Getting a gas guzzler off my hands

[Gmand38]

I been driving a ford ranger around for a year or so now and I feel it is *definitely* time to rid myself of this vehicle. Before that my first car was a little 2 door saturn 5 speed which I absolutely loved driving. (absolute shit car, but I still liked it alot, and Im not the kind of guy to base to much value on the car im driving)

Shifting was very enjoyable and entertaining, not to mention that occasionally girls liked it. I was never sure why but I think they just got turned on seeing someone so fluidly operating something that they didnt understand at all.

Gas prices are also playing a role in this decision because the damn ranger accelerates like a snail but still sucks down gas.

Anyway, being that Im sure the value for the ranger has gone down alot... Lets say I have 7k to invest in a new vehicle. I would love some recommendations from any of you. Small car is fine(2 door is fine as well, itll still have more seating than a truck), with low gas mileage a plus, manual transmission a huge plus..Id like something kind of agile with a sporty acceleration. Any ideas?

[Doctor D]

Well, you can get a nice used car for 7k no problems.

But speed + good gas mileage is going to be hard to find.

I can recommend a civic, a lot of them come in manual transmissions and mine gets 33 MPG in town. But it only has 90 WHP. It's fun to drive, but slow haha.

[Gmand38]

I should clarify that what I meant by speed is anything that has better pick up than a sluggishly heavy v6 truck. For example my 12 year old completely trashed Saturn had the shittiest most worn clutch ever, and a 4 cylinder engine. But driven correctly I could take off and burn some rubber doing it, even if I couldnt actually get to 60 very fast and the high end was barely 90. I dont want fast so much as light and agile and less sluggish.

Also the lighter weight and frame in itself provide more enjoyable driving IMO.

Ill take a look at the civic btw. Ive generally been pleased with honda's in the past.

[Kahuna Cowboy]

I would not get rid of a truck because of gas prices right now. If you trade it in or sell it privately you will be lucky to get back 50% - 65% of the blue book right now, so you lose all that equity in your truck right off the bat. Then you must invest in another car and if you finance you are getting hosed 6 ways from Sunday for the life of the loan only to have a car worth half of what it was worth when you bought it.

I would wait a year bro, take the money you would put into payments and a down payment and put it into a high interest savings account. By this time next year you can have upwards of 12K to 15K to play with. By then we will have a better idea of what gas prices will look like for the foreseeable future, the finance market will be in better shape, and we will have better green/hybrid vehicles to choose from.

In other words, this is a crappy time to buy a car. Pretty soon if you buy a standard gasoline car it may not be worth shit if the hybrids, natural gas, and E85's keep taking off. It's just not worth the risk right now to save $5 to $8 bucks a tank.

[Gmand38]

Interesting Insights.... One of the things I dont know if you considered though is that I have my truck entirely paid off. I bought it with cash, and what Id do is take as much as I could get for it, and use that money to get another car paid for up front.

Also considering it only used to take about 30 bucks to fill my saturns tank and make it last longer than my trucks tank, which takes about 60-70 bucks to fill...

Does this change anything in your considerations? I do think you have a point in saving the equity I have until the market is in better shape, along with the ability to choose from better technology down the road..

[Kahuna Cowboy]

Interesting Insights.... One of the things I dont know if you considered though is that I have my truck entirely paid off. I bought it with cash, and what Id do is take as much as I could get for it, and use that money to get another car paid for up front.

Also considering it only used to take about 30 bucks to fill my saturns tank and make it last longer than my trucks tank, which takes about 60-70 bucks to fill...

Does this change anything in your considerations? I do think you have a point in saving the equity I have until the market is in better shape, along with the ability to choose from better technology down the road..

You have to measure your MPG, the size of your tanks are different. Saturns probably have a 12 gallon tank, Rangers have a 19 or 20 gallon tank. The MPG from one to the other is probably 22mpg vs 18mpg of your Ranger. I know my gas guzzler truck does about 15-18mpg and it is a 3/4 ton so your Ranger has to be doing better than mine in MPG's.

If you own that is great, I only own anymore, I refuse to finance. It is a lose/lose situation overall. If you finance 20K for 5 years for instance on a car that cost 25K, you spend with interest (around 10% if your credit is not golden, 15% if it is bad) close to $27,000 (on 10%) to repay the loan. So at the end of the loan (4-5 years) you have paid close to $33,000 over the life of the loan and the car is now worth $7,000 by the time you own it outright. Does that sound like a good bargain? You pay 33K to finally own something in 4-5 years that is worth less than 10K?

That is how I view it as, no sane person would ever make this kind of investment in a stock or bond, so why do it on a car. Like I said, take a year, put away money from the payments and don't touch it. Put it in a high interest savings account. Then by the time you sell the truck, (you won't lose much value in it in a year) you can have 12K to 15K to buy something nice outright if you choose to, or you can finance something and not have to finance near as much as you would have to now.

Just my $.02 cents of advice, I have seen so many get into car loans only to have to sell it because they finance a lot on the car and during the life of the loan something comes up like a job loss, unexpected lawsuit or bill of some kind, etc... and they have to get rid of it at a huge loss because they can no longer afford it.

