Lookie lookie... for a car

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Diego440

Diego440

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So, I've moved back to Venezuela and am currently carless. Though I could easily afford a V8 engine as a daily driver in terms of gasoline, the fact is that insurance, parts and overall price are through the roof (roughly 3 times the normal price). First off, I'm looking for a car no older than 10 years (preferably less than 5), though I could consider older cars if the price is right. I also will only drive manual transmission... despite living in a country where there's traffic 24/7, there's also a lot of hills... and I just despise driving autos. Additionally, the car will most likely be a weekend car (rarely driven over the week, unless it's night and I'm going out). lastly, I live in a 3rd world country, so sometimes getting parts for cars can get very expensive, especially if the farther they're from. It's not uncommon for car shops to wait over 3 months for a part, so I'm looking for something durable. My dad drives a Kia-something and his car's been in the shop for over 9 months.

I'm not looking to get price suggestions, though from the examples you can see my price range. The reason I'm not naming figures is because the Venezuelan currency is like paying with rice grains, so vs. the dollar, the proportions are stupid.

So, here's what I'm considering:



2006-2008 Peugeot 206 (1.6 litre, 5 door)
Pros:
- Great looks: my favourite looking car of the bunch
- Assembled in Argentina: parts could be imported quicker than from France
- Good quality: the 206s I saw in Spain were in pretty good condition mechanically.
- My boss is selling his at a good price.

Cons:
- Expensive maintenance: given that there's little of them here, getting the parts can be expensive and difficult.
- Representation: there's little-to-no Peugeot representatives/garages here, so I'd have to go to Joe's Garage and see if they can muster somethng up.




2005-2008 Ford Fiesta (1.6 litre, 5 door)
Pros:
- High powered: I don't know the output, but it has a nice power-to-weight ratio.
- Parts: There is a Ford representative here and the support is great.
- It's a Ford: I've owned about 8 cars in my life, and at least 6 have been Fords. I like the cars and am happy with the quality.

Cons:
- Too attractive: Like many 3rd world countries, Venezuela has a high rate of carjackings, and the Fiesta is among the most stolen cars.
- Appearance: I'm used to the Euro Fiesta, this one's ugly. (minor thing, really).




2007- 2008 Ford Ka (1.6 litre, 3 door)
Pros:
- 1.6 litre engine in a small car... I like! Shares platform with the Fiat 500, so thing of a Fiat 500 with a 1.6 and you're on the right track.
- It's a Ford (read above)
- Durable: There seems to be a good image of the car... I rarely hear of them going bad.

Cons:
- Ugly as hell
- Status: I don't want to paint myself as a snob, but it's a cheap car... or the people who drive it are.




1992 - 1993 Mini Cooper (most are 1.0, but there's a few 1.3 litre)

Pros:
- Love the looks, lovely car in general
- Fits anywhere
- Power-to-weight ratio

Cons:
- Parts: Venezuela only got about 300 of these in the early 90s, out of which less than 50 survive, and God knows where they got the parts, since there wasn't any representation, ever. They were even sold under a different nameplate (Mini Cord)
- Age: It's almost 20 years old (and surely very high mileage)
- Insurance: Almost nonexistent. Cars over 10 years old are uninsurable, unless you want to pay like 10-15 times a normal insurance rate... or 3 times the price of the car.




2005 - 2007 Volkswagen Gol (1.8 litre, 5 door)

Pros:
- Power: 1.8 litre engine, and it's about the size of a Polo
- Parts: Made in Brazil, which would make it well-priced for parts.
- Spacious: It's pretty big inside.

Cons:
- Build quality: most of the parts seem to be made of balsa wood.
- Butt ugly!




1998 - 1999 Toyota Starlet (1.3 litre, 5 door)
Pros:
- Durability: It's a Toyota, and those things last forever, and the Starlet is a very well-made car.
- Power: It has about 80hp, but I've always been a fan of the Glanza-V and a friend of mine offered me a very nice turbo at a very nice price.
- It's probably one of the cheapest cars of the bunch.

Cons:
- Age: Over 10 years old. Insurance and maintenance are a factor.
- Parts: Though available, someone apparentyl thought up that Toyota = Mercedes Benz, so they can get expensive.




