Craigslist Sale Pictures from April 2011. It sold within 24 hours of posting.
I’m skipping two vehicles in my COAL series due to recent coverage by other writers. I migrated from the 2002 Mazda Protégé to a company car Pontiac Vibe for two years (2003-2005). Now those salad days with a free car were over. I would get my monthly car allowance from work back, but I was down a car. My Vibe review will consist of three words: I liked it.
At this point in the summer of 2005, we had 2 toddlers at home and were both working. If you added up our incomes, it seemed we were doing well. But we had two kids in day care, and a new 15 year mortage I took on for the house we bought in 2000. In reality, we were running on fumes…one medical issue, a job layoff, one bad furnace, etc. away from financial disaster. I’ve never read the book from that period called “The Two Income Trap”, but glancing at the synopsis, in many ways, that described us at that time in our lives. I now needed wheels, and this was the period where GM and Fuji Heavy Industries/Subaru had a brief tie up, and one of the spawn of this ultimately doomed relationship was the “Saabaru “, the 9-2X. It was a Subaru Impreza WRX with a Saab styled front end, a few actual Saab mechanical, exterior and interior bits to make it semi “Saaby”, and voila, the 9-2X was born. I thought the package looked pretty good, and I was intrigued.
The 2005 9-2x- The Best Car I Never Had!
So, at lunch one day soon after turning the Vibe in, I ran down to the Saab dealer to drive a 9-2X. They were offering 0.0% APR on all Saabs and I could combine that with my brothers GM employee discount. For about 45 delusional minutes, I giddily convinced myself that we could afford it. $450 monthly payments, $2000 annual insurance premiums? Ha! All that would work itself out. Maybe we’d cancel cable? I’d soon be driving a hot hatch around town. This would be my first semi-performance car and damned if I wasn’t ready and damned if I didn’t deserve it (or not). I test drove it, liked it, and decided …that I was a complete and total idiot. What was I thinking? I handed the keys back to the salesman and scurried off. The weight of life’s responsibilities hit me like a freight train, but in a good way. Cheap and cheerful (and cheap) was what we needed.
So, off to a nearby mega Chrysler dealership bargain lot I went after work before they closed. Southeast Michigan is unlike most places in terms of car shopping. Dealers are open till 6PM Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s and Friday’s, and until 9PM on Monday’s and Thursday’s. The 9PM “long”days are always extremely crowded at dealerships. It is only until in the last ten years or so that most dealerships have Saturday hours, but even then, it is something like 9AM-2PM. And they are never, ever open on Sunday, at least that I’ve seen. So, to new car shop you almost need to take a day off.
After a very quick negotiation before closing time, I bought a 1999 Prizm. This is of course, a Toyota Corolla with a few minor body panel differences. Apparently, the AC unit and radio was Delphi, rather than from Toyota’s normal OEM. Once part of the Geo sub-brand, it now wore a Chevy bowtie. It was made at New United Motor Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) in Fremont, CA, a GM-Toyota joint venture that lasted from 1984 to 2010. For GM it was an opportunity to learn about Japanese lean manufacturing and how the Japanese could make money off small cars. Or was it: keep your friends close, your enemies closer? Toyota’s gain at that time was a west coast factory and for the company to avoid potential import restrictions or tariffs from the Feds. Irony of ironies, it is now the Tesla Plant of course, and has over 6,000 employees and is going like gangbusters.
There were at least 2 owners of my Prizm before me. It started off life on the east coast as a rental and had 60,000 miles on it. There was a half-dollar sized rust spot in the rear quarter panel. As part of the sale, they fixed it and I drove it home for $5,500 out the door. A stripper, it was an automatic and did have air, but those were the only option boxes checked. The radio was AM/FM only, no CD, no cassette, crank windows, and no power locks. It was equipped with a West Virginia-built 1.8L twin cam ZZ engine.
If you knew anything about cars, you certainly knew objectively that Corolla’s and by association Prizm’s were very reliable cars, and that was my motivation: reliable motoring. I had considered a Prizm a week or two before and missed out on a Prism LSI being offered by a private seller. The LSI had alloy sport wheels, power everything and a full gauge package (which really comes in handy in a car like this), amenities which would have been most welcome. Mine had plastic wheel covers and I lost one right away. So I put after-market “mag” wheels on the car to perk up the exterior, and a bit later, a Best Buy Alpine radio with I-pod jack and new speakers to make it a bit more my own.
