Do early gen1s have any 'cachet'?

They read the accident report when a claim gets presented. "Oh, this happened when you said you wouldn't drive. Claim denied, you pay all liabilities, thanks for the premiums. NEXT!"

 

To answer my own question, “they” would know from annual inspection records, which have to report mileage since the last inspection (I.e., current mileage must be entered in the data base).

 

Me? Have an accident? Surely you jest! ( …and stop calling me Shirley).

 

I just looked up what "cachet" meant, thought I'd drop by.

 

"Cachet" was given when you were a hollywood star and drove your new Prius to the awards show.

 

It’s what ball players do.

 

Hey nah Coalroller, are you up there in the anthracite?

 

Nah, the username is just good fun, no actual relationship to coal.

I'm down in the nowhere southwest of the Queen City.

 

Pretty long thread for an unwanted car, lol. Just got back from a 600m round trip for Christmas. Did another one of those in November. Never think twice about these cars leaving me stranded. Just jump in and drive away every day.

Maybe I'd worry about sending a wife on a long trip, but I'd worry about that with any car. Around town, she just has to Uber and she's on the road again in a few minutes. I don't know what "safety" features the later Gens have, but G1s don't feel unsafe to me. Small front-wheel drive cars always seem stable; brakes work fine, steering is good. Front and side airbags.

It just goes back to money for me. If I had $5000 dollars and needed a car to drive 100k miles over the next 5 years, I'd buy a reliable old ultra low-mileage car and have enough money left to top up all its maintenance. For $5000, you can buy a beautiful old car with very low mileage that will run fine for another 100k miles with only routine maintenance. It's just true.

Put $5000 down on a new $30,000 car instead, and you lose +$3000 when you drive it off the lot, plus another $1500-$2000 in sales tax, and if you take out a loan, full insurance for another +$1800/yr-$9000/over 5 years. At the end of one year, 20k miles, you'll have spent more on that new car than the old car cost for all 5 years.

When I see the reality of that math, and understand that the only risk of it not paying off is potential repairs to the older car. It's an easy decision to buy a couple more G1s. Same logic as buying Walmart lawnmower batteries - I can get 6-10 for the price of one OEM battery? I'll roll those dice any day, and have been.

I'd estimate that in the last 5 years I've put about 70,000 miles on a group of 3 G1s. No way I paid over $7,500 for all 3. In fact, I've sold one and got about half of that money back. Another one still runs fine and I'm letting a relative use it - his trip to meet us for Christmas was longer than mine. And I'm still driving the third, although a little less than a couple of others right now. They all still have less than 150k miles. I can drive them another 5 years easy. That's just hard math to turn down. And when one craps out, I just throw it away.

 

I certainly think they do have a lot of cachet --- at least to a guy like me who's decided that my new automotive masculinity metric is $spent/miles-driven

With a $500 auction car at 86k miles, currently 144k and less than $2300 cash into it TOTAL (incl tax, registration, all parts etc) and at ~44mpg, I think that this is about the best car ever.

AC and heat works, drives fine and usually needs nothing at all besides fuel and oil changes. And tires occasionally.

Certainly the BEST $$/miles ratio I've ever gotten.


Currently maybe dealing with an MG2 issue (?) but even then, the replacement part is like $650, so.......

Ofc my time isn't really free, but i don't charge myself so it's all good.

 

This is a feature, not a bug. It's about the most non-descript car ever. If you removed the badging, most folks would have to read the vin to find out

 

True. I did have an older Asian couple stop in front of my car once; the man pointing and saying something to his wife.