Would you spend $8K on a 15 year old economy car?
 

So if there was a manufacturer that refurbished older cars and offered a very generous warranty on most everything in the car, like 10 year, 150K miles on the emissions, engine and drivetrain, paint is fresh, interior is for the most part clean, would you spend $8K+ on the car? So let's say they took a '92 Honda Civic and did that, would you spend that much on the car? What about a '98 Civic? The reason I ask is because it seems like people are so adverse to paying more than like $5K for a used vehicle even if it's in really good condition and I'm wondering why.

I would :)

After owning a few Honda's I can see where your going with this.;) I think you could market this and would be surprised how many you would sell. These Hondas are so reliable and proven.:thumbup:

I'd be hard-pressed to spend $8k on a NEW car!

That being said...I remember seeing ads in Hot VWs magazine nearly 20 years ago advertising fully refurbished VW bugs for about $7k. Don't know if they are still around, though.

I also recall ads a few years ago in Hemming's Motor News by Mercedes Benz advertising either a service to completely restore vintage Benz's, or they could sell you one of their own stock of restored old cars. I'm sure, however, that they charged top dollar.

Ok, well what if the car had been in an accident and received a salvage title, would you still pay for it? The car would obviously have the damage repaired to factory specifications which would mean either hammering out the damage or completely replacing the affected part, no bondo or any half *** repairs whatsoever. The body would be made perfectly straight and would drive and handle as it should, any non conformity would make it ineligible for resale.

There used to be a company that would rebuild the turbo Regals (Grand National and T-Type) and resell them. I used to get a catalog from them years ago and I would just drool over the cars. I also know there was a company that was completely rebuilding the Chevy Caprices for police use when the Caprice was discontinued. Its possible, but the profit margin on a compact economy car would probably be smaller than the previous cars mentioned.

there is a company that sells brand new deloreans. a guy bought a warehouse full of delorean parts. the company can either restore one you have or build one from the ground up. the parts have never been used and the cars are beautiful

I think it is rediculously expensive though. the '80s live on

***edit***

not sure if this is the company that I remember but they are doing the same thing

https://www.delorean.com/index.html

much more than 8K

Yeah, DMC does restore original cars, and will build a brand new one from NOS parts, but it is quite expensive.

My "new" DeLorean as speced out on their website:

I don't think $65,000 is that good of a deal.....unless it has at least 2 bedrooms and 1 bath.

I would do it- as long as I could get comprehensive auto insurance to cover the investment.

It would stink to pay 8K for a mechanically "new" 15 year old car and hitting a deer a month later and having the insurance company total it and give you only 2K...

I wouldn't insist on full coverage- just comprehensive.

If you have documentation that the vehicle is worth that much it shouldn't be a problem. I was sideswiped in my Buick not long after I had a new (crate engine, from Buick) put in the car, and had a bunch of other work done. The insurance company wanted to total the car, but after I produced the documentation that the car had that much work done, and it carried a 3 year 50,000 mile warranty at any GM dealer they paid to fix it.

I don't think I'd do it, not when there are so many <$2000 15 year-old cars out there. I'd buy a cheaper one, and figure $6000+ buys a LOT of repairs and maintenance.

At the end of the day, an insurance company is still going to value that 15 year old car the same as any other 15 year old car of the same make and model. The refurb dealer isn't going to stuff a DOHC V-TEC from a Prelude into that Civic.

I'm doing something along these lines in the near future as soon as I get my project running again. I'm going to build 92 thru 95 civics with turbo LS vtec conversions and guaranteed to run 11 second quarter miles times w/slicks and 35mpg+ for $8500.00

I have three sold already I just need to get them done.:eek:

There's plenty of classic car / race car examples, but I think for economy cars most people will see it that way. It doesn't make sense to try to save money that way.

My idea of an economy car... $2,000 beater + $200 Maaco paint job.

My daily driver...$200 beater and 10 96 cent cans of Wal-Mart white spray paint!

That may work in your area, but in this area $200 won't even touch anything that runs, or if it does run, it needs $1,000 worth of repairs to pass emissions. I would not be comfortable spending anything less than $1500 on a car for daily use.

Emission regs here in California are at least as stringent if not more so than in Virginia. Remember...we Californians INVENTED smog! :)

And granted, you won't find many $200 cars that are worth anything...and those that are will probably need at least that much again (cheapest possible parts and you provide the labor) to make them useful. That was my experience with my Geo. At So you're not likely to get a good "turn-key" cheap car for under a couple grand. But now and again deals like mine come by...if you are a decent shade-tree mechanic and don't mind a less-than-shiny paint job, you can do really well.

Yeah, Virginia is nothing compared to California emissions, but still it can be a pain to get older vehicles to pass, especially those in bad enough condition to be under $1,000.

I just paid $1,200 for the SL1 in my signature. Original owner, 99k miles, never wrecked, never any major services needed, new tires, newer struts and brakes.

You just have to hunt for a deal. They don't fall in your lap.

Related to the OP, I doubt anytime soon, in this economy and with being a single guy w/ a mortgage to cover, I would spend more than $2k-3k on a car. I have 4 cars right now and have owned about 10 others and the most I ever paid for something was $4,300 for an '02 Ram that I fixed and sold for $2k profit. Most I paid for something I intended on driving was $2,200.