I get why people around the world love Corollas, and there is a reason why it’s the all-time best-selling car globally. It is because they are great cars, full stop. If you want excitement, look elsewhere. At that point in my life, excitement was not what I needed. While it wasn’t exceptional at any one thing, it did everything extremely well. Well designed, extremely reliable, fuel efficient, cheap to repair and insure, long lasting, and true to its mission. Inside, hard plastic surfaces made it a feel like an economy car, but it was tough and durable.
But even Japanese cars aren’t maintenance free or infallible, no car is of course. The AC unit siezed a year into ownership, and it was the evap core, the mother lode repair of the system. It would have required removal of the dash to swap it out and upwards of $1,000 to fix it. I decided to solve the problem by doing nothing and just toughed it out.
A bit over 100,000 miles, it started to blow oil out the black, and while it wasn’t puffing white smoke, the telltale sign was the sooty black rear bumper above the muffler. Apparently this was a problem with certain runs of this motor. There was a dealer fix for this called a ring cleaning, which I never looked into. I solved this problem by buying the absolute cheapest no-brand oil I could find and kept it in the trunk in ample supply. Toward the end, it was using a quart a month or more. It needed a down pipe off the exhaust manifold and and some suspension work along the way.
It started and ran and did everything I asked of it, always. In short, I would recommend a Corolla to anyone looking for quality basic transportation. Despite the market being down on cars these days, and models like the Cruze, Fiesta and Focus being dropped in the near future in North America, I maintain cars like this will always have a place for the average North American family. Cars in this class are a better value, with more content than ever, and they just make good sense for a lot of people. Now, with GM and Ford’s move away from compacts, Honda will get to sell a lot more Civic’s, and Toyota, a lot more Corolla’s. They have to be pinching themselves now that this market is theirs on a silver platter.
By spring of 2011, I had this car for nearly 6 years and it was getting more than a little rough around the edges. In the fall of 2010, I was involved in fender bender. More than a little stupidity on my part factored in on the incident that evening, so the less said about that the better. A junkyard swapped headlight and some prying of sheet metal in the front yard sorted that out. The headliner was sagging. Rust bubbles were forming here and there. A running 12 year old car in a state like Michigan doesn’t emerge from the gauntlet of our bad roads, winter salts and potholes and 4 seasons unscathed. It was now officially a hooptie. It kept breaking interior door handles, the cheap plastic would get brittle and crack. So, you had to roll the window down, and open the door from the outside… great in the winter. Once, someone in the city tried to break into the trunk, which could now only be opened from the latch inside. The no AC thing was become a bit of a drag. Yet, it was like a comfy pair of old running shoes, and it was my loyal and faithful servant.
By the time I was ready to sell, at almost 149,000 miles, it was a willing runner with a long list of mostly minor issues outside of the oil burn and AC. It would be a great winter beater, or a kid’s first car or for someone who didn’t have a lot of scratch but needed a decent car. To part with it with a clean conscience, I listed every single known issue in the Craigslist post and asked $750 for it. I was practically begging people not to buy it.
I had no fewer than twenty inquiries the same day the ad posted, and it was sold and gone within 24 hours. It was a feeding frenzy. Non-English speakers tried to communicate and negotiate a sale in cryptic e-mails: “Sir, $500?”. One desperate youth emailed me, “Dude, I got a new baby, would you take $300 plus an X-box system and all my games for it? I need a car now, bro”. Uh…no. One would-be buyer walked up as I sold it, and offered me $1,000.00 and stormed away angrily when I told him it was sold. The buyer was a Middle Eastern guy who had a budget lot in the City, who was going to flip it. I guess I put too low a number on it, but the deal was done. Mrs. C commandeered the new car process this time, and we picked up out next car the same day the Prizm was sold. It didn’t owe me a dime.
Great story! This brings back memories.
Let’s start with the two-income trap. That’s an unbelievably stupid institution in this society. You have a family, house payment must have 2 cars, find child care, put kids into activity programs, save for college and call yourself lucky if you have health insurance. And you get only one major tax brake: you can deduct the interest payment on a mortgage. Been there. Done that.