2006 - 2008 Chevrolet Aveo (1.4-1.6 litre, 5 door)
Pros:
- Cheap: To own and to maintain
- Parts: Easily accesible almost anywhere.
- Availability: I hear they're not bad cars, but everyone and their brother is selling them.

Cons:
- Ugliest
- Car
- Ever
- Rebadged Daewoo




2003 - 2006 Chrysler (Dodge) Neon (2.0 litre, 4 doors)
Pros:
- Spacious: The largest car in the bunch.
- Power: At 132hp, it's also the highest powered one, and my friend's turbo also fits into it.
- Parts: American car = easily available parts
- Friends: My best friend is part of the Neon Owner's Club and owns a SRT-4, he swears on their durability and quality.

Cons:
- Quality: After 5 years, mechanical issues arise in some cars.
- Looks: My grandma looks sporty in one. Not myself.




2005 - 2007 Renault Clio (1.4 litre, 5 door)
Pros:
- Looks: I like how it looks... sporty and not cheap.
- Good all-rounder
- Somewhat representation/parts: Not exactly cheap, but at least available
- Quality: Renault had a bad reputation here until the Clio rolled along.

Cons:
- It's a Renault... ever tried servicing one? You can only take it to a Renault garage, where they have Renault tools. You can's use anything else. Even changing the sparkplugs can be amazingly expensive.
- Attractive: For burglars.
- Power: The 172 and 182 and Clio Sport are amazingly powered cars. The 1.4 is definitely not.




2006 - 2008 Renault Twingo (1.3 litre, 3 door)
Pros:
- Durability: They seem to last longer than the Clios.
- Power: For some reason, modding it from the usual 45hp to an nice 75hp is absurdly cheap and easy to do. And at 75hp it's suddenly attractive.
- Cheap... at least to buy.

Cons:
- Looks: It's slightly less ugly than a Chevrolet Aveo
- Looks (again): It's prettier outside than inside.
- It's a Renault.




2002 - 2003 Chevrolet (Suzuki) Wagon R+ (1.3 litre, 5 door)
Pros:
- Japanese quality
- Parts are accesible because it's Japanese and a Chevrolet (somewhat)
- There's apparently a couple of 4x4 versions out there.

Cons:
- Yeah, it's really ugly. But I've always had an intense distate for it, but I've always wanted one to tune the hell out of.
- Extremely underpowered and not easy to tuneup.
- Looks like a Smurf's minivan.


So that's it. If anyone can share any experience on any of these, or give me opinions and thoughts, it'd be greatly appreciated. There might be a few cars not mentioned here, and I'll listen and respond about them.

There's also the fact that I can get bigger cars for less money, but I refuse to buy anything Chinese, Iranian or Indian.
 
It looks like you are stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to cars. Anything that looks remotely promising would probably be to expensive or impossible to repair.

I'd avoid the Chevy Aveo, they are awful, horrid vehicles and you'll hate driving one. We obviously get them here in the states and for a while it was the cheapest car you could buy and it shows. It makes me list of one of the 10 worse cars I've ever had the displeasure of driving.

Neon's seem to have hit or miss reliability. I have friends that have 150,000 miles on their Neon's and autocross them every Saturday. I also have friends that had Neon's with 20,000 miles on them explode. Neon's are very common first cars here in Michigan so everyone either knows someone that owned/owns one or owns/owned one themselves. I had one back in the day, it was awful.

I like the 206, even though it's French and I'm not a fan of French cars. I always thought they looked good, although I have no idea on the reliability of one.

Do you have any opposition to a truck or SUV? I know GM did a rather strange version of the S-10 and Blazer for the South American market (possibly elsewhere). The Blazer was reliable enough but it was stupidly easy to repair when it went wrong...save for changing the sparkplugs which was a PITA. I'm sure there are numerous Toyota trucks down their too, and we know from Top Gear that you can drop the thing from a building and they'll live.

Why is it so hard to get parts there? Is the post just not very reliable? If push comes to shove couldn't you just buy parts off of eBay and have them shipped in? I ship all over the world but rarely do it to South America and when I do it's to Brazil so I have no idea what it's like.
 
