If its under $1000 and still drives, there is nothing you can put it through that is worse than what the previous owners did, and it still drives after what they did, so it'll still drive after what you do
True story the best cars and trucks I have ever owned cost me 100 to 200 dollars. I have a 1995 f250 that I paid 600 dollars for in 2008 runs perfect and I plan on keeping it as long as possible.
I had an 84 Subaru. I blew a connecting rod and drove the car for a month after. I pulled a spark plug and you could see the piston smashed into the head and it still ran.
I have an $800 e36, the engine usually sounds like rocks in a metal bucket but I've been driving it that way a year now. I just change the oil, A LOT. And it keeps going chugga chugga choo choo let's gooo.
I bought a clapped-out BMW for $700. The timing chain guides disintegrated on the drive home. I could hear the plastic bits being chewed to pieces by the timing gears, as I was driving. I'm frankly amazed it didn't bend any valves. I cleaned out all the debris and threw in some new chain guides, and it's been great ever since.
I will forever like Subarus because my first car was a 2000 Subaru Forester (I’m 17), I had it until I was told the suspension was about to collapse from rust but the engine and transmission were fine. Got rid of the car when it was 22 years old with only regular maintenance. And it lasted very well. However within the last couple months the exhaust rotted out and front bushings started clunking. The last week I had it I took it in deep mud and did a few laps and my catalytic converter fell off. We sent it to auction for charity and it sold for $650… I bought it for $2000 2 1/2 years before that, from a dealership like a dumbass. But oh well, it probably either got scrapped or will be someone else’s daily driver beater for another 5 years. The engine and transmission were like brand new… everything else was just rotting. My mom ended up buying a new Outback after her Audi was a money pit out due to the reliability of my old car
My best friend bought a 64 Chevy Biscayne 2-door post from a family member when we were in high school(mid 80's) That is one car I wish I had owned. The car was clean, no rust, low miles and I think the only option it had was heat. (Remember in the 1960's DAMN NEAR EVERYTHING was an option) Anyway, it had a I-6 and a 3 on the tree and it was the most reliable, economical, easy to work on, and fun car you could ever imagine. Those are the cars I miss.
Bought a $300 5 speed crv put a 3 inch strut lift in it cut out the fenders and a set of 33s looked pretty mean drove it for 3 years before it was about to crumble apart what a good rig tho the timing belt snapped at 6000 rpm got it towed home threw a new belt on fired right up no word of lie
As a hooptie connoisseur, yea the garbage is always the best I've had 10 cars at this point since I was 16 (early 20s now) and my $400 Honda first gen CRV has been the best one easily.
We had one of these in white,the car was so gutless,we got rid of it when the clutch pedal snapped off,so my step dad drove it to the dump just outside of town,popped the hood,took the battery and walked home
I had a 01 Lincoln that had a really bad transmission, 4th gear was completely disintegrated. Then the motor started making knocking sounds around 2015, I drove it like that every day for 3 more years.
I bought a 2001 Toyota Camry for $500 Its the most boring indestructible and reliable vehicle I have ever owned in my life it’s going on year 3 of my ownership I’ve put on 40k miles and all I’ve done to it is install a new battery and regular oil changes
I have a '93 Ford F150 "Flareside" with a 302, I've literally got no money in it due to an accident that wrecked the passengers side door. Only thing I really had to do to the truck over the past 4 years is an alternator, the door, a few tires, and I had to replace the differential yoke 'cause I ignored the u-joint making noise and it exploded.
Very true story, i have a 93 suzuki swift for the farm. I dogged the hell out of that car and which i paid 100 bucks for. I don't know if if its a combo of not having enough power to break, or it was just a properly designed motor. Bounced off rev limits, jumped jumps, was just a super fun car.