Ours was a Geo Prizm and everything you said about the Corolla Prizm is corroborated by our experience. Right down to the broken door handles. I found out that the right rear interchanges with the left front. So I put in the right rear from a junk yard into the driver door. Our engine was not afflicted by the oil consumption. It’s a bit late for you but that Marvel Mystery Oil and other carbon dissolving concoctions experienced high demand. They may even have saved a few engines.
Our ’89 Prizm had a failing distributor. I saved a few hundred by getting a remanufactured one. There was also an issue with the wipers. They did not return to the park position and stopped when turning off, most of the time in the middle of the wind shield.
We sold ours like yours for $700 with a lengthy list of issues that included the need for rotors and a radiator. I figured a DIY kind a guy could have a roadworthy car for about one grand.
And those wheels look really good on your Prizm.
Sounds like you did it right. Most of my wife and my 27 years together, I have been the only breadwinner. We had our ups and downs financially, but were doing well when health problems and a few surgeries kicked in. Then she started to work. Then we piled up debt. Then we suffered losing both of our jobs within 2 months of each other in 2014. We gave the house up, filed bankruptcy and started over. I earn half of what I did at my peak, and our household income is 1/3 what it was when she was working. But by that time we were servicing so much debt that we weren’t feeling successful anyway. So now we have more humble things and zero debt. There is a certain calmness that comes with this, and I am happier now without the stress. I constantly get “pre-approved” this or that in the mail and just throw it out. No thanks, not this time. Good thing I like older cars because I will have them forever now. So it’s not so bad. I started this comment not intending to talk about all this but this is where it went.
I was unaware the whole NUMMI/Nova was still being made so recently. I never see them around here since the Geo days. Great car, and with a timing chain instead of a belt there is no major expense expected. I only got my ’03 Avalon because the timing belt had recently been done. So it will probably be replaced right before the next one is needed. It is usually one of my requirements for a daily driver to have a chain, or a recent belt replacement, which eliminates a lot of V6 sporty cars and the like in the cheap car price range. I will replace the ’05 Taurus before too long, even though it drives almost like new, because it is getting severely rusted underneath and safety will eventually become an issue. Too bad because it is a collection of well working parts attached to a pile of rust.
I do take good care of our cars. I just have to be careful and put money where it can do the most good, and where necessary. Not very glamorous. But our stuff always runs great and tracks perfectly. Sometimes I can even have a comfy, quick car like the Avalon. I even spring for high octane with it as it makes a noticeable difference in this model, and it is fun to drive.
This has been kind of a ramble, and I considered deleting it, but some may find it entertaining so I will keep it. Even though it exposes me as poor folk. But at least I am still great looking. To our cats. When I feed them. It’s something.
Hey, does not read like poor folk to me. You’ve got your wife, your sense of humor, no debt, your cats, a great car in that Avalon, and that calm feeling. This reads like winning to me.
Corollas have been reliable transportation for so long now it’s almost silly, going all the way back to the days of the 1100cc OHV motor that needed a valve job every 15k miles.
Reading these recounts of what it’s like to own and operate cars in cold, snowy climates makes me thankful that I do so in California.
Yeah it doesn’t read that way to me either. No debt, that’s the key right there. Living within one’s means. The vast majority of others on the road or in the neighborhood are in debt and thus beholden to someone or something else. You plan and save and make things happen and they are all the more appreciated when it does.
Thanks Brad and Jim!
Good for you TheMann! Sounds like you rebuilt on a solid foundation, and that’s priceless. Those older Avalons are a go-to recommendation of mine for folks on a budget that need something with a modicum of room and comfort (at the expense of fuel economy relative to a 4cyl compact). Like you said, find one that’s had the timing belt done and hasn’t been absolutely neglected. As long as it shifts good and isn’t sludged up under the oil cap, it’s good to go. Absolute Brick sh*thouses in terms of durability.
Sounds like the car worked out well for you..the Saab would probably have been fun but probably not a good idea for what was going on with you at that point.
As for the enthusiasm of the prospective buyers when you were selling it, I guess as you mention most people know that this car was based on the Corolla, and of course people are mad to try to get a good deal on a used Toyota, if they’re looking for cheap reliable transportation. I’ve not owned one, nor even a Toyota (my Datsun I had in college was the only Japanese Car I’ve owned)…but I have been to Toyota City on business (20 years ago).