Tom Servo
- Insurance: Almost nonexistent. Cars over 10 years old are uninsurable, unless you want to pay like 10-15 times a normal insurance rate... or 3 times the price of the car.
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I'm intrigued by this. That's like the exact opposite of what makes sense.

As Joey said, Neons can be hit or miss. My dad has a first gen ACR and loves it (as do I). On the other hand, I know kids who had them in high school who had plenty of problems with them.
That being said, Dodge did have most of the problems sorted out by the second generation, so the horror stories of cam failure and whatnot usually only apply to '94-'99 models. Also, the Neon is pretty much the only American car that's worth it assuming Focii are stolen as much as Fiestas are.
 
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Welll, with insurance there's always someone willing to try and get the upper hand and screw the insurance companies over. So for a time it wasn't strange that people with cars over ten years old, whenever they started being too much of a pain, they'd manage to have them blow up, or fall down a cliff or something and then claim (or try to claim) the insurance. Sure, it was fraud, but after while it cost the companies more to prove it was fraud than the actual payment. So they eventually put such high rates for older cars that they've become too expensive.

Older cars have third-party insurance, but even that is very unreliable. The key is "3rd world rules".

The parts issue is equally absurd. I'm going to have to go into the currency detail.

First off, the dollar drives our economy, like so many other countries. But we have 2 scales for the dollar: official and black market. The official price of the dollar is 2.150 BSF (Venezuelan currency) and black market is 6.500 BSF... the problem is that no one can get their hands on the official dollar, because it's illegal to own them (over $400)... don't ask why, this is a 3rd world socialist-wannabe country, whose president prides himself in making this country be more and more like Cuba everyday. :rolleyes:

So, when you'd normally pay (for example) $250 for a clutch kit, we have to pay around $700-1,000 for it... and wait at least a couple of months. Buying it over the internet is an option, but again, there's a limit to how much we can spend over the internet ($400 including S&H). As always, there's ways around it, but rarely will you get a good deal, and there's always a high amount of risk. Hence why I need something durable.
 
What's funny is that immediately after I read "needs new car" and "South America," I thought Volkswagen. Then, after quickly running through the models in my head, Gol popped up first. Awesome. I had a first-generation Gol, and it wasn't too bad of a car. Thinking of the "Bare Essentials" thread, it is that to a 'T'.

Ugly? Yes. Reliable and fuel-friendly? Pretty much. Parts are cheap, as you point out. Not a bad place to start...

What about the Polo Classic? I believe it is a re-issued MKIII Polo, which was otherwise a pretty good car. That may not be a bad place to start.
 
The Polo came here in very little numbers and my price range would let me go for a '99-'02 model, and it's the one with trunk (4 door, not 5)... which would make me prefer the Gol. I didn't know the Gol made it to the States.

I'm not in a big hurry to buy, so I can still throw ideas around.
 
Throwing looks out the window, I would narrow it down to...
The 206 (Despite the fact that it's French)
The Ka
and the Neon if you want to play Russian Roulette.
 
Aveo: Never. Ever. Ever Buy. An. Aveo. Ever.

Wagon R... unless you can import the turbo engine cheaply, it might be a pain to modify.

I'd go for the Fiesta, or the Golf... either way you swing is just fine.
 
My choices from the above would be either Ka, Neon or Gol. The Mini would be awesome but as an everyday car you'd probably tire of it. The Ka is a good choice, they're pretty reliable, dirt cheap to fix etc - it's just a pity the styling of the ones you get is so messed up compared to the still pretty fresh looking European version Scratch that, it probably looks better than the current Euro one. Didn't know it was based off the new one...

I've always liked Neons for some reason. I was only about 15 when they first started importing them to the UK and I went to a local car show where they had an example, alongside the new-to-the-UK Voyager at the same time. They look okay, and from the ones I've sat in before they seem comfy. They're also supposed to handle reasonably well, though there are those question marks over reliability.

