Ice Knight
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Which should I pick?
Ok, my mom has finally given in, and i'm going to be given their old crappy car no one drives. I guess she finally realized that she may be driving me to work for some time unless they do something about it. For me to buy a car it would take me atleast several months more of saving. And I know she'd lose her mind spending her days in a van making for trips a day to pick me up and drop me off, come home etc. And I will not pay her for gas, (hell i'm trying to save my money for a car so she doesn't have to drive me and burn fuel in the first place) Why should I pay for gas when i'm only riding in the car half the time she's running to and from the mall?
So this morning she said that if i'm willing to fork out for insurance and any repairs needed to get it running o.k. that the Trackers mine. ofcourse I agreed.
Then a bit later she came out and asked me if i'd rather have the Camry. The Camry is my Grandparents car, and they live with us, so my mom drives them everywhere. My grandma has hardly driven a car in her life, and refuses to drive still, and the last time my grandpa tried to sneak off and go somewhere he nearly wiped out in a tree alongside our driveway, he's a serious hazard to others on the road so my mom tries to keep him out of the drivers seat by taking him herself.
So the Camry has just been sitting in the garage and has literally collected a layer of dust, and last time they moved it we had to jump it since the battery went dead from it sitting. So my Grandma was planning to sell it to keep it away from my grandpa. But my parents could easily get the car turned over to me since I need one.
SOOOO, I have 2 choices:
95' Geo Tracker with 105,000 miles
OR
92' Toyota Camry with around 90,000
Obviously the Camry would be a better pick, it's a far better car, worht more, better mileage, and in far better condition. My parents couldn't take care of the tracker worth a crap, and they smoked in it something wicked. The camry is in GREAT condition, my grandpa took it to the dealer for all maintenance, kept it clean as hell and so forth.
Here is a description of each car:
Tracker:
Needs work, has some kind of exhaust problem, upon starting it's as if the exhaust vents into the cabin, and until you've driven for a minute remains fairly stinky. It had hardly any general maintenance performed on it, basically only a oil change once in a while, and it was done far less than it should have been done. It has had NO timing belt change in it's life, and JUST had it's first new air filter put in since it left the factory, and let me tell you it looked like a bird built a nest in the airbox. The interior is also fairly crappy, not tooo bad but not good. Seats have some cigarette burn holes, speakers are worn out, fabric is slightly smoke stained, as is the roof material, plastic windows are scratched and fogged from age, the rear window is dried out and cracked which is patched with box tape. Also a small bracket that helps hold the rar window plastic in place broke and there is now a gap that some rain comes into the hatchback. The black paint is kinda dull, has some very small rust specs on the front from rock chips, and bubbling paint in the door jambs. The dome light does not work. Back to the engine, one of the belt pulleys, i'm guessing the fan pulley, must be worn out, cuz when under acceleration it squeaks. It failed the last E-check, we then added a bottle of that shit that temporaily cleans up emmissons and it passed, narrowly, the 2nd time through. It's a 5-speed and the clutch is hell to use smoothly. It has no power windows or anything like that, very basic features.
The Camry:
Mechanically VERY sound, I have noticed the drivetrain is a bit noisy at times, but nothing seems outta place, it has the 2.2L 4 cylinder instead of the six, which helps on fuel. Power everything, cruise control, etc. It's actually got a decent amount of power considering the engine, it also rides very well and is quiet inside. Theres not much to say about it, everything works and it would last a long time, and not to mention is worth far more, it's a automatic.
Now heres how I see it:
I'm actually leaning towards the Tracker if you can imagine that. The biggest thing is I am FAR more comfortable, and enjoy driving a manual vehicle. I can't get used to having the pedal take me all the way to the end of the speedo where as in a maual if you put the pedal all the way in you'd max out at maybe 15mph. I can't say enough how much I prefer manual, it's funner, slightly more efficient, and I feel safer driving it. Plus I think the Camry is kinda a boat, I hate big cars, it's not really to big, but compared to the tracker it's just more car for me to park worry about. another thing is with the Camry its like your sitting on a skateboard, you sit right on the floorboard, and the car sits right on the ground, so you basically have to crawl out of it and fall into it. And with me being short, and the high dash and window sills I can't see out too well. I also hate the color, it's like a goldish-tan, fugly! And I think the car is ugly, and the interior sucks. I know I shouldnt be getting picky but I have bad memories when I was younger of riding around in that thing and my grandpa having the windows shut on a scorching hot day airconditiong barely on and his old spice smell floating around, and ofcourse the radio was never on, I always felt like I was gonna hurl, that car still smells like old man to this day.
The tracker on the other hand is small, comfortably holds 2 ppl, the hell if i'll need more than that, doesn't haul much, which doesn't matter to me since i'm not hauling much more than me. And it IS a 5-speed. My dad said it wouldn't cost much to get fixed up into something that's reliable and decent. And I also like that it's got a sunroof, and hell it's also a convertable, a feature I would actually use. It's sexy as hell compared to that damn Camry, AC and heat work fine, and if I cleaned it out throughly it wouldn't be too bad to ride around in. I will say it's not the safest thing to ride around in, it has no ABS, a fabric roof, and could probably be run over by a old Dodge Neon. I also forgot to mention the aluminum/alloy wheels are rusting a bit, maybe there just dirty who knows, and probably a good waxing would put the life back into the paint and then it wouldn't be too painful to look at. I also need to mention it's loud as fuck going down the highway in that thing and you feel every bump of the road. The Tracker is actually the car my dad ran out and bought when my parents had their first divorce, so I have plenty of shitty memories involving that thing also.
I'm leaning towards the Tracker, lol, the thing is still running after all this time without a damn thing being done to it, I can imagine that if stuff was done to it it'd run forever.