I don’t get another car very often (18 years on my current car) but when I sold my ’86 GTi after I bought this one (I’ve always sold my old car myself, haven’t traded it in, though probably because with exception of current car I’ve always bought used cars) I experienced something like that. Some people might say “Who would be anxious to buy a used VW?”, especially one that was 15 years old at the time I sold it. Even worse, it had been in a minor fender bender at work a few years before, which of course totaled the car and I bought it from insurance and fixed it up to be driveable but it wasn’t pretty, as I left the replacement hood and fender the original car of the donor (it kind of resembled the Harlequin Golf from the front, even though mine was an A2 vs the A3 Harlequin). Also, mine had manual steering, which even with the light weight of the car was a handful to park with the 60 series tires that were really wide for 1986.
On the other hand, the ’86 still had the CIS-E injection, which a lot of people preferred to Digifant which came out the next year, and it had a one year only engine that had maybe 5 more horsepower than the previous year, though it was also the year prior to the 16 valve engine being available in North America.
Other than ignoring the paint, I took pretty good care of it…replaced suspension, replaced clutch (and all the seals in the transaxle while apart)…timing belt, and frequent replacement of alternator brushes/voltage regulator which were a problem on my car. I even got some OEM fabric for the sport seats and replaced them myself, so the interior was nice. I installed an Amsoil bypass filter and sent samples of the oil in to be analyzed yearly. (also had Amsoil fluid in the transaxle). The car had only about 105k miles on it when I sold it.
To make a long story short, I listed it kind of on the low side (probably $1000) mostly due to the cosmetic shortcoming, but my phone rang off the hook with people wanting to buy it. Of course several insisted on me ignoring other buyers. I felt good about the final buyer, who was buying it for his wife, he drove up in an A2 Jetta, and told me he worked for a local VW shop. Still, I never saw the car again (I live in a pretty big city).
I had sold my beloved ’78 Scirocco 15 years before that myself, and that one I’ve regretted, but in retrospect it was a car for a younger person (who was me for awhile). I also sold the 13″ steelies that I had bought to put snow tires on, since they wouldn’t clear the rotors on my GTi and I had moved to the sunbelt and didn’t need them anymore.
Going way back, when I sold my Datsun to buy the Scirocco (my first VW), the guy that bought it went through the test drive from hell, trim parts were coming off the car during the test drive, as it was pretty rusty from 4 years of college up in Vermont, the cow catcher bumpers were in bad shape due to rust, and I’d been in a fender bender (fixed by insurance) the month before hitting black ice on I89 just north of White River Junction…but still the guy bought it. Timing was on my side, as this was in 1981, and lots of people were looking for smaller cars as gas prices were high and inflation was still through the roof (I felt lucky to get a 16% loan on a used car at the credit union, but my boss at the time was president and might have had something to do with it).
Ah, the Toyolet Prizmolla! Ours was the anti-Audi – traded the lovely to look at and drive when it worked but horribly unreliable 5000S for a Prizm, 5M/T, A/C, rear defroster and manual everything. Lasted through my wife as her primary car then handed down to our daughter at college then she and her new husband drove it until they traded in on their first Subaru Forester.
Not sporty but fun to drive like any small revvy car with a manual transmission it sure was reliable. And fairly quiet on the highway with great MPG.
Still my philosophy today on car ownership. Buy em used for cash, no collision or comp coverage, and drive them until they become problematic or something better comes along (it always does). All the money I’ve saved on depreciation of new cars, insurance premiums, etc have allowed me to have a comfortable life with the proper priorities on family.
Quick question: Was your Prizm a 2005 model (as stated in the title) or a 1999 model (as stated in the write up)? I’m thinking it’s a 1999 Prizm which you bought in 2005.
99 bought in 2005….gosh can’t believe I messed that one up.
Fixed it.
The five spoke alloys freshen the basic Corolla’s looks. The altered style reminds me a tiny bit of the Chrysler JA platform inside and out.
How the Chevrolet badge is handled on the front clip, looks slightly contrived.
Nice write-up. There were three times in your story where I anticipated the next conclusion. 1. Talking about your busy dual income child stressed life: “he’s in the two income trap!”. 2. The Saabaru test drive “he’ll come to his senses before he buys it”. 3. The 1.8 Toyota motor ” I wonder if it started smoking outside the tailpipe when he owned it”
The two income trap is a tricky one. You can’t really afford a house my state at the median national income, so the practical motivation for two working parents is strong. But if it takes two incomes to make ends meet then your chance of a catastrophic job loss doubles. Rock and a hard place for many.
