What car Dilemma

So I've been DDing this total POS sunfire for over 2 years and 26k miles now, it was a $400 car when I needed one. Its getting to be too much of a pain in the ass to bother with anymore, the 5 speed trans is very, very, loose, the rockers are just about gone, the FL wheel almost falling off last week and the subsequent working on replacing the studs till 5 am was my last straw. Its time for a new ride.

I'm sitting on $1200 cash, I'm pretty good with talking people down, a lot, so I've been looking at stuff up to $1500 or so.

I'm tired of DDing a small car that beats me up, I'm tired of rowing gears in traffic. I want something big with some suspension worth a rats ass. I also need to average 25 mpg or better on the highway. I have the Yugo for when I rarely feel like banging gears and driving like hooligan.

So I've pretty much narrowed it down to two cars.

1. A big FWD 90s 3800 powered GM product, bonneville, lesabre, park ave, etc. Crappy they are, but its like driving a couch on a cloud at 80 mph. Parts are cheap and easy, etc. I can have my pick from about a dozen for sale any day of the week.

2. 1980-1985 Mercedes-Benz 300SD A much higher quality vehicle, but much, much, harder to find, parts can get expensive, but it will need less of them. I have seen plenty of these sell within my price bracket, just very fast and all before I started seriously looking for one.

So do I get a crappy LeSabre now or hope this sunfire lives long enough for me to find a 300SD? Other potential cars?

Get the big GM and go for a 3800, preferably Supercharged. Grand Prix if you want a little sport, Buick if you don't.

I know to go for the 3800 if I do go that way. Its just that GM err, charm? It bothers me, that constant need for attention to non fatal things. Always having something broken. Replacing 3 window motors a year is not my idea of fun, even if they are only $30.

Go big GM, parts are going to be much easier to find and cheaper. The 3.8 can get surprisingly good mileage on the highway, as well...

if you're considering those GM's, then you should also consider older civilian town car/grand marquis/crown vic (of the same vintage of those GM's)

I was going to say get an SD before I even say it as one of your choices.
My buddy just picked up a 1984 SD for $750. Everything except one of the windows and the sunroof works. It still drives incredibly well. Not flacid like a GM FWD car, still feels tight, solid, and controlled.

We had an '03 Bonneville SSEi for a while, certainly not a $1500 car, but still a big old GM in the same area you're looking for. Very comfy cruiser, not a bad car at all. Though we didn't have it long enough to deal with quality issues.

However, only way you'll get 25mpg out of it is, to quote a famous commercial, downhill in a hurricane. We got 18mpg with ours in suburban driving.

I have a Scan Gauge hooked up to my '97 LeSabre. It calculates mpg for the tank as well as for the day. My best day has been 30.8 mpg. This was mostly two lane rural route with rain which kept my average speed closer to 50 mph. At a more common 70 mph this would drop to 28-29 mpg.
An all city day has returned as low as 18.8 mpg.
My combined tank-fulls are returning 24-ish.

I find it interesting that the car has a 400 mile cruising range which is more than I am used to.

Coincidentally, I purchased this car for $1,200 w/ 110k miles.
I dropped about $200 in self-fixes that included some rust repair and POR-15 covered by factory color spray paint, Duplicolor.
It needed 4 new tires at nearly $500.
All totaled, I am sitting at $1900 and ready for winter.

Having driven both an 83 300sd (For the 1.5 years I have had it) and a 99 grand prix (my moms old car), the only things the grand prix does better are that it was faster, and the heater and a/c worked. Handling was about the same, much worse ride on the freeway, and harder to work on and find used parts for. It only had 135k miles when we sold it and the interior wasn't in any better shape than my 300sd (and rattled a lot more) even though it was well taken care of. The one bad thing about the 300sd is that they need ~$1k in suspension work before 200k miles, which takes at least buying a $200 spring compressor and paying someone to press the lower ball joints in. Taking it to a shop would be rediculous, I was quoted $450 just for one ball joint when I asked.

Another challenge regarding the 300SD, so far the two I have attempted to go look have turned out be owned by people who think their E36 M3 don't stink. Its been a while since I've done this, apparently asking some logical berkeleying questions before burning $20 on gas to go look at a car is no longer acceptable.

Inquiring about the mileage, condition of power accessories, rust issues, and that the dreaded "some work" referred to on this car http://detroit.craigslist.org/wyn/cto/3406853920.html yielded:

Man, let me tell you it's $1600, is a car that you would get for $1600. it's 32 years old. Thanks

The shiny happy person selling this car http://porthuron.craigslist.org/cto/3405996477.html given a similar question set replied:

Are you kidding, a Mercedes diesel that runs and drives with nothing else wrong for $895. Call a few salvage yards and try to buy a good running Mercedes diesel engine with under 300K miles on it, and see how they are priced. Mercedes diesel timing chains go forever or 500K miles, whichever comes first, so not sure why you would want to replace one. TLC stands for tender love & care, which in the used car world means needs some work on interior and/or exterior. You are looking in the complete wrong price range for a diesel Mercedes. Sorry this car is not for you.

What the hell is wrong with some people?

Just keep looking. Those people really did answer the question of whether you wanted it, I'd read both of those responses as "I'm an idiot, and you wouldn't want to pay money for any car I have owned".

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Its just that GM err, charm? It bothers me, that constant need for attention to non fatal things. Always having something broken.

Not to sound like a dick, or anything, but isn't that pretty much life with any $1200 car?

Duke wrote:

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Its just that GM err, charm? It bothers me, that constant need for attention to non fatal things. Always having something broken.

Not to sound like a dick, or anything, but isn't that pretty much life with *any* $1200 car?

It is, but have you ever had an old chevy? Its not that something is always broken, its that its always something really annoying that breaks. For example: Old Japanese cars are never air tight, the window regulators get loose and you have to slap the crank or hit the power button every morning so they don't whistle. On an old chevy, there's just always a dead motor or broken crank, and the window ends up sagging down a 1/4". The engines are made of rocks(and sound like it too), the transmissions ok, but the rest of the cars are junk.

This sums it up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50IgzksUqpQ

Attention I can handle, I almost enjoy it, I own a street driven Yugo for crying out loud. Replacing a window motor or some stupid sensor buried in a car made of rusty razor blades once a year is just bad.