1:17 Anyone familiar with an 80s VW idi diesel, my buddy had a car that the tensioner seized on but luckily being the backside of the belt it kept going. The car sat for a year, and he drove it a good 3mo before we did a belt. Judging by the polish job on the one spot ,it looked like it was like that for the 3mo.
the USA readers wont get this but in the UK ford fiesta came with a 1.4 TD engine, were talking 2003 vintage. was important in the uk as due to its low emissions it had a road tax of £30 per year. Now i bought one with problems, turned out to be a cracked cylinder bore (big problem) but cheap to fix. used that car and put 150+ k miles on it while starting my buisness as i was flat broke, she served me well, I kicked the shit out that thing for 10 years, hauled scrap with it to the point where it was on the bump stops. she never complained. in the end I scrapped her due to needing 4 tyres and a clutch. truth be told if i was hurting id have kept onto that little gem. theres alot to be said for cheap cars.
@@bogthing1 known as the Renault 5 here. Tbo of the period the fiestas were not much better, but in more recent history say 2000 onwards the fiesta is 10times the car the Clio is(the successor to the 5) imho
Had a 2004 Colorado that got wrapped around a tree. I got it for free, just had to get the rear end re-mounted & drove it till 275,000 miles. Sold it for $1400 a couple years ago
My best pos is this little 95 Nissan 200 I had. Paid 1200$ in 2012 and ran it till late 2020 when I couldn't bring myself to let my inspector guy pass it again. Head sized hole behind the seat,oops. I changed the oil once when I first got it, and then I figured why bother. So I ran it until the oil pressure light would come on in a curve, and stop and top it off. Can't say how many times I'd do a cold start and let it bounce off the limiter. Pretty cool they run 7300 before the fuel cut. Had a rough day at work ? A few limiter clutch dumps fix that. Or hundreds. Between 2012 and 2020 I put almost 30k on it, work is close by, and for longer trips I'd use the wife's car. It never broke on me , I did put about 300$ in tires and exhaust on it. New brake pads in the trunk for all the way around ,but I'd only change the pad that was rubbing metal. It's a good way to surface the rotors too, let em scrub a new surface for the pad. As a hardcore VW guy, it's like sacrilege driving that car but I'll say it's probably the best car I ever had. I took my buddy literally that I bought it from when he said "it's all tuned up and whatnot ,just gas and go". It's still sitting in the driveway now, I'm trying to find a buddy that can get some access to some land where I can bring it for one last blast ,and send it to scrap. Rip here soon to ol green bean
Hey how can you keep These old things onthe rOAd!!!! Up here in NYstate with our\ Onerous Emissions testing and Merciless use of Salt/sand mix on roads ~ihave to give U alot of Credit _btw leaned of U via Mr Regular Cars!!!!
This is my experience too. Subaru, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Isuzu initially all shared MIT engineering base, so when they went overhead cam, a huge amount of redundancy was added. The whole drivers side bank could be cut off and the engine still run without a tensioner. Toyodasan, however, they could be assisinated with just a water pump fault or one tensioner or an MLS gasket failure on the 3S or any of its V6's or G series in lines. Of course, everyone says the Toyota engines are able to make 150 HP per cylinder just like a turbo LS or Barra. At the street and real use, the Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Mazda's are the least reliable due to easy to fix but critical systems failing. Un-servciable wiring and sensors that "oxide" up and ,cut power supply and cannot be serviced in field and basically making sure aluminum castings cannot be serviced in the field..bad Toyoda, Toyo Kogyo and MMC ideas. Once the Bad Threes critical systems are corrected, they are then a whole heap better. After the Asian Financial melt down of 1996, Subarus later close bore spacing engined flat fours and flat sixes moved right into Toyota's traditional Un-servciable ethos.
and hence why i dont understand why people refer to them as garbage. I'd take any EA81 powered subaru and drive it 400k miles before i even touched a modern subaru. 70s-90s japanese stuff are some of the most reliable cars ever made. I'd still have my '94 B13 Sentra to this day if it wasn't falling apart from rust.
We used to joke in my work that no 2 subarus left the factory the same. now, until recently subaru had the EJ engines. and that was that. and we always found it funny how they had 10001 different cylinder heads and 43 blocks for the EJ.. I have straight up never seen that dual timing belt setup before. wow. every day is a school day. now back to building the pile of FA20's in my que.
@@FuelInjectionSucks The cool thing is, even if the timing belts broke. Nothing would happen except the engine would stop running/running on all 4 cylinders. The EA82 is non-interference.
