End of a chapter...sad day

[toyotanos]

I'll add some personal input to Andy's suggestion: Corolla- 2003 and up. (avoid the 98-2002 bodies, IMO)

I personally love the 93-97 Corollas because they're simple to work on and are pretty reliable but Andy has the right idea of "They're old" and stuff will be needed to make them really good. Not hard to think of if you've put wrench time into your Supra, though.

 

[IBoughtASupra]

Thank You!^

They are good cars, can never beat the corollas and their reliability.

 

[radiod]

Yeah, I had an '86 Corolla sedan as a DD when I was saving to do some head work. I paid $600 for it, it had 380,000km on it. I put in a new CV, ran it for 15,000km doing nothing else but plugs, wires, and oil changes. Ran like a champ and I beat the crap out of it. Ended up giving it to a friend who totalled her car just as an A to B car when I got the Supra back on the road and she drove it without any issues (other than the rusted exhaust making lots of noise) for another year. She had to get rid of it at that point.

I'd still hope to find something fun, but if it comes down to it, yeah, I know the corollas are pretty bullet proof. One backup option I have right now if I need a car in a hurry is a '98 accord with 55,000 miles on it, almost no options (less electrics to go wrong), manual tranny. My buddy's dad owns a small used car dealership and is VERY particular about the cars he buys for his lot, so it's already been checked out from bumper to bumper as well.

 

[IBoughtASupra]

The accord is a good buy. Even at 55,000 miles, things will need replacing. Keep in mind, at that point, we are dealing with the age of the parts.

If it's a four cylinder, you should really get it. We rebuilt one of those engine's for a friend this past Summer that had 175,000 miles on it. It was burning a little bit of oil, do we did a rebuild along with a clutch as well.

 

[radiod]

Yeah, I completely understand. Everything as it gets older will be more prone to cracking/rusting/leaking/breaking/etc. My wife's civic blew a head gasket even though she takes really good care of it and drives it very conservatively (and it only had 65,000 miles on it at the time). These things happen in older cars, but like I said before, I'm not necessarily looking for something to be completely trouble free, but definitely cheaper to fix when there are issues.