When does a car become a beater

Mr_Asa said:

Also, if this thread was in reference to the back and forth in the winter beater thread, a winter beater is different from a beater-beater.  At least I would say so.

What do I know, though.  I'm a Floridian

I can sort of understand the mentality - drive a POS in the winter to save the nice car.

On the other hand, it is also kind of like when people say "I am not worried about (X problem), it's just my work car".  So the vehicle you rely on to feed and clothe and shelter you and your family is not important?

IMO winter car is the important one.  The car you cannot drive year round is the toy you can ignore.

If my summer car fails, I can drive my winter car.  If my winter car fails in the winter, I'm walking.  (And this is why I drove my Volvo over 20k last year and my two Mazdas a combined total of about 2500...)

When does a car becomes beater?

when I acquire it. 

My Caprice became a beater when the paint became the main structural component holding the car together.

When it has more than 3 issues you don't plan on fixing immediately. Once you get to five there is no going back. 
 

edit: if not washing your car makes it a beater then some of my brand new cars have become beater day 1. My cars only get washed when the maintenance guy at work gets annoyed because of how dirty I've gotten my car. 

Jeez... y'all are doing good.  200k miles or more and you're wondering if it's a beater yet?  I have one with 149k that has been a beater since 120k, and another one that has 105k and it has been a beater since 88k.

I’m with Knurled; breaking down during winter sucks.

But IMO a “beater” shouldn’t be an unreliable POS. It should be a dependable and capable vehicle but  crusty enough that I don’t cringe if I need to toss some tools in the back, if the dog jumps in with muddy paws, or I when I need to go down a muddy wet road.

Thank you for your thoughts. The reason we have not disposed of the Liberty yet is 2 fold. The wife likes the idea of me driving a 4 wheel drive when it snows and I won't mess up the Grand Cherokee. I on the other hand do not see a big problem with having many cars. As I keep telling the wife I had collected over 150 hot wheel cars when I was younger (still think I am kid most times) and have only 4 cars is not a big problem as we can still afford the registration and insurance. Plus it is nice to just park a broken car until the weekend and drive something else instead of spending the evening fixing something to get to work the next day. I do believe the liberty has passed into beater status as we both do not want to put more into it than to keep it safe to drive.

To me it's a beater when it gets to the point you're only fixing stuff that will leave you stranded or is unsafe. It doesn't get washed. Only vacuumed occasionally, etc. 

I drove a '98 Monte Carlo Z34 from 2003 to 2010. The last 4 years I had it, it leaked oil, it leaked transmission fluid, it was either leaking or using coolant. It ran like that for 10s of thousands of miles. AC stopped working, etc. 

In 2010, I traded it in on an '06 350Z. The Z34 had 180k miles at this point, and was such a beater I was surprised the dealership gave me $300 for it. 

BlueInGreen - Jon said:

I’m with Knurled; breaking down during winter sucks.

But IMO a “beater” shouldn’t be an unreliable POS. It should be a dependable and capable vehicle but  crusty enough that I don’t cringe if I need to toss some tools in the back, if the dog jumps in with muddy paws, or I when I need to go down a muddy wet road.

I don't think that's a beater, that's just a car/truck.

Semantics is a bitch, everyone has different words to mean the same thing.

For me it's a beater when you don't care about the dents, scratches and rust. My ranger is mechanically in better shape then a lot of people's nice cars around here but I don't ever hesitate to use it as a truck. 
 

bodywork is unimportant, AC will never be fixed and the exhaust is obnoxiously loud. But the top half of the engine has fresh gaskets and the starting and charging systems are brand new.

i live in an area were winter normally includes -30 windchills so it's important that it doesn't leave me stranded 

My daily driver 2012 Mazda 3 has been on the beater fence for a while now. It still looks presentable, has zero rust, and cleans up well, but it's got north of 180K on the clock and is starting to show some stupid, dumb issues. When you turn the lights on, you have to smack the center stack to get it to light up properly, the upper dash is warped ( to be fair, there was a recall on this that I missed out on), it's slightly pulling to the left for no reason (alignment checks out) and it's about to get its 4th (!!!) transmission mount since I've owned it. It will be a true beater in no time.

dropstep said:

For me it's a beater when you don't care about the dents, scratches and rust. ...

bodywork is unimportant, AC will never be fixed

z31maniac said:

It doesn't get washed.