You have described perfectly the choices so many face when buying a car. We here on this site are the few who really care what we drive. So many just want something that looks decent and will start every morning. Financial reality is always a factor.
The flip side of the CC commentariat (IMO) is that it seems skewed heavily towards guys that are willing to turn a wrench or do a bit of leg work to somehow keep cost of ownership reasonable on older, more depreciated (and more interesting) cars.
I think generally speaking the issue in this country is that many seem to have a deathly aversion to driving anything that they’re not making payments on. It doesn’t have the latest infotainment? It doesn’t have lane-watch nannies? I have to put new TIRES on it?! Many Americans seem to prefer to have a $400/mo leech attached than to have to spend $600 on a set of tires every 5 years and some other wear and tear maintenance/repairs. I can appreciate the argument that for folks in certain job sectors, a financed car that gets them to work every day versus a hooptie that will result in them getting fired is a much more pragmatic fear, but I gotta say generally speaking, most anything fuel injected made since the 90s can be relied on to get you around, even with a bunch of important sensors malfunctioning, multiple misfires, etc. I used to see it on a regular basis in my old neighborhood. My briefly owned ’00 Maxima was a pretty good representative: CEL on for a coil issue and hole in the downpipe, minor slip in the transmission, leaking a bit of ATF, some somewhat worrying rust on the core support, water leak into the interior in hard rain, shot suspension. With a set of fresh Monroe quick struts and some new front rotors, that car got me to and from work in comfort and without a single hiccup all summer. i did a bit of body work and polishing and it even started to look quite good!
I agree totally with this assessment. I have a lot of Friends and family who have an aversion and fear of having to do any basic maintenance or buying tires, thus lease every two or three years. These are millennials and people that are in their 50s. Leasing can make good sense at times I suppose but not into “payments into infinity”. By the way, I quite like Maximas of that generation and the stout and strong V6 under the hood.
That was the one real “gem” in the whole car. At 140k, in spite of the CELs, that engine was turbine smooth and pulled fantastically. Chain drive too. Once they enlarged them to the ubiquitous VQ35 they never were as smooth, and started to have some issues with oil burning at some point. But this earlier VQ30 with the variable intake tract (222hp/217 tq) felt really strong in what is basically a 3000lb car, even with that automatic slurring some shifts a bit. But aside from that, Nissans of this generation were feeling the cost cutting knife HARD, and they have serious rust issues that are totally unknown to Hondas and Toyotas of this era. The ES300 that followed this Maxima was built 10x as good, felt much more solid, but noticeably heavier and less fun to drive.
And after some quick bondo work and paint
Toyota seems pretty good with rust but I wouldn’t say that rust was unknown to late 90s/early 00s Hondas. Had a Civic that I had undercoated because of problems with rust in previous Hondas. Undercoating worked until it started rusting in places that wasn’t undercoated.
Here is a good CC about a Honda Fit with rust repairs.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/tech/cc-diy-2007-honda-fit-a-rattlecan-rust-repair/
Oh you’re right Don, certainly Hondas aren’t absolutely immune, my father’s ’07 Fit is having the same issue, and the ’03 Pilot I fixed up to flip actually had a true looming structural issue near the rear subframe that I had rewelded (see photo). But the scale and speed of the rot is noticeably less in my experience, and outside of the Pilot issue, Toyotas and Hondas seem less prone to structural rust (not just cosmetic sheetmetal problems). The subframe on my ’96 ES300 was spotless, despite the car being in Central IN its whole life and the rear quarter panels finally just starting to bloom.
I think your Maxima looks really good! I really like these. I test drove one with 200,000 miles on it and it had a very impressive engine!
Thanks TheMann! That was one of the photos I took before I sold in on craigslist, I think it presented better than it really was under the skin to be honest. In hindsight, had I known about the welder who later patched up my Pilot expertly and affordably, as well as the muffler shop down the road that did the flex-pipe on my A4 for $150 in an hour while I waited, maybe I would have hung onto it. The Maxima was my first foray into beater buying/driving, so I’ve learned a lot as I’ve gone on (2000 Maxima->1996 ES300->1997 Ranger->2003 Pilot->1994 Ranger->2001 Audi A4).