Ok, my mom has finally given in, and i'm going to be given their old crappy car no one drives. I guess she finally realized that she may be driving me to work for some time unless they do something about it. For me to buy a car it would take me atleast several months more of saving. And I know she'd lose her mind spending her days in a van making for trips a day to pick me up and drop me off, come home etc. And I will not pay her for gas, (hell i'm trying to save my money for a car so she doesn't have to drive me and burn fuel in the first place) Why should I pay for gas when i'm only riding in the car half the time she's running to and from the mall?
So this morning she said that if i'm willing to fork out for insurance and any repairs needed to get it running o.k. that the Trackers mine. ofcourse I agreed.
Then a bit later she came out and asked me if i'd rather have the Camry. The Camry is my Grandparents car, and they live with us, so my mom drives them everywhere. My grandma has hardly driven a car in her life, and refuses to drive still, and the last time my grandpa tried to sneak off and go somewhere he nearly wiped out in a tree alongside our driveway, he's a serious hazard to others on the road so my mom tries to keep him out of the drivers seat by taking him herself.
So the Camry has just been sitting in the garage and has literally collected a layer of dust, and last time they moved it we had to jump it since the battery went dead from it sitting. So my Grandma was planning to sell it to keep it away from my grandpa. But my parents could easily get the car turned over to me since I need one.
SOOOO, I have 2 choices:
95' Geo Tracker with 105,000 miles
OR
92' Toyota Camry with around 90,000
Obviously the Camry would be a better pick, it's a far better car, worht more, better mileage, and in far better condition. My parents couldn't take care of the tracker worth a crap, and they smoked in it something wicked. The camry is in GREAT condition, my grandpa took it to the dealer for all maintenance, kept it clean as hell and so forth.
Here is a description of each car:
Tracker:
Needs work, has some kind of exhaust problem, upon starting it's as if the exhaust vents into the cabin, and until you've driven for a minute remains fairly stinky. It had hardly any general maintenance performed on it, basically only a oil change once in a while, and it was done far less than it should have been done. It has had NO timing belt change in it's life, and JUST had it's first new air filter put in since it left the factory, and let me tell you it looked like a bird built a nest in the airbox. The interior is also fairly crappy, not tooo bad but not good. Seats have some cigarette burn holes, speakers are worn out, fabric is slightly smoke stained, as is the roof material, plastic windows are scratched and fogged from age, the rear window is dried out and cracked which is patched with box tape. Also a small bracket that helps hold the rar window plastic in place broke and there is now a gap that some rain comes into the hatchback. The black paint is kinda dull, has some very small rust specs on the front from rock chips, and bubbling paint in the door jambs. The dome light does not work. Back to the engine, one of the belt pulleys, i'm guessing the fan pulley, must be worn out, cuz when under acceleration it squeaks. It failed the last E-check, we then added a bottle of that shit that temporaily cleans up emmissons and it passed, narrowly, the 2nd time through. It's a 5-speed and the clutch is hell to use smoothly. It has no power windows or anything like that, very basic features.
The Camry:
Mechanically VERY sound, I have noticed the drivetrain is a bit noisy at times, but nothing seems outta place, it has the 2.2L 4 cylinder instead of the six, which helps on fuel. Power everything, cruise control, etc. It's actually got a decent amount of power considering the engine, it also rides very well and is quiet inside. Theres not much to say about it, everything works and it would last a long time, and not to mention is worth far more, it's a automatic.
Now heres how I see it:
I'm actually leaning towards the Tracker if you can imagine that. The biggest thing is I am FAR more comfortable, and enjoy driving a manual vehicle. I can't get used to having the pedal take me all the way to the end of the speedo where as in a maual if you put the pedal all the way in you'd max out at maybe 15mph. I can't say enough how much I prefer manual, it's funner, slightly more efficient, and I feel safer driving it. Plus I think the Camry is kinda a boat, I hate big cars, it's not really to big, but compared to the tracker it's just more car for me to park worry about. another thing is with the Camry its like your sitting on a skateboard, you sit right on the floorboard, and the car sits right on the ground, so you basically have to crawl out of it and fall into it. And with me being short, and the high dash and window sills I can't see out too well. I also hate the color, it's like a goldish-tan, fugly! And I think the car is ugly, and the interior sucks. I know I shouldnt be getting picky but I have bad memories when I was younger of riding around in that thing and my grandpa having the windows shut on a scorching hot day airconditiong barely on and his old spice smell floating around, and ofcourse the radio was never on, I always felt like I was gonna hurl, that car still smells like old man to this day.
The tracker on the other hand is small, comfortably holds 2 ppl, the hell if i'll need more than that, doesn't haul much, which doesn't matter to me since i'm not hauling much more than me. And it IS a 5-speed. My dad said it wouldn't cost much to get fixed up into something that's reliable and decent. And I also like that it's got a sunroof, and hell it's also a convertable, a feature I would actually use. It's sexy as hell compared to that damn Camry, AC and heat work fine, and if I cleaned it out throughly it wouldn't be too bad to ride around in. I will say it's not the safest thing to ride around in, it has no ABS, a fabric roof, and could probably be run over by a old Dodge Neon. I also forgot to mention the aluminum/alloy wheels are rusting a bit, maybe there just dirty who knows, and probably a good waxing would put the life back into the paint and then it wouldn't be too painful to look at. I also need to mention it's loud as fuck going down the highway in that thing and you feel every bump of the road. The Tracker is actually the car my dad ran out and bought when my parents had their first divorce, so I have plenty of shitty memories involving that thing also.
I'm leaning towards the Tracker, lol, the thing is still running after all this time without a damn thing being done to it, I can imagine that if stuff was done to it it'd run forever.