@@FuelInjectionSucks Hey @Fuel Injection Sucks I need your help, 3:10 - 3:20, ua-cam.com/video/bsZ_g_9qGfo/v-deo.html this video, you can manual shift in the chevettes? Can you do it with an '81 3 Speed auto 1.6l I4? how do you do it? I can't really find any information on it since nobody cares about chevettes. TIA!! =) I know it's not related to Subarus but I didn't know where to go since RegularCars isn't your channel. sorry!
In the mid 90's I bought a 84 Chevette for $50. A $13 control module later it was back on the road. This car went through hell , neglect and constant abuse daily for almost 5 years before the rear end gave up. Still ran great!
My 1997 toyota t100 I got for $800 is great. It can tow 5k lbs, carry 2k in the 8ft bed, or get 25mpg unloaded. Think I may turn it into a camper or a mobile mechanic truck or both somehow
All I’ve ever driven is junk. I’m 44 now and have owned nearly 50 cars and can count on one hand how many vehicles I’ve actually paid more then $1000 for. Never been broken down on the side of the road ever. Just do basic maintenance on whatever I’m driving. I have a hard time seeing value in new vehicles
I can attest to this as well, I just bought a 2002 Buick Lesabre with 245k miles on it for $700 2 months ago, and already put 2,000 miles on it since I bought it and runs great! Only things I have done are, a oil change and put a driver side cv axle on it.
Like many Japanese cars & trucks of the late 80s and early 90s those Subaru's were extremely tough, something that cannot be said of any of them anymore!
My daily driver 1997 VW Passat 1.9 tdi seems indestructable at 335000kms so far. 50-55mpg and all wheel drive, total cost of 6500nkr\742dollars, all included (even tax). Now i can put the gas money into the cars i like instead of spending it on getting to work
My $100 1996 Ford Thunderbird was a prime example of this phenomenon. Had straight water in the radiator, which I didn't notice until it was -20° F. Didn't crack the radiator or push any freeze plugs, and was able to thaw it out and change to used antifreeze. Everything worked on it, and I think I put 12k miles on it before I fixed the fuel leak on my truck and sold the Thunderbird. It was a pretty awful car and I miss it terribly.
I have a '76 Valiant "Custom"- has a V8 and a couple odd options and that's it. Cost me about $150 to title, tag & register. 88k miles, solid...I'll be throwing more of my leftover & scrounge parts at it, but I love that malaise, milque toast sedan
I bought an '87 Jeep Cherokee for $500 about 11 years ago and it was a super solid rig. Of course XJ's are known to be super reliable but it was just as good as more expensive Cherokee's I've bought. 👍
You have more luck than I. Bought a Legacy wagon for $500 and the timing belt TENSIONER didn't break, the fricking BOLT that holds it on did. That 2.2 was an interference motor so you can guess what happened after that. It still ran though. Barely.
If its under $1000 and still drives, there is nothing you can put it through that is worse than what the previous owners did, and it still drives after what they did, so it'll still drive after what you do
You should reward its loyalty with new belts and tensioners
Yep, give it a little love.
True story the best cars and trucks I have ever owned cost me 100 to 200 dollars. I have a 1995 f250 that I paid 600 dollars for in 2008 runs perfect and I plan on keeping it as long as possible.
Nothing like the joys of a beater.
I had an 84 Subaru. I blew a connecting rod and drove the car for a month after. I pulled a spark plug and you could see the piston smashed into the head and it still ran.
I have an $800 e36, the engine usually sounds like rocks in a metal bucket but I've been driving it that way a year now. I just change the oil, A LOT. And it keeps going chugga chugga choo choo let's gooo.
I bought a clapped-out BMW for $700. The timing chain guides disintegrated on the drive home. I could hear the plastic bits being chewed to pieces by the timing gears, as I was driving. I'm frankly amazed it didn't bend any valves. I cleaned out all the debris and threw in some new chain guides, and it's been great ever since.