So I'd go for the Gol. I really like the "honest" rest-of-the-world Volkswagens like the Gol, CrossFox, Parati, Saveiro etc. They all seem to be very close to the ethos of the original Beetle - not pseudo-luxury like current VWs, but hard-working, affordable family cars. That reminds me actually, is a CrossFox in your budget? I really like the look of them:

558_crossfox_abre.jpg
 
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I have issues with the Fox/CrossFox. I drove one for a while, and though it's nice, I felt I was driving a piece of plastic. The CrossFox is beyond my financial capabilities at the moment, and I had the chance of buying a Fox about a month ago, but the guy increased the price 50% in a month's time. Also, I've heard a few horror stories about the Fox, but mostly because it's supposedly not a worthy successor to the Polo. Regarding the Ka, I know the new one is based on te same platform as the 500, I just assumed the older one was as well... so maybe it's not.

I'm amazed there's no love for the Fiesta. I thought I would be getting so many suggestions to go and get one. I all honesty, the real possibles are Gol, Fiesta and 206. The rest are just ideas, though I wouldn't mind any of them.

There's also the possibility of getting a Fiat, but I've always placed them in the same category as the Aveo... in the NEVER! category.
 
Tom Servo
I have issues with the Fox/CrossFox. I drove one for a while, and though it's nice, I felt I was driving a piece of plastic. The CrossFox is beyond my financial capabilities at the moment, and I had the chance of buying a Fox about a month ago, but the guy increased the price 50% in a month's time. Also, I've heard a few horror stories about the Fox, but mostly because it's supposedly not a worthy successor to the Polo.
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The Fox replaced the Lupo in the UK as it's smaller than the Polo, although I'm not sure how things were over there. And over here it was derided at first as it's not as interesting as the Lupo, but at the end of the day it's still a VW and it's still likely to last better than the average Ford/Renault/Peugeot etc. Fair enough though if it's not your cup of tea 👍

Regarding the Ka, I know the new one is based on te same platform as the 500, I just assumed the older one was as well... so maybe it's not.
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Oh. In that case, it's not. The old Ka, and the one the South Americas get, is based on the Mk4 Fiesta rather than the Fiat 500 like the new Ka is. So it'll be more fun to drive, as the new Ka is fairly lacklustre wheras the old one was brilliant.

I'm amazed there's no love for the Fiesta. I thought I would be getting so many suggestions to go and get one. I all honesty, the real possibles are Gol, Fiesta and 206. The rest are just ideas, though I wouldn't mind any of them.
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The Fiesta is just a bit uninteresting compared to others on your list. It's a perfectly good car but I see hundreds of the things every day over here and especially as a 5-door it's pretty bland. I'd rather the Gol.

There's also the possibility of getting a Fiat, but I've always placed them in the same category as the Aveo... in the NEVER! category.
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Which Fiats are available to you? Presumably the Palio, and perhaps the Punto? I've no idea if the Palio is any good as they were mainly aimed at developing-world countries so most of Europe didn't get any of them. Given that it was designed for some reasonably harsh conditions I'd expect it to be durable at the very least. Whether it's reliable is a different matter. But again, I'd rather the Gol.
 
Whatever you do, don't get a Fox. They're horrible. Cheap plastic interior as you said and they break a lot.

Anyway, I recently bought a 2003 Peugeot 206, though mine is a 1.0 litre 16v engine. So far I'm happy with it, but keep in mind it's a two people car. It's very very tight in the back seat, and I'm much shorter than you. :p

I don't know all the cars you listed, but between the 206, Clio, Ka, Fiesta, Twingo and Gol I'd stick with the 206 or the Clio. They're the most "luxurious" ones, though their maintenance cost is the higher too. I went for the 206 because one of my brothers-in-law works as a mechanic at the local Peugeot dealer, so he makes my life easier. Otherwise I'd probably have gone with a Clio.

If Venezuela's anything like Brazil the insurance cost of the Gol should be pretty high, as this is one of the most stolen cars over here.

I hope this helps.
 
Alright, so car search is more or less on hiatus, since I've decided on making a trip I've wanted to do since forever and now appears to be the best time (not expensive, I'm alone and not doing much). So the money I was going to use for the car will most likely go towards the trip.

It also helps that there's supposed to be a regulation of new and used car's prices coming up, though that is still rather shady.
 
Tom Servo
Alright, so car search is more or less on hiatus, since I've decided on making a trip I've wanted to do since forever and now appears to be the best time (not expensive, I'm alone and not doing much).
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That's great, Disney World should be quieter this time of year 👍
 

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