Hello c/cars
tl;dr: I’m looking for knowledge of a cheap simple car (with cheap parts) to break/fix/learn.
My apologies if this is semi-rambley. I’ve been forever stuck at “too afraid to break my daily driver” and only really feel comfortable changing the oil and refilling various fluids.
I want to change that.
Problem is… I’m a hands-on type of learner. I need to break/fix something to really get the knowledge (and confidence) so I was thinking of getting a project car to work on and dispose of. Something I would be proud to repair over time but also not care if I miserably fail and have to get it scrapped. My neighbor highly recommended that I don’t touch anything past the 90s, as the electrical systems in modern cars are apparently terrifying even to skilled mechanics, but I feel like the older the car gets the rarer (more expensive) the replacement parts would be. I want it to be as cheap and simple as possible. I’m only trying to learn… I’m not restoring a show car.
That’s why I’m here. Do you have any suggestions at what I should look at?
I’m thinking something compact or subcompact just so I don’t have to take up a huge portion of my garage storing the vehicle itself. (and yes, I realize there will be plenty of parts and tools involved). My neighbor recommended I look at various auctions to choose one of the totaled vehicles available at clearance pricing, which… seems a little extreme for me. I’d rather choose something neglected and go from there. I want to figure out how to replace a window by disassembling the door. Find out to plug a leak in the windshield washers lines. Replace the alternator and recharge a battery. Flush the brakes and change the rotors. Restore a headlight or brake light unit. Change the stereo. Fix a seatbelt. That kind of stuff.
My neighbor highly recommended that I don’t touch anything past the 90s, as the electrical systems in modern cars are apparently terrifying even to skilled mechanics, but I feel like the older the car gets the rarer (more expensive) the replacement parts would be.
Your neighbours are only partly right and you’re also mostly right.
I mentioned it in another comment, but I could never get my KE-Jetronic fuel system to work properly. Car was a 1992, no OBD-II for diagnostics. I tried playing parts darts, but to no avail. Simple electronic systems can be worse than complex ones because:
Diagnostics. Okay, trouble codes won’t tell you the whole story, but they tell you where to get started! And sensor readings, when you know what you’re looking at, are even better.
I’ve had cars built in the 00s from Audi, BMW and Mercedes. Yes, all of the big 3 everyone’s so afraid of. From what’s considered the worst era for reliability. All chock-full of complex electronics. But you know what? 60€ Aliexpress clone Delphi DS150E (not a tool I’d recommend in this day and age, I got mine years ago) and the car will spill its guts. Or an Aliexpress clone of VCDS if you get into VW/Audi. MB and BMW specific tools also have clones and good generic tools work for most things.
My car current, an absolute piece of shit I paid 1800€ for, has air suspension, kind of an expensive thing to fix. So you can imagine I wasn’t very happy when it threw up a light and the car was sitting all wonky. Connected VCDS, saw a fault code saying sensor data inconsistent or calibration wrong. Weird. Deleted the fault code, opened the sensor readings, made note of all four sensors’ height readings, raised the air suspension, looked again. One of the four sensors didn’t change at all. Get under the car and look, it’s mechanically disconnected itself when I had another unrelated suspension issue that caused too much travel. Reconnected it because there’s just a ball joint that it popped off of. Did a recalibration of the system (requires tape measure, level ground and VCDS, I paid 19€ for the knockoff ross-tech cable + pirated software off Aliexpress and I run these things in a laptop that doesn’t have internet access) and the car’s sitting completely level, better than when I got it.
You can also actuate the fuel pump to make sure it’s running or to bleed the system if needed. There are self-tests for all kinds of things like VNT actuator, EGR, etc.
I hate that it has an automatic transmission, but hey, it literally shows me the individual clutch adaptation values and also limits that would indicate an issue. Now it won’t tell you WHAT the issue is, but if you’ve got a significantly increased pressure adaptation on clutch E, there’s probably a leak somewhere in the clutch E hydraulic circuit. Probably not something you want to fix at home, but I didn’t have that issue, my adaptation values were all fine, I just needed a fluid change to get my transmission shifting properly.
