Post your "beater" daily driver

GON

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Post your "beater" daily driver. A car that runs reliable, yet people roll their eyes at.

Here is mine, 2005 MB S500, purchased at auction for $1000 (before auction fees), it was a victim of Hurricane Harvey. Has 217k miles on it. Numerous door dings, paint beyond a claybar repair. Co-worker told me last month innocently" would be a great car for a high school kid". Rims have more scratches than a dog with flees.

Drove it over 1000 miles last week, all over North Carolina. Runs great... and don't care when people door ding me in the hotel parking lots. It did get a new door ding last Wednesday from a pickup truck at Carrabba's Italian grill.

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1966 chevy biscayne with new carb, battery, starter, tires, HEI distributor, 2-chamber M/C, euro pattern low beams. No heat, odometer, headliner, carpet. Would drive daily if I had the gas money but it gets ~16 MPG. Drove it out to Vermont and held 70 on the highway. I haven't "finished" it because it would be worth too much and therefore not "fun" anymore.

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And if we're talking Mercedes I had a couple beater w123s... a $450 240d that came looking like a VW Golf Harlequin. Repainted it with thinned rustoleum on a roller. Not one to let appearances keep me down I drove them like regular cars, just slower, LOL.

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2007 Pontiac G6 bought it new in 2008 leftover with GM credit card points got it cheap. My wife drove it for a couple years then I did. Then my daughter's first car then back to me. I drive it to work daily 5 mile round trip. It has a misfire cylinder 3 needs a tire front end rattling a bit needs bushings put just keep pushing it along after all it's a beater
 

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And then there's my greatest beater in the history of ever, a 95 saturn SW1 I got for $800 and drove for 11 years. It had the good grace of letting everything expire simultaneously, signalling time to move on. Never touched the AC and it blew cold the entire time. 🥶

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Post your "beater" daily driver. A car that runs reliable, yet people roll their eyes at.

Here is mine, 2005 MB S500, purchased at auction for $1000 (before auction fees), it was a victim of Hurricane Harvey. Has 217k miles on it. Numerous door dings, paint beyond a claybar repair. Co-worker told me last month innocently" would be a great car for a high school kid". Rims have more scratches than a dog with flees.

Drove it over 1000 miles last week, all over North Carolina. Runs great... and don't care when people door ding me in the hotel parking lots. It did get a new door ding last Wednesday from a pickup truck at Carrabba's Italian grill.

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Beaters are so common around here nobody rolls their eyes at them. In a city of 150k people, constant new development...I think many of the beaters are driven by people in construction as I see them all the time on jobsites. People don't want something nice getting backed into.
My beater was an 83 Caprice but I had to trade it for bodywork on my beater work truck. Man I miss this car.
 

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100% rot-free 1986 Dodge Daytona, bought for about $1400 in Virginia in 2011. 2.5L automatic. 95K miles. Everything works, including the ice-cold A/C. Just installed a fresh set of Douglas (Goodyear) radials from Wal-Mart yesterday ($43 each plus mount & balance).

Has its share of battle scars and the clear coat departed the planet some time in the 90s. Drive it 34 miles to/from work every day. Get lots of comments and eye-rolling, but it always starts and runs, delivers 20+ MPG, and costs almost nothing to insure. Parts and maintenance are also dirt-cheap.

Folks can roll their eyes all they want. I'll just keep funding my retirement accounts in lieu of a ridiculous car payment...

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Here is the beater truck. Cab corners and rocker panels and one fender needed replacing but the rest can still shine up nice with 17 year old paint.
 

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100% rot-free 1986 Dodge Daytona, bought for about $1400 in Virginia in 2011. 2.5L automatic. 95K miles. Everything works, including the ice-cold A/C. Just installed a fresh set of Douglas (Goodyear) radials from Wal-Mart yesterday ($43 each plus mount & balance).

Has its share of battle scars and the clear coat departed the planet some time in the 90s. Drive it 34 miles to/from work every day. Get lots of comments and eye-rolling, but it always starts and runs, delivers 20+ MPG, and costs almost nothing to insure. Parts and maintenance are also dirt-cheap.

Folks can roll their eyes all they want. I'll just keep funding my retirement accounts in lieu of a ridiculous car payment...

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I paid $1500 for my Caprice back around the same time with about 160k miles. It had 245k or so when I traded it off for basically the same $ in body work on my truck. He drove it for a year then sold it for $1500.
 
I paid $1500 for my Caprice back around the same time with about 160k miles. It had 245k or so when I traded it off for basically the same $ in body work on my truck. He drove it for a year then sold it for $1500.

You make a great point here...in today's hyper-ridiculous used car market, there seems to be growing interest these cars. Earlier this summer a stranger offered me $4K for the K-car wagon in my garage (first picture), and I'll bet I could get close to $2K for the Daytona.

Not for sale...but if I were to sell, what can one buy for that money today??
 
You make a great point here...in today's hyper-ridiculous used car market, there seems to be growing interest these cars. Earlier this summer a stranger offered me $4K for the K-car wagon in my garage (first picture), and I'll bet I could get close to $2K for the Daytona.

Not for sale...but if I were to sell, what can one buy for that money today??
As long as you can keep getting parts and it stays reliable, I would say it's cheaper to keep her. Most people don't look at them as a potential daily driver so they will always be the cheapest thing available.
Even looking at parts, comparing my 2005 Silverado with my 84 Oldsmobile...wheel bearings, fuel pump, water pump, alternator...etc all the most common things cost 3 times as much on the truck vs the car. It costs me next to nothing to keep the Oldsmobile reliable year after year. The only real extra maintenance is cap and rotor every couple years and adjust the choke and idle mixtures etc.
 
And then there's my greatest beater in the history of ever, a 95 saturn SW1 I got for $800 and drove for 11 years. It had the good grace of letting everything expire simultaneously, signalling time to move on. Never touched the AC and it blew cold the entire time. 🥶

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Thats a good beater. I had a 95 geo prism bought for 1500 drove it 12 years until my wife couldn't take the sight of it anymore when I got the itch to wash it because I couldn't see out the windows and washed most of the paint off it. Sold it for $400
 
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