General car buying suggestions

Hey guys,

I just had a few questions for anyone who would help me out about buying a new car. Right now I am driving my first car which is an automatic 93 ford tarus (gag), but now that I am about to graduate and whatnot I am looking at getting somthing new. For a long time I was convinced that I wanted to buy an RX-8 because it's basicly my dream car, however, there are a couple of problems with that. 1. I can drive a straight drive, but I still need practice, and I dont want to learn in a car that nice, lol. 2. I could afford payments and gas, but that would leave me with little or no spending money.

So, after looking at these things I decided that I would be better off spending about 5 grand or so on a used 5 speed car, that get's good gas mileage, and also still has a decent ammount of power, then once I transfer to NC State I can get an RX-8 as a graduation present or somthing.

Sound like I have it all firgured out? Well, this is where you guys come in. I have basicly NO idea what kind of car to go for. Really all I need is somthing decent. I need somthing that comes in a 5-speed, preferably somthing that looks at least kind of cool, and somthing that has a decent ammount of power. It doesnt have to be a whole lot of power, but I dont wanna get blown away by a mini van, lol. Finaly I want it to get decent gas mileage, so a tough 4 cylinder isint out of the question.

Thanks in advance for the input,
V

do you want something that is going to last more then a couple of yrs or do you want something that you are going to be geting rid of.

personally what i have heard from my neighbor who traded in a new rx-8 said that they cost to much to maintain and that every 2 weeks it needed atleast a half quart of oil. so she traded it in for a mazda 3

Well, Basicly I wanna get somthing to last me for 2 years untill I can buy my RX-8. I guess maby I was a bit misleading with the whole RX-8 talk, but I have decided against that for now. Basicly what I am wanting to know, are what are some good cars, that I can maby modify with bodykits and exaust and whatnot that are gonna pack some punch, but still keep it under 5 grandish for the car cost, and get good gas mileage.

So I wanna know what cars are known to be pretty reliable, easy to repair, yada yada, can be made to look cool with modifications, and are V4's (for the gas milage). If you all could give me a few suggestions that would be great, I really just need somewhere to start, because as of right now I dont even know where I should begin, or which cars I should research.

Thanks,
V

civic/interga would not be that bad for realiabity but as long as you don't try to go allong the lines of a ricer but if you want something less realiable there is the second gen eciplse.

and fyi it called I-4 not v4. cars i belive don't have v-4 maybe some ride on mowers do

Ok, after doing some mild research (mainly just checking out the body styles) on the Civic, Integra, and second gen Eclipse, I have narrowed it down to the Integra and the Eclipse. I really like the body style of the eclipse more than the other two, but what else should I know about the two cars to help me make my decision? Which one has more power? Which one has more reliability? Which one is easyier to modify? And which one get's the best gas mileage, and how much of a differance is there between the two.

eciplse has more power and the engine responds better to mods and might be easyer to mod

but the intrega has better realibity maybe slight better gas milage. but it depends on which eciplse you want.

I like this body style pretty well. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Mitsubishi-Eclipse-gst-1995-mitsubishi-eclipse-gst-many-mods-turbo_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ6352QQihZ009QQite mZ190007639650QQrdZ1


Is that a good year? What should I look for, and what should I stay away from? Also, what kind of problems do those year of eclipses have? I only need this car to last me about 2 years, so im not very worried about extremely long term stuff.

But I have to head out to work, so all of the input you can generate would be awesome.

Thanks,
V

Anyone have any suggestions as far as the eclipses go like the one I have linked in my above post?

the car is not bad but it looks like the interior needs some lovin done to it.

I would go with the eclipse (i hate both eclipse and integra though) as they are the better looking cars. whatever you do, don't buy one already modified, mod it yourself. I hear you can't tune the ecu on these things, dunno if that's true or not, and i also hear the diff pin is weak like on the saturns.

yea but a little welding never hurt any one to get the diff pin to we stronger speaking of that i might try to do that sometime on mine