I will forever like Subarus because my first car was a 2000 Subaru Forester (I’m 17), I had it until I was told the suspension was about to collapse from rust but the engine and transmission were fine. Got rid of the car when it was 22 years old with only regular maintenance. And it lasted very well. However within the last couple months the exhaust rotted out and front bushings started clunking. The last week I had it I took it in deep mud and did a few laps and my catalytic converter fell off. We sent it to auction for charity and it sold for $650… I bought it for $2000 2 1/2 years before that, from a dealership like a dumbass. But oh well, it probably either got scrapped or will be someone else’s daily driver beater for another 5 years. The engine and transmission were like brand new… everything else was just rotting. My mom ended up buying a new Outback after her Audi was a money pit out due to the reliability of my old car
My best friend bought a 64 Chevy Biscayne 2-door post from a family member when we were in high school(mid 80's) That is one car I wish I had owned. The car was clean, no rust, low miles and I think the only option it had was heat. (Remember in the 1960's DAMN NEAR EVERYTHING was an option) Anyway, it had a I-6 and a 3 on the tree and it was the most reliable, economical, easy to work on, and fun car you could ever imagine. Those are the cars I miss.
I've gotten so many "gems" over the years...
...I've been branded "The hooptie whisperer" ...
Another good thing is the junkyards are full of low priced spare parts for these old hoopties
Bought a $300 5 speed crv put a 3 inch strut lift in it cut out the fenders and a set of 33s looked pretty mean drove it for 3 years before it was about to crumble apart what a good rig tho the timing belt snapped at 6000 rpm got it towed home threw a new belt on fired right up no word of lie
I'm pretty sure belt goop is worth some money
I put together a rhd 91 subaru legacy mail car for the winter snow. Good cheap fun.
As a hooptie connoisseur, yea the garbage is always the best
I've had 10 cars at this point since I was 16 (early 20s now) and my $400 Honda first gen CRV has been the best one easily.
My current daily was free that I had to fix the rear brakes on. I’ve put almost 50k miles on it since August of 2020 lol. Best daily ever.
We had one of these in white,the car was so gutless,we got rid of it when the clutch pedal snapped off,so my step dad drove it to the dump just outside of town,popped the hood,took the battery and walked home
My beater was so rough ,I kept the title in the glovebox so I could call a scrapyard from the roadside and be done all at once 🤣
I've had three of these subarus do that out of nowhere. Funny enough all run today
I believe there's some luck at play also. It is always cool when a beater wins your love
I had a 01 Lincoln that had a really bad transmission, 4th gear was completely disintegrated. Then the motor started making knocking sounds around 2015, I drove it like that every day for 3 more years.
The less you care, the more it gives
I bought a 2001 Toyota Camry for $500 Its the most boring indestructible and reliable vehicle I have ever owned in my life it’s going on year 3 of my ownership I’ve put on 40k miles and all I’ve done to it is install a new battery and regular oil changes
I have a '93 Ford F150 "Flareside" with a 302, I've literally got no money in it due to an accident that wrecked the passengers side door. Only thing I really had to do to the truck over the past 4 years is an alternator, the door, a few tires, and I had to replace the differential yoke 'cause I ignored the u-joint making noise and it exploded.
Very true story, i have a 93 suzuki swift for the farm. I dogged the hell out of that car and which i paid 100 bucks for. I don't know if if its a combo of not having enough power to break, or it was just a properly designed motor. Bounced off rev limits, jumped jumps, was just a super fun car.
1:17
Anyone familiar with an 80s VW idi diesel, my buddy had a car that the tensioner seized on but luckily being the backside of the belt it kept going.
The car sat for a year, and he drove it a good 3mo before we did a belt.
Judging by the polish job on the one spot ,it looked like it was like that for the 3mo.
Yikes! I have one and can't believe one would survive that. Glad to hear though because the tensioner is really sketchy on mine
I love those little cars they are very tuff I like them if it's a stick shift
1979 I bought a '67 Electra 225 and the guy threw in a "13 inch Admiral portable tv...color! 150.00
Wish you made some longer videos.
