Car Blew Up Mid Boat Build... Ideas?

I will need a car for what? To sit in storage depreciating?

I will, however, take that diesel golf! Wow! Do you know how hard it is to find a good diesel car like that here? They are very expensive here because they are so rare. I was looking at Volkswagen diesels, but the prices are very high for old ones.

 

Can you point out a listing?

I would fly out and drive one home from there if there is one...

 

Yup...some stuff sits for years gathering dust. Ive got a whole store room full of spare parts that just sit. Its part of the program.

Perhaps you could operate without a car ? I do, but my schedule allows this. I doubt if you could run charters without a support car.

 

Decent is in the eye of the beholder. At the end no one is no more decent than the other.

 

Well, we have run our charters since 2006 without a car or a dock. I am not sure why we would need one now.

 

Shame your trusty car blew. Looks like you are stuck up the creek without a paddle.

No car neede for any boat work in my world.. Bicycle does the job for erands and provisioning is from the tender. Rent a cars for unforseen stuff. What part of the world do you work ? Do they have supermarkets on the waterfront ?

 

Exactly! . We normally walk for basic things and use a back pack. Or we use bicycles, which we have on board for charter guests.
We provision monthly or semi monthly and buy fresh vegetables and fruit at the waterfront areas.
100% of our food (other than the waterfront fresh vegetables and stuff) comes from Whole Foods. We prepare natural and organic food to a level much higher than local restaurants. So, we rent a car once a month to provision.

We operate in very large geographic areas. Our charters take place in a 350nm diameter circle. Then, when winter comes, with this boat they will also take place 1500 milss south of that.

 

About two years ago the engine in my Explorer blew. I owned it and needed a car immediately as here you can't live and work without a car. My car nut neighbor across the street told me about a friend of his that buys cop cars and fixes them up to re sell.

Long story short, I bought one for $2,200 + my dead Explorer. The Police Interceptor known as a P 72 and a Crown Victoria in uniform has a small block V-8 and depending on year gets around 20 mpg highway. Mine had 91,000 miles on it and in two years I have replaced tires and 1 spark plug coil. These are really reliable and safe cars as they are one of the only body on frame constructed cars left, now out of production.

Taxi cab operators buy these and run them to 300,000+, look around in traffic sometime and note how many cabs are P-72's. Mine came with the spotlight too, way cool and finally some respect in traffic. Parts are readily available and any mechanic can work on these things. If fact here in Ft Lauderdale there is a junkyard that specializes in these for the taxi's.

Chances are if you bought one of these you could sell it when you were done and have driven it very cheaply. I pay a little more for gas than I would for a smaller car, but I took that into account when I made this decision and I have a pretty short commute (11 miles each way.) A little more for gas, but I didn't pay much up front. And did I mention respect in traffic?

Steve

 

I'm surprised at the difference in prices on the two coasts.
Compare the prices in Seattle, with the prices in Boston.

It seems to me that an enterprising lad who wants to travel could buy a reliable rust free car in Seattle and sell it in New England and pay for the trip.

 

I drove a Crown Vic for awhile but lost it when the engine caught on fire. The fuel pump opened up in the middle of Malfunction Junction killing the engine. I coasted it to the side and waited for the fire department. By the time they got there the fire had consumed the front tires and smoked the cab.

Malfunction Junction is the intersection of I-4 and I-75.

 

Or use a long screwdriver. Put the tip at the bearing you want to listen to (water pump, alternator, ps pump) and the handle to your ear.

I haven't had any luck listening to engine sounds in this way - the only thing you can hear is valvetrain noise.

When buying a used car, if the price is low enough that I can repair it and still come out right side up, I don't do a lot of due diligence. If the price is near full value, I break out the tools and the coveralls.

After the screwdriver treatment on the accessories, pull out the #1 plug and the #(last) plug and compare them. On a worn out engine, the last spark plug will be notably oil fouled compared to #1.

On a test drive of a fwd car, in a parking lot crank the wheels lock to lock while driving slowly. A clunk or clicking is a bad cv joint. Look at the brake rotors.

Some stuff you can't detect before failure (e.g. timing belts) better to just plan on getting it replaced first thing unless the seller can show you a receipt.

 

Its about 70°F out here and its just to nice a day to be inside, but I'll check the local listings for a car when I get a chance. Might be tonight, I've got a surprise party to go to. But I'll see what I can do.

 

For the price,my top picks..was in wholesale cars for years,owned several thousand cars:

- '94 + Altima 2.4
- '94 + Camry 2.2
-'95 and newer Accord 2.3
-Civics
-Sentras
-Tercels
-Echo
-avoid '98 to '01 Corolla...unless rings have been fixed...others fine
-Protege
The rest:
-Subarus generally bulletproof,check head gaskets
-Cavalier/Sunfire 2.2 is tough, DOHC is crap.
-VW diesels are tough,make sure it's not worn out though.$$$$ to fix.
-Avoid Taurus
-GM v6 cars are tough and get surprising mpg on hiway,watch for head gaskets
-avoid Chrysler,many faults

Hyundai/Kia engines are OK but as u discovered the timing belts go boom.

UR better off spending more on a Japanese car,and with a stick no worries about auto transmissions blowing up

 

I just thought of something, before you kill the car and trust the mechanic. Take the heads of and see what the damage. I don't know if you did that. But I remember something like that happen to me many years ago, and my wife took car to mechanic, which said engine was shoot. Of course it would take $2000 to fix, but I knew it had water in head, because I had fixed this before,(Buick had a plastic intake manifold that would leak water.) Anyway, the point is don't assume, the mechanic was lying, had the car towed and fix somewhere else for under $500.

 

Hey Cat
go to Denver Craigslist cars&trucks and type in cavalier $1000~$2000

http://denver.craigslist.org/search/cta?query=cavalier&srchType=T&minAsk=1000&maxAsk=2000

There's endless options in the under 2k range. Im tellin ya man there's great deals on no rust cars in the midwest.