That’s a nice variety of cars you’ve had! What is your opinion on the Rangers? I’ve driven many S10s over the years but only one Ranger. I always liked the style of Audis but never drove one.
Overall I think I made the right choice going with the ’93-’97 Rangers, I test drove some different trucks on both go-arounds, and ended up with a Ranger both times. In hindsight the ’97 was kind of beat up, and worst of all, a rust-bucket underneath sheetmetal that presented fairly well, and it was low mileage (127k) The front core support where it mounted to the frame was simply gone. The frame was getting thin near the rear shock mounts, and the spring hangers were about done. Seat was worn out, cracked windshield, loud muffler, snipped parking brake cable. I ended up outsourcing a good bit of work to my brother, and ended up in the hole quite a bit on the truck overall (Bought for $1700, spent another $1800 overall in parts and labor, sold for $2500).
On the second truck, I knew what to look for and prioritized minimal rust and fewer other issues overall. Ended up with a dented up purple long bed, same XLT trim (power steering and A/C, alloy wheels, sliding rear window, bench with an armrest), same 2.3L Lima motor and stick shift, even lower miles this time at 106k. I liked the ’94’s interior more, no tach but nicer quality materials, the steering wheel is made out of some kind of really dense and pleasant plastic, old school pull knob for the lights, and cable actuated HVAC sliders vs the finicky vacuum manifold system on the ’97. Tires were pretty old and one was really bald, I bought a set of OE ranger rims and tires for $100 but never did put them on, included them with the sale. I bought it for $2000, drove it all summer, spent a total of $160 on parts including the $100 for wheels, and sold it for $2200 once the Audi deal lined up. Selling it took a while, shoppers didn’t like the dents in the body, which I thought was silly given my own experiences with a “nice” presenting truck that was a horror show underneath.
I strongly considered S10s and kept an eye out for Japanese options (looked at a nice little Mighty Max that was ruined via lowering by the idiot previous owner). I found the S10s overall to somehow feel “flimsier” and more car like, and around here the bodies rot out incredibly quickly, hard to find one that looks decent. The Ranger feels like an honest to God truck, a shrunken down F150. Sticking pre-’98 gives you the crude but stupendously durable twin-I-beam front end. Rides like crap but will hop curbs like no one’s business. The Japanese options are limited around here, and when they do pop up, offer poor value in terms of how much people ask for them. The beauty of an old Ranger is that the local junkyard has at least 10 of them in the yard at any given moment, parts are easy and cheap to find. The Lima motor seems as durable as anything, belt driven but non-interference and I never messed with either of mine, original belt on both. I did more heavy hauling with the ’97. built a paver patio and pergola/fence thing in our back yard as well as hauling gardening soil. The Ranger will handle its full 1200-ish lb payload fine, and even with 1000lb in the bed can still accelerate up highway on ramps and get up to speed safely. I did take multiple trips for many things, whereas if I had a half ton truck I’d cut my trips in two. But given that the Rangers also served daily driver duty, the 24-25mpg they returned was better than the 15 or so I’d have dealt with with a half ton. I will say at the outset of truck shopping both times, I was really hoping to find a GMT400 (88-98) Chevy/GMC in work truck spec with a 5spd and the 4.3L. Decent riding, palatable fuel economy, full 4×8 bed size, and increased payload versus a compact.
“as well as the muffler shop down the road that did the flex-pipe on my A4 for $150 in an hour while I waited”
I think I recognize this as a description of Ralph’s Muffler? I have spent a lot of money there over the years, but always in small individual portions. I am not sure when I last did my own exhaust work, but Ralphs is one of the reasons I never saw the need to get rust in my mouth ever again. 🙂
That 94 Ranger isn’t purple, but Dark Cranberry Metallic! Ask me how I know.
Yep it was Ralph’s! I put a new muffler on my 4Runner this spring after it let go coming home from NY, to my surprise everything came apart easily after some PB-Blaster marinating and butane torch heating. But yeah, now that I know about Ralph’s and how affordable and painless it is to deal with those guys, even as a committed DIYer I’ll be outsourcing my exhaust needs to them in the future.
Right you are! I initially just sort of made peace with it, with a $2000 truck there are more important things to prioritize than paint color, but by the time I sold it it really grew on me. I also liked my tan interior in the ’94 more than the ’97’s grey. The real treat would have been the green interior that some Rangers came with.
