Daily Driver Arguments
 

Quick Question:

I almost tacked on to other threads, but didn't want to hijack their discussions.

Daily Drivers are brought up quite a lot in the forum. To make it black and white (granted it's Grey), we have 2 theories. FD is a horrible daily driver, and FD can be a great daily driver.

I'm of the opinion, FD can be a daily driver. Ideally, It will be my "weekender" (over the long run), but for 1-2 years it will be my DD.

A LOT of people state that the best Mod they have purchased for their FD is a $1,000-$4,000 beater. I don't understand the logic. It seems to me that a $1,000-$4,000 beater only doubles the chances you have for car problems. Instead of having a broken FD, you may have a broken FD and a broken DD. I don't know of many cars, reliable cars, that can be purchased for $1,000.

I'll drive my FD and maintain it until it requires SERIOUS repair, or I'm in a situation to purchase/lease another primary car, whichever comes first.

Does anyone else agree?

Re: Daily Driver Arguments
 

No. When people mean to get a beater, they don't mean a car that is beat to hell and back, losing a part on every turn. Just a cheap car in relatively good condition. Alot of domestics are very cheap after just a few years, and make great daily drivers. When people only spend $1,000 on a car, it's generally a car only for winter snow & rain.

What reliable car can you get for $2,000? Not being cynical, looking for examples.

I just bought a $600 beater. It's a 91 Plymouth Sundance. It'll be my winter car, I'll let you know how it goes :)

I daily drove mine for over a year with NO problems. It wasn't until it became a garage car that it started breaking. Strangest thing... :(

I had a Mazda 626 that I bought for $800. 5spd, FWD (for snow) and not in too bad of shape really. Bought that winter, and then it blew in April or May because it had 202k on it. Sort of a waste of $800, but not a bad deal considering the RX-7 was stored all winter and that 626 really took a beating

for 3rd gen owners, obviously you spent more on the FD than us FC owners, so theres more $$ for daily drivers Id imagine. $3000-4000 could buy a nice used accord, maxima, civic, escort.. etc

lol

Having the beater means to me:
- I have a practical car for bad weather and rough driving so the FD stays nicer
- I have less risk of my FD getting t-boned by some loser, insurance is down b/c it's categorized as a weekend/pleasure car
- I have a car to drive if the FD has any problems so I can take my time/money and fix the FD right
- I have an FD to drive when the beater needs a little TLC
- I have a comfortable car for more than one passenger, or when I haul golf clubs, luggage, my hockey gear, ... (long list of why an RX-7 isn't a practical car)

Dave

lol

You can find all kinds of good reliable beaters for $600-$2000 all over the place. Older Hondas, Nissan/Datsuns, Toyotas etc. have np with hundreds of thousands of miles mechanically. They may look like crap (though I had an old 510 that I picked up for $200 that was immaculate and ran perfect for me for 2 years with 125 mile rt commute a day and still runs perfect for a buddy I sold it to.)

To think their arnt alot of cheap, dependable cars around just meens you're not looking very hard.

Maybe in Missouri but not in California. Here, to get in the <$2000 price range, you are talking a mid 80s Civic/Accord (or older) with ~200k miles. I don't know about you but that doesn't sound like a good investment to me....

Also, I have daily driven my FD for 2 years and 23000 miles. It has been down maybe two weeks in that time for repairs (not counting the body shop for 3 weeks).

That said, I would like a daily driver but have a tough time justifying the cost of getting a decent one. A $1000 beater is not acceptable to me for dependable transportation for work....

buy a small toyota pickup truck (haul parts for the fd when it does break)

I got my March 92 made R1 in July 1992. I drove it dayly until this year. It is about 32 miles round trip to and back from work in HOUSTON traffic.

There were a few 1 day down times the first few years but I would carpool with my wife when it happened. These were safety recalls or simple tihings like the electirc windows being clunky.

Had 3 major downtimes which were caused by Mazda. At three years the front turbo snail came loose and was leaking exhuast. About 2 days downtime MAzda paid for it.

Just past the 4 year expired warranty, the same turbo came loose again. This is when I learned to do it myself.
Had the tubos Pettit upgraded this time and the car was down for about 2 weeks due to Pettit having the turbos.

At about 6 years the #2 rotor oil cooling jet in the e-shaft came out! This was Mazdas fault do to not tightening it enough or using locktight. Got a rebuilt Hayes engine. Downtime about a month.

The Hayes was a piece of shit. Rebuilt it after a year of drving. Another month down. The rebuilt-rebuilt was still bad. Basically threw it away and did a new parts rebuild. That was three years ago. No problems since.

Just finished having the RX-7 repainted, and fixing up the interior like new. Now driving my wifes old car to work.

Sorry, profile location is wrong, was only in MO for a few months. Live in Seattle, our prices are fairly comparable to CA, Ive lived there too. Your problem is you're snooty when it comes to car age, I think. An early to mid '80s honda with 250k miles can easily go for another 150k before it needs anything. Its unbelievable how many mid '70s to early '90s Hondas have well over 500k miles with absolutly nothing but general maintanence. You may also be surprised by how many mid '70s to mid '80s imports have alot lower mileage than you might think.

I bought a $350 AE86, and it starts up every time. It gets me from point A to point B everytime. Other than scheduled maintenance, I dont see where I'd be throwing that much money into it.