I think a lot of people would drop $2k on a motorcycle to save fuel long before they bought some restored Civic with no collector quality and being unable to insure it for what they spent ($8k).

Do what I do if you wanna make a buck.... buy something needing repairs, DIY, flip it for a few hundred profit, sometimes more. In KY you can transfer 5 titles per year w/o having to pay dealers fee's and get all the associated paperwork/licenses.

agreed, too many cheaper just as reliable old cars out there for way less than 8K.

someone mentioned factory refreshed VWbugs, ive seen a few ads for ones with new crate engines and new everything and body off resto for less than 10K.

even if everything is new, ****s still worn out... would need new interior seats, new steeringwheel (depends on what old one was made out of, GM ones with that squishy hard foam rubber whatever starts crumbling where you hold onto it) i dont know many 15 year old cars that dont have rust forming or guages going out.

if this said company were to do this they would have to literally take it down to the frame and put all new **** on granted the frame wasn't rusted... way to much time and effort...

I guess it depends on what materials the interior is made of. My 1981 Buick has no cracks in the dash, and the steering wheel is in excellent condition. My gauges are brushed aluminum so there's no rust there. There is a small amount of surface rust on the gearshift, but probably a bit of chrome polish and some 0000 steel wool would take that right out.

yea my chevettes is fine, dash was cracked and interior got dryroted (dang plastic became crumbly) the turnsignal stalk is rusty too.

anyways whole point is they would literally have to take it all apart and put all new or remade new stuff back in. (not to mention how many bolts thier gonna have to cut to refurb all this)

also the cars they fix up are going to drive the demand for those parts up aka driving up the price, once again the backyard mechanic is screwed lol:p

Ahhh....the '70s GM car plastic panels turning to powder...I remember seeing many cars in the junkyards with scrofulous panels...my '79 Chevette did the same thing. Probably not...they'd just make the parts in China.

I just remembered another example of car recycling...the 1955/56 Powell pickup trucks and station wagons. The Powell Co. in LA would take a '41 Plymouth, throw away the body, completely refurbish the chassis, and put their own truck or station wagon body on it. See https://clubs.hemmings.com/clubsites/...ellaneous.html

Due to the unscrupulus business practices on the East Coast and the soaring amount of extra fees here and there, I paid $4250 for my 2002 Ford Focus with 60k on the clock. Funny I was searching for over a year for an economy car in the 5 to 8k range. The 8 deals that fell through as described in the car's bio took so much of my time, I had saved up 4800 for a down payment, to get my monthly payments as low as possible, essentially buying down the over all financed amount.

Now I'm not going for insults about the East Coast, but the required inspections have a huge price negotiation that the sellers refuses to pay for when you buy a car. I told all my potential sellers I'll pay for the inspection and emission testing, once it passes, then I'll buy the car. Hey I didn't want to get stuck with a car that is unrepairable. After 5 failures with private sellers and the need for A/C that worked, I switched to dealerships.

I started with Car Max, they used to have a great selection of used cars, some going to the 90's, but I ran into them at a transitionary period where the cars they were selling were only 3 years old. I found one car for 9000, even after my buy down formula, I would still wind up paying too much for a monthly.

I then went to Toyota, I was aiming for a Prius, I had watched Blue Book prices and the first year new body 2004 Prius at 2009 was scheduled for a price drop to 8000. I had been watching the prices for a year, but with the reaction of the 2008 gas crisis national Depress-recession it went from 2008 at $11,000 to 2009 at $13,000.

So with the Prius marked up, I then went for a 2.4 Solara at $7999, armed with about 4500 in cash I was ready for the big buy down. The $7999 was the after fee price, a little trick dealers used to do. The fees $2850, the dealer pulled out a sheet of paper with tax, license, frieght, commission, window washing, prep (installing a dealer license plate frame), etc. and my buy down was unfinancible, it would have brought my monthly payments too low for their bank to finance. So it was either their deal, or no deal, I walked.

I checked a few other private dealers and some majors and non of them wanted to give me a break on a used car. It just seemed weird that it was harder to buy a used car, then buy a new car. They all tried to talk me into a new car, but the price I wanted to pay I would have got a stripped box.

So when the deal for the Focus came around, I jumped on it. The main problem I had buying a really cheap used economy car is wear. Even at the 2 to 3000 dollar level, the cars smoked, A/C dead, electrical, and a million miles. I refer back to the old days, I used to be able to find deals in the 80's and 90's, the 2000's rolled around and the used cars are really falling apart. That is the reason I went up to the 5 to 8000 dollar level.

I wanted a comfortable car since I drive it for work, A/C, power windows, cruise control, even automatic. The Focus came loaded and it fits right in to where I was looking for an economy car. I'm almost at an average of 28 mpg, that's highway and heavy downtown traffic combined.

If the car was 15 years old however, it better be in really good shape.

No. A 10 or a 15 years old car is just way too many model years old to spend 8K for a little economy car no matter what the condition is.

I would not be adverse to spending 8K+ (as you put it) on a good used vehicle if it were the right one though. But If I was going to spend that much I wouldn't be looking at 10-15 year old vehicles. You can get a much newer economy car for 8K.