Using these two definitions, I have never owned a beater. Because even if a car is a beater (high mileage, cheap IMHO), it has to have excellent paint, shiny, a/c working. Then again, my philosphy of the car is, it has to be clean, washed, waxed. I don't go out with dirty shoes, and my cars are similar. 

To each their own, I suppose. 

Here is my current beater. 20 years old, 204K miles. 

As soon as I buy it.

In reply to Tony Sestito :

If it pulls to the left but the alignment is good, you may have a wheel bearing starting to drag...

mr2s2000elise said:

Using these two definitions, I have never owned a beater. Because even if a car is a beater (high mileage, cheap IMHO), it has to have excellent paint, shiny, a/c working. Then again, my philosphy of the car is, it has to be clean, washed, waxed. I don't go out with dirty shoes, and my cars are similar. 

To each their own, I suppose. 

When I was using my Mercury as a "beater" I kept it as clean as I possibly could, inside and out.

When my "beater" car is extremely clean it makes me feel like a wealthy person.

Beater status is hard to define. The path to beaterdom usually begins with "AC needs recharged," and gets worse from there. 

Anything you take pride in is not a beater. 

TopNoodles said:

mr2s2000elise said:

Using these two definitions, I have never owned a beater. Because even if a car is a beater (high mileage, cheap IMHO), it has to have excellent paint, shiny, a/c working. Then again, my philosphy of the car is, it has to be clean, washed, waxed. I don't go out with dirty shoes, and my cars are similar. 

To each their own, I suppose. 

When I was using my Mercury as a "beater" I kept it as clean as I possibly could, inside and out.

When my "beater" car is extremely clean it makes me feel like a wealthy person.

That Mercury is gorgeous. I am in the same boat as you.

As far as "wealthy." I am not one, so it doesn't matter to me.  However, taking pride in my car, and it always looking fantastic, regardless of what its worth in the marketplace, matters to me :)

Funny thing is, the older I get, the more I am impressed by seeing older cars (say original SHO, or a 1993 Accord), in mint condition, than a brand new 488 Italia. To me it shows a person really cares, to keep an older car running , and keeping in mint.  Then again I am weird.

Knurled. said:

IMO winter car is the important one.  The car you cannot drive year round is the toy you can ignore.

If I'm driving a fun car or bike, it's not really the end of the world if there's an issue, because well, there absolutely will be. It's their nature. I think we can all agree that it's more fun waiting for a tow when it's not 11 degrees and you're already late to work.

That's why I found the cheapest lease I could—my current "beater" is a 2017 Kia Forté . While I do maintain it, I do so creatively. You know that fancy new synthetic that promises 15000 mile intervals? Yup.

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

To be fair, it was the beater. It was parked in the street so as not to leak fluids on my driveway.

The garage was home to the S52 E30. And it was always immaculate. 

I recently wrote on this topic with Seven Stages of the Car Life Cycle – Showroom to Clunker to Scrap Metal

I sort of defined it as:

A good number of its peers have moved onto later stages but it is still hanging in there. Perhaps living a little precariously as it is only one repair away from slipping into stage six or seven. This might be a minor or major ailment depending on the risk tolerance and mechanical savviness of its owner. Any repair that does not hamper its ability to start in the morning is deferred to “later”. You try to avoid washing the car since a little road grime goes a long way to covering some of the blemishes. Your neighbor wishes your car’s transmission or head gasket would fail so they could stop looking at it.

https://www.curbsideclassic.com/stories/cc-deep-thoughts-seven-stages-of-the-car-life-cycle-showroom-to-clunker-to-scrap-metal/

When your supply of berkleys to give has been depleted enough that you're willing to let things go unrepaired or patched up in a "get 'er done" rather than "get it done right" way. In my books, this includes cosmetics - my '98 Buick has a substantial dent and scrape in the passenger side, a mirror that's the wrong color, a heater that's not especially hot, and a cheap "racing" seat in place of the driver's seat. So it crosses into the beater zone. But it's a daily driver, and I'm not willing to put up with anything that would compromise my chance of the car making it to work or my own survival in a crash.