People will surely disparage me, but I once drove a 5sp Cobalt - reasonably fun car, I think it had 155hp and weighed in at 2700 or 2800lbs.
And for this, insults will be hurled at me, but I thought it was a pretty decent looking car, too. Especially the 2-doors.
In reply to NGTD:
If they were rusty, they must have been driven down gravel roads a lot or something. I originally bought mine at 10k miles in '04, and it survived 100k miles with my sister driving it. Poor thing has been abused to hell and never garaged its entire life.
Jaynen wrote:Travis_K wrote: A tdi will need an expensive timing belt change as soon as you get it, because 99% chance it was done wrong, and its not worth the risk of ruining a $2000 engine to not do it.It's also a maybe 700 dollar thing that only has to be done once every 100,000 miles and will easily add 700 bucks to the resale value of the car if you have proof its been done. Check TDI club and look for local Gurus or independents not dealers. If you aren't driving a lot of miles it may not be worth it but my 2000 Jetta TDI got 43mpg with the AC on and doing 80+mph on california freeways
yeah if you have someone from tdi club do it it will get done right and not be terribly expensive. When I sols mine I for sure didn't get any extra money for the timing belt being just done all with all the other work that I did to it, it was more people saying it should be worth less because of the extra 3500 miles I put on it while I had it.
OldGray320i wrote: People will surely disparage me, but I once drove a 5sp Cobalt - reasonably fun car, I think it had 155hp and weighed in at 2700 or 2800lbs. And for this, insults will be hurled at me, but I thought it was a pretty decent looking car, too. Especially the 2-doors.
I will defiantly agree the cobalt was way above the cavalier it replaced. Not a bad car
Matrix xrs, lotus elise driveline, revs to the moon, 6 speed, can be made pretty with simple mods, unique, good aftermarket support, reliable.
In reply to OldGray320i:
I almost bought a Pontiac G5 GT with the 180 Hp motor. I thought they are a nice car even in 4-door.
Do the Golfs of this era have the same hyper-fragile, fails over and over again, don't drive over potholes with your windows up window regulators as Jettas?
In reply to Mike:
I think you are referring to the window holders. They should have been replaced by now as there was a recall. Mine are metal. The ones that used to break are plastic.
Other than what has been mentioned, how about a Saturn SC2?
Mike wrote: Do the Golfs of this era have the same hyper-fragile, fails over and over again, don't drive over potholes with your windows up window regulators as Jettas?
Unfortunately yes. As mentioned you can get a metal bottomed replacement part to fix it. It's a bit of a PIA but there are some very detailed DIY threads on vwvortex.com that outline the process completely. It's definitely a DIY that doesn't require a trip to a dealer. The all metal clips should never need future replacement.
Thanks for all the help. I have a few cars lined up to look at this week. As far as the Focus, is there any pro/cons to the ZTEC engine?
Cuda wrote: Thanks for all the help. I have a few cars lined up to look at this week. As far as the Focus, is there any pro/cons to the ZTEC engine?
Other than avoiding an early 8 valve, not that I'm aware of. ztec has been bulletproof in my boy's car. Some of the later Foci have a duratec, which, if you get the 2.3, is 150hp.
The Zetec is a great engine. Simple, reliable, easy to work on, and if for some reason you do manage to blow one up, you can pick one up at the junkyard for a few hundred bucks. It's the poor-man's Honda B-series.
The duratecs make more power but they're a little less common and a little more tightly wedged in there.
How about a 6th gen celica GT or integra? They're not terribly hard to find in that price range nowadays. I think the big 2.2 of the celica gt should play nicely with an automatic transmission as well.
I bought a POS $1200 Focus to get me through the winter. It has the Zetec and a 5 speed and I must confess the thing is actually kind of fun to drive. The engine is peppy and rev happy, gets great fuel mileage and parts have been cheap (junkyards are full of them these days).
I would NOT consider one with the single cam CVH engine. They are junk. Window regulators are cheap and failure prone but the make aftermarket replacements and they aren't difficult to do once you figure out the stupid plastic dowel pin. Plastic thermo housing will leak (again, cheap aftermarket replacement available), the harness for the electric fans is known to melt which can cause overheating and I had a plastic coolant pipe blow up on me ($23 at the dealer). Other than those issues the little turd just runs and runs. It's built to a price but for a car you can buy for pocket lint it's surprisingly good.
I would avoid the SVT Focus. Unfortunately they seem to be riddled with expensive problems. Five minutes on the message boards convinced me they aren't worth the hassle.
ddavidv wrote: I would avoid the SVT Focus. Unfortunately they seem to be riddled with expensive problems. Five minutes on the message boards convinced me they aren't worth the hassle.
Mostly disagree. They all have the same common issues that the average car owner avoids. CELs are common for very easy fixes. Parts are widely available new and used.
ddavidv wrote: I would avoid the SVT Focus. Unfortunately they seem to be riddled with expensive problems.
What expensive problems? We put 40K track miles on this car and the only problem we had was the little plastic piece that activated the variable intake. And I fixed that with a sheetmetal screw!
We did blow a head gasket on this one. But some times that happens with 12lbs of turbocharger boost.
All this talk of Foci got me thinking and caused an interesting discussion just now. There's a black 3door about a mile from me that has been sitting, looks good from the street. I thought, "maybe it's a 5spd that they want gone?" envisioning another $250 drag-it-home deal.
I did some quick searching and found that you can get an SVT suspension kit for $289 from Summit, including rear anti-roll bar.
In the midst of this, my son shows up and says "We already have four cars, why are you looking at Focus stuff?"
Son? I have no son. 
I know I just got a Miata, but I'm still enamored with an early 3-door, euro bumpers on it, drop it, nice wheels, exhaust and drive around looking cool.
In reply to XLR99 - my son would encourage me to do it, and as soon as my wife found it, would promptly throw me under the bus - "I told dad not to do it!". I love my boy.
XLR99 wrote: I did some quick searching and found that you can get an SVT suspension kit for $289 from Summit, including rear anti-roll bar.
Just a cautionary note: There are some differences in the front suspension (strut diameter) over the years. Make sure you get the kit for the year car you have. IIRC, the groupings are 2000-2005, 2006-2011, 2012+.
Duratec = timing chain, so less maintenance.
Early examples of both are terribly unreliable. If the budget stretches, go for a Gen 1 Mazda 3.
Early 2000s meaning MK4 Golf? Avoid. Get the Focus. MK5 and later? Sure go ahead.
Early examples of both are terribly unreliable. If the budget stretches, go for a Gen 1 Mazda 3.
So the Focus is unreliable but the badge engineered one is ok?
In reply to kanaric:
Badge-engineered EU Gen 2-based one, yes. I know people who have had nothing but trouble with original focuses. However, if you go for a lightly-used manual (the autos crap out after high miles) Mark IV, you may be alright. I know people who have had good experiences and bad experiences with those cars.
Well, I bit on a 2003 ZX3. It is pretty clean for a 12 year old car. It will need a bit of deferred maintenance I think, but nothing too bad. 
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