-side pics with his new 68.
In my case, you'd be wrong! If you see me in an import, I've been kidnapped! There are lots of self serving excuses for buying imports but not that many good reasons, at least not if you're a patriotic American. :TU: JD Power rates American and Japanese cars similarly and have for a few years now, though it varies from time to time. Want to talk MPG, well, Chevy has more vehicles that get 30 mpg than Toyota does, etc... If you want to drive a Nipmobile, have at it, but please, don't pass it off as the second coming.
David, I completely understand why you went with that over an import. Hell, I would too (if I weren't buying disposable cars at this point). Sure, my reasons for owning an import is self serving. I spend 2.5 hours of my day, minimum, every day in my car. I don't want it to be one that I dislike. I could get a newer American car (talking about the mini cars, 4 cyl 5 speeds, not the v6 and up cars) comparable to any Honda for a lot cheaper... but... Im not comfortable in them. Why? Because I don't find them comfortable. They don't fit my frame. Not much does. Just so happens that most of the older Honda's, and newer GM mid sized cars (Regals, LeSabres, etc), do. I just need to find a job closer to home so I can get a car that I will be able to enjoy (and stop racking up miles on my 1 of 3000 import with a race suspension and crappy gas mileage for a 4cyl).
I was a die hard domestic kind of guy. My attitude towards Asian badged cars has mellowed over the years. I single them out because I never really had a problem with cars from Europe. o No: The line between what is an import, and what is a domestic is so blurry these days I don't think it makes any difference. There are good stories and bad stories for both domestic and imports. Myself, I have had very good experiences with my domestic cars. My Father bought a new '84 Honda Accord and it was nothing but trouble for him. He went back to GM until the day he died and didn't have any issues. (Buicks of course)
Well, my first car was a 1970 skylark. I loved it... but it would have made a terrible daily driver for me.... not quick enough... and not efficient enough. My next car, a 1984 Regal limited... with my dads 85 gn motor and an '87 intercooler/intake setup. some other mods that would put it in the low 13s to very high 12's but it gave me problems every week, and they dont get much milage if you cant keep out of boost (what 17 year old would be able to when he owns the fastest car in the school?) So i got rid of the regal and started looking for something small, cheap and efficient. My choice for american cars in my price range- cavalier, sunfire, or neon. I really despise jbody cars... ive never been around one that didnt have a terrible problem. And a neon?! a girls car! So one day i was looking around... and found a civic for $700... well.. its motor was blown... so i sold the head for 650.. and ended up spending 3600 for a new motor(b16.. staple honda motor..170hp) a good transmission, axles, and installation.. now i usually beat mustang gt's (ive only raced 4.sux) by about a car and a half... and still bust out great milage numbers.. tell me what kind of american car can be a stangeater and get almost 30mpg city without trying for 3500? only performance modification to the car is the clutch...
Did I read that right? You sold a head off a Civic for $650? What exactly am I looking for, now? :grin: Either way, sounds like a neat ride, Josh. I'm sort of with Dale on this one... I used to be hard-core domestic up until a couple of years ago, when I went to college with a few guys who were and are die-hard VW guys. The one guy built a Rabbit with a pretty serious turbo 1.8L 16v, Megasquirt controlled, I believe. His dad owns a '68 Camaro street car with a 396/402, decked out with aluminum heads and what not. Anyways, one night, just after the Rabbit had been finished, Ken and his dad went out to a back road, and -- believe it or not -- the Rabbit kept pace with the Camaro. Didn't beat it, but the Camaro wasn't pulling away at any serious rate. The car was built on a decent budget, too... way below the final price tag of the Camaro. That, I'm convinced, is respectable. The Rabbit isn't riced out, but yes, it is European and a 4cyl. And when it came time for me to look for a daily driver, those guys brought me around to keep my eyes open for a VW. So, I bought my Fox: $350, 150,000 km, and had new clutch, brakes, windshield, tires, exhaust, battery, and all it needed was tie rod ends, parking brake cables and a strut bearing (plus a little rust repair). My only gripe is the thin metal, and the rate at which rust advances on this car -- but heck, I'm in the rust belt, what can I expect? It's a fun, cute car! For daily driver duties, it's fine. It's no big block, but I couldn't drive one daily, anyhoo. That doesn't mean that I don't want one, though... :TU:
I was driving a 1990 Dodge Daytona getting about 31 mpg. It has been junked, though. Now I'm driving an 88 88 (1988 Delta 88), and getting about 29 mpg. Nice ride too.
Very good cars... 88-91 Eighty Eight, 98, LeSabre, etc. While Consumer Reports was ragging on these cars back then, they are still humming away. It's quite common to see 275k on these cars with few repairs. Excellent chassis, suspension, electrical, and drivetrain. Very good cars. Here is my Touring Sedan, cost $30,000 new in 1990, was the best Olds / GM had to offer at that time, in direct competition with BMW 7-Series. I paid $2300 for it 4 years ago, has 136k on it, still in excellent condition throughout... http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v11/skybax/Touring Sedan/
It was a b16 vtec head... honda boys will pay anything for them... put them on 1.8 liter ls motors... crv 2.0 liters... and they SCREAM not easy to make LESS than 200whp with a cr-vtec motor.. good for 13's with no forced induction..... My car has 230k on the body.. unknown on the tranny.. and about 35k on the motor... Turns out, a driver side motor mount (made of rubber ou: ) was dry rotted and decided to break the other day... ive been driving the riv... my only complaint is how BIG it feels... geeze...