My 1995 Volkswagen golf sport did the same thing
They are the survivors.
the USA readers wont get this but in the UK ford fiesta came with a 1.4 TD engine, were talking 2003 vintage. was important in the uk as due to its low emissions it had a road tax of £30 per year. Now i bought one with problems, turned out to be a cracked cylinder bore (big problem) but cheap to fix. used that car and put 150+ k miles on it while starting my buisness as i was flat broke, she served me well, I kicked the shit out that thing for 10 years, hauled scrap with it to the point where it was on the bump stops. she never complained. in the end I scrapped her due to needing 4 tyres and a clutch. truth be told if i was hurting id have kept onto that little gem. theres alot to be said for cheap cars.
My friends girlfriend had a Fiesta. I found it to be superior to the Renault Le Car my sister owned, and that thing was a death trap.
@@bogthing1 known as the Renault 5 here. Tbo of the period the fiestas were not much better, but in more recent history say 2000 onwards the fiesta is 10times the car the Clio is(the successor to the 5) imho
Had a 2004 Colorado that got wrapped around a tree. I got it for free, just had to get the rear end re-mounted & drove it till 275,000 miles. Sold it for $1400 a couple years ago
My best pos is this little 95 Nissan 200 I had.
Paid 1200$ in 2012 and ran it till late 2020 when I couldn't bring myself to let my inspector guy pass it again.
Head sized hole behind the seat,oops.
I changed the oil once when I first got it, and then I figured why bother.
So I ran it until the oil pressure light would come on in a curve, and stop and top it off.
Can't say how many times I'd do a cold start and let it bounce off the limiter.
Pretty cool they run 7300 before the fuel cut.
Had a rough day at work ?
A few limiter clutch dumps fix that.
Or hundreds.
Between 2012 and 2020 I put almost 30k on it, work is close by, and for longer trips I'd use the wife's car.
It never broke on me , I did put about 300$ in tires and exhaust on it.
New brake pads in the trunk for all the way around ,but I'd only change the pad that was rubbing metal.
It's a good way to surface the rotors too, let em scrub a new surface for the pad.
As a hardcore VW guy, it's like sacrilege driving that car but I'll say it's probably the best car I ever had.
I took my buddy literally that I bought it from when he said "it's all tuned up and whatnot ,just gas and go".
It's still sitting in the driveway now, I'm trying to find a buddy that can get some access to some land where I can bring it for one last blast ,and send it to scrap.
Rip here soon to ol green bean
Much love for pre-96 cars here in NY ,they pass inspection so much easier.
Hey how can you keep These old things onthe rOAd!!!! Up here in NYstate with our\ Onerous Emissions testing and Merciless use of Salt/sand mix on roads ~ihave to give U alot of Credit _btw leaned of U via Mr Regular Cars!!!!
This is my experience too. Subaru, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Isuzu initially all shared MIT engineering base, so when they went overhead cam, a huge amount of redundancy was added. The whole drivers side bank could be cut off and the engine still run without a tensioner. Toyodasan, however, they could be assisinated with just a water pump fault or one tensioner or an MLS gasket failure on the 3S or any of its V6's or G series in lines. Of course, everyone says the Toyota engines are able to make 150 HP per cylinder just like a turbo LS or Barra. At the street and real use, the Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Mazda's are the least reliable due to easy to fix but critical systems failing. Un-servciable wiring and sensors that "oxide" up and ,cut power supply and cannot be serviced in field and basically making sure aluminum castings cannot be serviced in the field..bad Toyoda, Toyo Kogyo and MMC ideas. Once the Bad Threes critical systems are corrected, they are then a whole heap better. After the Asian Financial melt down of 1996, Subarus later close bore spacing engined flat fours and flat sixes moved right into Toyota's traditional Un-servciable ethos.
Older Toyota engines at least were non-interference, so a broken cambelt was no issue at all. Just put a new one in! :D
Usually can't go wrong with a Corolla...
God I love cheap cars if they have survived this long then there isnt much they cant do.
and hence why i dont understand why people refer to them as garbage. I'd take any EA81 powered subaru and drive it 400k miles before i even touched a modern subaru. 70s-90s japanese stuff are some of the most reliable cars ever made. I'd still have my '94 B13 Sentra to this day if it wasn't falling apart from rust.
fuck yeah
We used to joke in my work that no 2 subarus left the factory the same. now, until recently subaru had the EJ engines. and that was that. and we always found it funny how they had 10001 different cylinder heads and 43 blocks for the EJ.. I have straight up never seen that dual timing belt setup before. wow. every day is a school day. now back to building the pile of FA20's in my que.
