Son's GF needs reliable transport, and there's what looks to be a clean 99 Protege on CL. Memory says y'all say these are a good choice, yes?
She's also a fan of Crown Vics, and from everything I see those are bullet proof.
Budget is $3k, she's young and broke.
Helps is most appreciated!
I would highly recommend that generation Protégé. I had a '99 DX 5spd as a DD for about 4 years. Bought it with 70k miles and sold it at 150k. Never needed anything beyond routine upkeep. Averaged 33mpg. Fun as all hell, if she cares about that stuff.
At that budget condition is probably going to be more important than make/model. How about something like this from an old lady who can no longer drive: http://richmond.craigslist.org/cto/5223865958.html
Klayfish, that confirms my memories in reading on here. I think she's more show than go; she makes sure my son takes her to the cars&coffee all the time, and she goes with him to auto-x all the time.
Does the autotragic hold up well in the Mazda?
szeis4cookie, those are the types of things that they're finding, so they're on the right track there - but Richmond is a little far from the desert here.
The early Mazda automatics were a bit inefficient (as in parasitic loss - for example the Probe GT V6 manual ran low 16's in the 1/4 mile wile the automatic version ran mid-high 17's), but by all accounts durable under normal use.
As long as you don't live in the rustbelt the Protege is a good choice.
If you do live in the rustbelt maybe look to see if early Vibes have fallen into that price range.
Had two of them in the fleet for 10 years. They finally died due to rust. I drove mine like I stole it. I also happen to like the style.
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