I very much enjoyed your story. At the same time you were looking at the Saab, I was as well, and ended up getting one: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-2005-saab-9-2x-aero-i-prefer-my-sushi-with-a-side-of-lingonberry-sauce/
However I sold it about a year or so later and replaced it with a used Buick https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/coal-1998-buick-regal-gs-yes-as-a-matter-of-fact-i-would-rather-have-a-buick/ which wasn’t a decision I regretted either (at all). Not that anything was wrong with the Saabaru, just where I was with my life and doing what I was doing, the Buick was a better bit, similar to you with the Prizm. Then a few years later (2010) we ended up getting ourselves out of the two-income-trap and the danger we could see looming by moving halfway across the country and starting over completely but before something ruinous occurred. And now try to live a bit simpler (or at least not unaffordably) and are all the more happy for it. So good on you for making the sensible decision earlier than we did and making things work.
I give you a lot of credit for taking the step to move halfway across the country like you did. I have been to northern CA several times, and it would be a hard place to leave. About time we sold that car, things were looking up for us. The house in the foreground has been hours since 2000 and paid off in 2014. Would be nice to have something bigger but we are happy w/neighbors and schools. Less is truly more.
Northern CA is a fantastic place to live, it can turn into a miserable place if you have to have a mortgage, if you have to buy gas, if you have to educate kids, if you have to commute, etc. on a normal job salary without abnormal perks or stock options or whatever (in solely my opinion). I’d have another house there in a heartbeat if I won the lottery. But for many who bought in the late 90’s or after it is/was a situation of being a paycheck or two from ruin. If we had stuck it out maybe it all would have worked out, but the last eight years have been MUCH less stressful, much more enjoyable, and much more rewarding, both financially and personally.
We finally are in a house without a mortgage too but are in the process of moving into one with one again (that we won’t stay in forever either), it is immensely satisfying to NOT have to write that check every month. Yes rates are low and it isn’t the majority expense but it’s an annoyance that is wonderful to be rid of, good for you!
Base model Corollas/prizm came with 3 speed automatic l was wondering how was it on petrol?
I am pretty sure it was a 4 speed, but I could be wrong. I’d say mid 20s around town to over 30 on the highway.
The base Chevy Prizm (1998-2003) was a 5-speed manual; both three- and four-speed automatics were optional, which I think was also true for the same-generation Corolla. We got as much as 40 mpg with our ’99 5-speed, even with a fully loaded car and a/c running.
Used to drive both the Geo and Chevy versions in driving school. This is the same color as my grandmas 99 corolla, now owned by my uncle after his mazda3 failed inspection due to rust.
I was really tempted by a Saabaru, incentives were really good at the time and my employer kicked in a discount as GM was a big customer of our’s. Ended up with a Forester instead which was probably a wise choice.
Interesting about the door handles … our ‘93 Corolla, made in Japan not NUMMI, never had any issues in 11 years, and with 2 kids and lots of short trips they got a lot of use. One window winder broke in the dealership as we were taking delivery of the (new) car. Our 2 year old son came toddling up with a piece of it in his hand, and the salesman thought he’d broken it. The manager happened to be there and told the salesman to order a new part for us … it was pretty obvious it was damaged or defective; no way a 2 year old should be able to break it. FWIW that was our last car with rollup windows.
Diesel Corollas will run basically forever providing you change the timing belt occasionally petrol models nearly as long, simple cars and quite basic but well made and the designers had their heads screwed on right, We havent got the GM versions NZ even missed out on the GM Holden models but every iteration from Japan is plying our roads.NZ assembly ceased in the 90s.
I understand and appreciate the sentimental feelings we had for the cars of our past, but if I owned a car where the AC went out, the engine burned oil, rust developed, along with other issues, at a relatively young age, I’d be frustrated. If the greatest drawing card for a Corolla is reliability, I’d have to call this a disappointment.
By the sounds of it, I’ve had better luck with eighties/nineties American iron and I’ve heard people write their domestics off as garbage for less.
Keep in mind this is a car I paid $5,500 for and had for six years, and when sold it was 12 years old. There is no way of knowing how the previous owners treated the car either. I didn’t write this but it appeared the car started off life as a rental out in NJ. Some title transfer paperwork fell out of the owners manual indicating that. None of the issues prevented me from driving it day in, day out for all of those years. I’d say all in all I did OK.
