WTB: Best long a$$ commute car

I budget about $1k to $1.5k per year for maintenance and repairs on a car that's out of warranty (and is not a beater). Our two primary drivers are 9 and 10 model years old, we put about 20k per year on each of our primary vehicles, and I do most work on the cars myself.

Things like a new set of tires can eat into that in a hurry, as can taking it to a mechanic for something like brakes (pads and rotors all around are about a $1k job around here).

For something with deferred maintenance (as most older BMWs), it can be more.

Now that I've had time to actually read the thread I guess I can venture my irrelevant opinions.

My longest commute was 130 miles round trip 5days/wk. Did that for two months. Did 120 round trip ~3 times/wk for ~3yrs. Did 90 mile round trip for about 8 months.

The vast majority of those miles were spent in my 01 Honda Insight @ ~50mpg (only 50? I sped a LOT). about 7k miles were on my old 85 CRX HF @ 43 mpg (only 43mpg? I sped a lot..). Another 5-10k were on my Neon @ 30-33mpg (which is bad for a neon even with the speeding) and the WORST MOST HORRIBLE mpg I got on those long commutes was when I was driving my 5spd Caravan @27mpg.

Basically, if you care about money at all, it's massively important to get a cheap, reliable car with high mpg. For example, when I bought my (first) Insight I sold a mazda3 to pay for it. I actually came out on top a little bit in that swap but even if I had rolled the mazda3 off a cliff, even though the mazda 3 averaged 30mpg and go 35-42 on the highway, I STILL paid the insight off entirely in about 2 years in gas savings. That is going from mpg that was already almost great, to mpg that was greater, and as you may have already figured out, the higher the mpg number you are trying to improve from, the more diminishing returns sets in.

So even going from almost great to greater saved me the entire purchase price of the car in a reasonable amount of time.

Also, as much as I love being in cheap tiny cars and even miss certain things about my long commutes, I highly recommend you divide your daily pay by the entire amount of time you spend away from home and see how much your commute affects your actual 'hourly rate'. I talked my dad into taking a stay-at-home job that pays $10/hr LESS than he was used to because when he did that vs his old job it actually evened out and he cared more about the free time gained every day than willfully 'working' an extra 3 hours.

Ranger50 wrote: In reply to ProDarwin: From the first post: "Ability to carry 5 if needed prefered, not required. I have a minivan, but I'd like to have a second car that can haul my family if needed."

This is why I'm open to something that doesn't seat 5. Reality is that in the past 7 years I can probably count on one hand the number of times all 5 of us went out in something other than our minivan. So I don't need something that seats 5, but always like to have a back up plan if something goes wrong with the van. If I got a 2 seater...i.e. 1st gen Insight...the back up plan would be Enterprise Rent A Car if needed.

Vigo, I wish the job situation were different, but "it is what it is". When we chose to move to where we did, I knew this was likely to happen. I work in auto insurance, and all the companies are clustered in one particular area, but we chose to put our family where it was best for them. I'll be able to report back soon, but I doubt it'll bother me. I've had long commutes for years, and before that was a field rep, so I'm used to tons of windshield time.

I still say there is no better car, bang for the buck, for knocking down the miles than a Corvette, especially a c5. I only bought the Mirage instead because around here Corvettes are thin on the ground.

In reply to Vigo:

Yes I did similar math to change jobs, thus eliminating my multi-hour commute each way.

Pay cut hurts but I get to be home! Home is awesome!!!