Now the FD is my weekend car, and its perfectly fine with that. But if I had to take it out everyday, I dont think that would be a problem either.

I've daily driven my FD for 3 years now. It's been down for a total of about two weeks...'93 R1 84000 original miles.

I bought another Rx-7 less than a year after my FD. I didn't wanna rack up the miles on my R1. I guess I bought a beater but i hate to call it that. It's a 1980 RX-7 with 83,000 original miles. The interior is perfect and still has the factory spare tire, no power steering or power brakes I love it. All for a $1000 bucks.

I'm not being "snooty". Honda or not, things wear out that age and mileage -- exhaust, radiator, alternator, brakes, clutch (or even worse, auto trans), A/C, etc. I fail to see the point in spending money fixing these things when I can just drive the FD.

If I was in college or something like that, perhaps a "beater" would be acceptable. I'm an engineer who needs to occasionally travel for work. I can't rely on a rusty beater with no working A/C, etc.

I DD'd my FD for 8 months, only had it down for two weeks while I replaced the engine. Other than that it would be the odd Saturday to replace the radiator, downpipe, all coolant hoses, and so on (NOT all on one day, of course!). EXPENSIVE, but not real hard if you can wrench.

Bought a beat to shit 250K miles 82 Chev van (straight six and an auto) for $850, replaced all the vacuum lines and exhaust, and drive it most of the time now (scuba dive vehicle was the original motivation). I like the ability to just climb in, turn the key, get to where I wanna be (albeit somewhat later than otherwise!), turn it off and walk away. Someone scrapes the side? Forgot to lock it (no scuba gear unless diving)? REAL narrow parking space with MONSTER SUV's replete with fat armed dead from the neck up drivers and their horrorshow brats with sticky faces pressed to the window giving you the most vacant look possible on all sides?

Who cares? I paid $850.

It even lowered the insurance on my FD. I pay less with both vehicles than I did with the FD alone. The van has paid for itself!

IMO an FD can make a daily driver, but it depends what you are willing to sacrifice. For me, my daily commute is at most is 20-30 minutes, not bad if/when the FD happens to be down for a while. In most cases the car is still driveable, but it's boost problems that affect power output. On the other hand though, I can easily see where buying a second car would make sense when owning an FD as either a project/track car, or otherwise.

I agree with Rynberg,

To me, I would rather take the chance with an FD as a DD rather than put the money into a beater and take the same chances.

I realize people have cars that have a lot of miles on them that work very well and they paid nearly nothing for. There are also others who have 120K miles on their FD. All things relative, no beater for me. It will be another $15-25K on a car, when I'm ready, that fills a need the FD can't.

I'm in sales, and already made the decisions regarding "usefulness", "practicality", and "reliability" when I bought the car. I can't really have a "beater". Like it or not, I have to be someone "snotty" and have something that looks decent for customers. If/When the FD breaks or needs a major repair, I'll get another car. Either leasing or buying an automobile with something the FD doesn't have, something with luxury, or space, or both (maybe an SUV, suburban assault vehicle).

Until then, I'll enjoy my DD FD.

i drove mine for almost 2 years as a DD. roughly 60 miles during the week and maybe 40 miles or so over the weekend.
only had 2 problems during that time:
1. flat tire once (tires were worn out)
2. over the weekend, a rad. hose busted after racing a WS6.
(actually, now that i think about it, i did get into an accident, so it was down for a few months during that time - but that's cause i was a dumbass).

other than that, it started every time and drove like a champ.

My '93 R1 (April 1992 build date) has been a daily driver from the beginning 4 seasons per year. The FD3S IS a street car--make know mistake--it's a competent track car, but the FD3S was designed to be used on the public roads. With really bad snow, I'll ride hitch a ride with my wife, but this is only a few weeks out of the entire year. Of course my FD3S has its share of downtime--what FD3S has never been down??--but I think my FD3S is fine as a daily driver. I'm so used to the FD3S's performance envelope, I couldn't stand to drive anything else LOL :)

Atlanta has a pretty car-friendly climate and you have Mazmart etc. close at hand. I would say driving your FD on a daily basis should be OK.

For those in the land of ice and snow, I would suggest going the beater route (or, god-forbid, public transport!).

sure the fd can be a great daily driver. but people have different reasons for driving another car everyday.

1. fd guzzles a lot of gas (important for those who drive everyday)

2. fd is not comfortable in bumper to bumper traffic (sucks to have a stiff suspension on crappy roads too)

3. i hate having to worry about all the dings and such i get from parallel parking all the time or parking in tight parking spaces

4. reduces insurance costs!

5. need a bigger car to fit lots of big packages and fishing poles etc.

I drive my seven every day to work and back.. about 170 miles per week. I see no reason to have to worry about two cars breaking down on me... the seven is a great car as long as it's taken care of. As far as people saying that they have an endless suply of cheap and reliable cars in their area, then that's the exception. I live in the 5th largest city in the country (the 3rd or 4th most populated region in the country) and looked for three months straight for a beater when I got my FD. After test driving 7 cars still did not find a car for <$2000 that would make a good daily driver...

after a year of daily driving the seven has had only one day out of commission b/c of a shot clutch.