PeterPuck I think you have to look at this from an equivalent model.
In 1999 Dodge had the Neon and Ford had the Escort which I think would have been the North American equivalents.
The car was 12 years old and 149,000 miles on it. As I remember the Neons and Escorts that were still running at that time were in the same shape if not worse.
The closest I had was a Dodge Caravan, bought at 3 years old and sold at 8. By that time it had about 160,000 miles on it and if that had been all the trouble it had caused I’d have been very happy. Do I still think it was a decent vehicle ? Yeah. For the abuse it took it did its job and that’s all you can ask.
If I had a ’99 Neon with the problems stated, I’d see it as proof of their shoddy reputation. No modern car should have hooptie status with 150k miles on it. In fact, modern cars should easily go to 200k with no major problems.
My old Focus with roughly the same mileage has no mechanical problems and everything works perfectly. I drove a ’90 Corsica to 250k miles with few issues other than basic maintenance. Nobody would describe these cars as having great quality.
I’d expect Carl’s issues with a crappy Taurus or Mitsu-powered Caravan. Never a Corolla. Much more should have been expected and those problems should not have been so easily excused.
Toyotas aren’t perfect but, for the money, they still seem to last the longest of any manufacturer. That means a lot to the average, growing family with an average income. And it was the sweetest during the NUMMI years when it was possible to get Toyota quality at Chevy pricing. A real pity the NUMMI project had to come to an end; those cars were a real boon for many Americans just trying to get by.
“A stripper, it was an automatic and did have air, but those were the only option boxes checked. The radio was AM/FM only, no CD, no cassette…”
This doesn’t quite match my own experience. The first new car my wife and I bought was a ’99 Prizm 5-speed, and it came with no radio or speakers at all. The only options on our car were a/c and rear defogger. (We had a head unit and a pair of speakers installed at Circuit City.) For the 2000 model year, both a/c and a 4-speaker AM/FM radio became standard equipment, but the price went up accordingly.
Ours is still in service – sold it to a friend in 2010 – but some of the interior plastics became brittle after 7-8 years, including a driver’s inside door handle that luckily I was able to replace without much trouble.
1998 Prism. Paid $2500 and put 125,000 miles on it with minimal repairs. Door handles are $20 on ebay. At 240,000 the radiator went and I sold it for $500
5 years ago or so when my friend’s gf (now wife) was preparing to start driving after spending her teenage years without a driver’s license in NYC, he came to me for some craigslist recommendations. They ended up with a ’98 Corolla with 140k miles that they bought for $2500 or so as I recall. Auto and A/C, some paint fade on the roof, I think an airbag light. It was the perfect car for her to learn on, and they still have it, trucking along no problem, years later. Their one weak spot is the oil rings sticking to the pistons and causing excessive consumption. Just keep a close eye on the level and they’ll keep going like that for hundreds of thousands of miles.
On 7/4/96, we bought a ’94 off-lease Prizm with about 7,500 on its clock from a dealer. We swapped a ’92 Ford Escort wagon which already was having things go wrong at barely 100k. The clincher for my bride was when the Escort’s A/C fritzed out. The Prizm sounds much like the featured car. White, 4-door, blue cloth interior, AM/FM, three-speed automatic and, most important to the wife, cold A/C.
We kept that car nearly a decade. The tranny gave out at about 165k, and I put in a rebuild. It also had developed some electrical bugs; for instance, the air bag light stayed on and the radio often quit. A good bang on the dash with my fist would get the radio back.
But that car kept running and running. No major repairs until the transmission gave out.
We held onto that car until our daughter was ready for a car. But, she delayed getting her license and showed no interest in having the car. Meanwhile, we bought another car, and it became the third car in a two-car driveway. We ended up selling it for $500, at the 175k milestone. Often, I wish we’d held onto it, since few cars we’ve had since measured up to its reliability. As a sheer transportation appliance, it’s the best car I’ve ever owned.
Apparently the standard of being great has been lowered to encapsulate a Corolla rebadged as something from GM. Everything said here applies to my Escort. I guess that makes it great as well. Mine cost $10k new in 1997 and delivers 43 mpgs per tank consistently and has 177k miles and has been Duh sister reliable.