[Gmand38]

Sounds like good advice, and being that I *do* own the thing I guess I should hang on to it until I can trade up and not down. The craving for a smaller vehicle and a manual transmission definetely plays a factor for me thats why I jumped at the idea.

And unfortunately the Ranger doesnt do nearly as good in MPG as I would expect. Either the older car did alot better than 22(never measured it the damn thing had a broken odometer) or the Ranger is for some reason or another doing much worse than it should be. I could drive much longer on the 10ish gallons Id put in the Saturn versus the distance I get out of the 17ish gallons that ussually go in the Ranger.

[Kahuna Cowboy]

It is a truck, I have always owned trucks all my life and they do get crappy mileage. One thing you can do is never let it go down less than half a tank before you fill it back up, for some reason trucks get better MPG's from full to half then they do from half to empty. I never understood that but it has been universal from Chevy to Ford to Dodge for me.

My current truck has a 25 gallon tank, from full to empty I get about 210 miles (according to my odometer) when it hits the half mark. If I let it go I will get about 325 overall before I get close to empty. So I get another 115 miles from the half to empty side of the tank. Go figure, see if your truck does the same, fill it up, set your trip odometer back to zero when you do. See what the mileage is when your tank hits 1/2, then let it go down to between 1/4 to empty and see where you are that. I bet you will get better MPG's on the top half of the tank, if that is the case just always keep the truck full and refill when you get down to half.

Just remember, buying new and slightly used is a trap that many fall into. If you buy a 5 year old car outright the bloated depreciation has already occurred on the vehicle, now you are dealing with simple depreciation which is about $100 a month until the car reaches the $3K in overall value mark. After that it begins to drop to $50 a month so long as the condition of the car is still good. Once it hits the $1K mark it is pretty much worth that provided the car is still nice (paint kept up, interior not ripped up, no body damage) from here to the end of days regardless of the mileage.

Yeah, I know it is cool to have a new ride and all to impress but you can buy something very nice that is 4 or 5 years old and still impress, but the title is clear and it is yours. My truck is a 98, I own it outright and it is in flawless condition. I put some money in chrome, wheels, and a stereo and I get compliments on it all the time. The gas issue was real bad when it was up near $4.50 a gallon but it has dropped down to $2.69 here in the last few weeks. That is much more manageable, but even at $4.50 it was still not worth it to go into debt to me for a new car so I ended up buying a 94 Buick Century as a cheap driver which got 22-25mpg. I paid $900, drove it for 6 months and just sold it a few weeks ago for the same $900. It cost me nothing but gas and minimum insurance for the time I needed it.

[Gmand38]

Have you ever tried checking how much gas you actually put in when you fill up while the meter is half way down? I noticed this with my truck as well and I just kind of assumed that the last half of the meter represented a smaller volume of gas than the first half. Hence the meter went down faster. The truck inexplicably burning more gas as the tank gets emptier seems unlikely to me.

[Doctor D]

I don't see the relationship either.

Here's some food for thought. They have this product called the 'Tornado', it supposedly gives you better gas mileage (it's been proven wrong). What actually happened was that once someone installed it they would drive easier, accelerate softer, coast more, etc. The Tornado didn't do jack, it was a change in the behavior of the driver that saved them gas money. The drivers didn't realize it and thought it was the product they bought.

[Gmand38]

Good point. I had a friend tell me he just tries to keep his RPM's under a certain range and it helps with the MPG. I should pay more attention to that.

[Kahuna Cowboy]

Have you ever tried checking how much gas you actually put in when you fill up while the meter is half way down? I noticed this with my truck as well and I just kind of assumed that the last half of the meter represented a smaller volume of gas than the first half. Hence the meter went down faster. The truck inexplicably burning more gas as the tank gets emptier seems unlikely to me.

That is what I measure by. If I have a 25 gallon tank and my gas needle is at half and pump in 13 gallons to refill it is pretty much dead on. That is how I measure.

Just try it once, it costs you nothing. See if I am right, every truck I have owned has operated this way. I don't understand it but that's what they do. :confused:

[Russianstar]

Id go with a GT Stealth!

[lightening]

You're almost always better off keeping a vehicle until the wheels fall off. Unless you can do a straight trade. Cars are resources and not typically an investment. So it's better to use up your resource before aquiring another.

As far as the perception of a truck gas gauge dropping faster after the half tank mark. This is very true, but you must remember that when you fill the thing usually read past the full mark. Also gas tanks are tapered so there is less gas available after the 1/2 full mark.

On a side note I've always noticed that ford and gm ship their speedometers 2 mph slower than actual speed.

[Nocturnal]

i drive a little Black Peugeot 206 1.4l Petrol, very nice car, not the highest valued car but i love it, nice to drive, comfy, does 50MPG if you drive it carefully

[Sincerelee]

The car that appeals to the women depends on the area.

last night, while enjoying a fine cigar, one of the guys shares how he found a note on his Toyota Tundra. It was from a Selma Hyak-look-alike from the chicken restaraunt from next door.

My black Mazda Miata was very appealing to many women.

The Miata had lots of speed, for a four cylinder, but the gas milage was about 20 city and 25 highway. That is still not a lot, but that is because it is a real sports car designed to go faster than the average four cylinder.

You can get a 10 year old one, that wasn't driven much because most people baby them, for your price range.