This is an EA82 engine.
@@FuelInjectionSucks The cool thing is, even if the timing belts broke. Nothing would happen except the engine would stop running/running on all 4 cylinders. The EA82 is non-interference.
Only ever worked on ej's every day is a school day :)
@@FuelInjectionSucks Hey @Fuel Injection Sucks I need your help, 3:10 - 3:20, ua-cam.com/video/bsZ_g_9qGfo/v-deo.html this video, you can manual shift in the chevettes? Can you do it with an '81 3 Speed auto 1.6l I4? how do you do it? I can't really find any information on it since nobody cares about chevettes. TIA!! =)
I know it's not related to Subarus but I didn't know where to go since RegularCars isn't your channel. sorry!
In the mid 90's I bought a 84 Chevette for $50. A $13 control module later it was back on the road.
This car went through hell , neglect and constant abuse daily for almost 5 years before the rear end gave up. Still ran great!
For crying out loud, don't put new belts an tensioners on it! It will kill the transmission.
Timing belt and two pullies and your good for another 100k.
car might have earned itself a little parts store love!
My 1997 toyota t100 I got for $800 is great. It can tow 5k lbs, carry 2k in the 8ft bed, or get 25mpg unloaded. Think I may turn it into a camper or a mobile mechanic truck or both somehow
All I’ve ever driven is junk. I’m 44 now and have owned nearly 50 cars and can count on one hand how many vehicles I’ve actually paid more then $1000 for. Never been broken down on the side of the road ever. Just do basic maintenance on whatever I’m driving. I have a hard time seeing value in new vehicles
I can attest to this as well, I just bought a 2002 Buick Lesabre with 245k miles on it for $700 2 months ago, and already put 2,000 miles on it since I bought it and runs great! Only things I have done are, a oil change and put a driver side cv axle on it.
where is the turbo camaro?
Like many Japanese cars & trucks of the late 80s and early 90s those Subaru's were extremely tough, something that cannot be said of any of them anymore!
My daily driver 1997 VW Passat 1.9 tdi seems indestructable at 335000kms so far. 50-55mpg and all wheel drive, total cost of 6500nkr\742dollars, all included (even tax). Now i can put the gas money into the cars i like instead of spending it on getting to work
Keep it and keep wrenching on the (hopefully other) vws 😃
@@MrTheHillfolk i keep getting all the cars noone else wants, close to 100 now 😂
A real man woulda fired it up one more time to get a video of it.
Awesome
You might say that a timing belt, is all about "timing", and which timing it decides to lunch itself lol.
My $100 1996 Ford Thunderbird was a prime example of this phenomenon. Had straight water in the radiator, which I didn't notice until it was -20° F. Didn't crack the radiator or push any freeze plugs, and was able to thaw it out and change to used antifreeze. Everything worked on it, and I think I put 12k miles on it before I fixed the fuel leak on my truck and sold the Thunderbird. It was a pretty awful car and I miss it terribly.
I hate those cars with a passion. lol. They do seem to run forever even if they pour most of their oil out on the ground.
I have a '76 Valiant "Custom"- has a V8 and a couple odd options and that's it. Cost me about $150 to title, tag & register. 88k miles, solid...I'll be throwing more of my leftover & scrounge parts at it, but I love that malaise, milque toast sedan
I bought an '87 Jeep Cherokee for $500 about 11 years ago and it was a super solid rig. Of course XJ's are known to be super reliable but it was just as good as more expensive Cherokee's I've bought. 👍
Wow! Do a video on after the repair.
it is.
You have more luck than I. Bought a Legacy wagon for $500 and the timing belt TENSIONER didn't break, the fricking BOLT that holds it on did. That 2.2 was an interference motor so you can guess what happened after that. It still ran though. Barely.
I had a Lada Niva. Cheap, check. Garbage, check. Did I kill it? Damned near, yeah.
Hahahaha gold