Other cool things my current car’s electronic systems have told me: Glow plug in cylinder 3 is bad, all four door lock modules had a bad electric connection, but door modules themselves were good. There’s an intermittent issue with fuel pressure: sometimes when I let off the fun pedal, the fuel pressure doesn’t drop to the requested level immediately. Well, there’s a pressure regulator on these that tends to get stuck.
Things my BMW told me over the OBD-II port when I had it: Boost leak (difference between pressure sensors, found it quickly because there was a steady stream of hot air coming from a pipe connection), DPF backpressure high but no recent regen cycles attempted (meaning the DPF itself was fine, the other issues were causing it to avoid regen). And of course my favourite: EGR valve stuck.
The thing is, cars from the 90s can also develop weird electronical issues. But they won’t tell you where to start looking, you have to figure all that out with a multimeter and a circuit diagram. Which doesn’t mean you don’t need a multimeter on a newer car. It’s still a great tool to own, particularly because the electronics won’t often tell you the root cause of an issue and you don’t want to play parts darts. But “VNT actuator open circuit or short to ground” is a MUCH better place to get started than “I feel like the car doesn’t have power anymore” and it ended up being a blown fuse. Which by definition IS an open circuit, it just wasn’t in the actuator itself like the car suggested.
Seconding this as an E30 BMW owner: trying to get any useful info from the stomp test of the old Bosch Motronic ECU diagnostics is not a fun time.
My advice: buy an older Nissan Leaf and learn about EVs.
Working on some shitty old truck won’t help you in the future.
That sounds waaaaaay more expensive to learn how to change a lightbulb than buying some kid’s Civic.
But I get what you are saying. Combustion engines are old tech. It’d be like learning how to install a supercharger.
I’m going to recommend the opposite here.
There’s not much you SHOULD do on your own on an EV that isn’t similar on a combustion engine vehicle. You don’t want to be touching the high voltage battery to repair individual cells unless you know what you’re doing, and a motor is just… a motor. It’s not that interesting on a technical level.
Get in a cheap car made at least two decades ago, but avoid anything too premium, unless you’re a masochist like me. Suspension and brake bits aren’t necessarily too different on an EV compared to ICE.
Your life will be easier if it’s something with an OBD-II port OR with a carburettor. Electronic fuel injection with no easy way to get fault codes and sensor readings is a PAIN. My KE-Jetronic system had issues the entire 4 years I owned the car.
If you tell us where you’re situated, that might be helpful because suggestions would be very different for the US vs continental europe vs UK vs Australia vs… you get the point. You want something that you can easily find parts for locally, and that other people around you have touched before. Eastern Europe, I’d tell you to go German (specific models and engines of course) or Volvo, but in the US you’d want American or Japanese (except in the rust belt). Etc.
Then there’s the budget to consider, and whether you want to keep it for a year or 2 or 10. And of course what you like driving in the first place.
Me, I’d get any Mercedes with an M113 engine (doesn’t have to be the K variant, kompressor mercs are too expensive), or any Mercedes with a diesel engine from before they started making the V6 diesel (OM642). 70s, 80s, 90s, early 00s. Just skip the W210 because rust and W163 because rust, ugly, heavy and slow, unless you’re into offroading. It’s because I know older mercs, for the most part, are durable, even if not necessarily reliable (this is from youtube channel Mercedes Source, who explained it once about old Mercedes diesels: they WILL go millions of miles without an engine rebuild, but that doesn’t mean they’re reliable, you’ll still get random issues to take care of like in the fuelling system, HVAC, etc).
Anyway, if you’re into European cars, I probably know more about old German cars and strengths and weaknesses of different models, engines and transmissions than just about anyone on the Fediverse and can even help you pick something that’s actually not too horrible on your wallet or sanity despite the German brands having the absolute worst reputation for reliability and cost of ownership. I would still not recommend it unless you’re SURE you’re capable of letting go of it if there’s something that makes absolutely no financial sense to repair.
Oh also, boxy old Volvos! Prices are going up unfortunately, but a turbo 740 or 940 can be made into an absolute beast. Naturally aspirated ones require more work.
Miata is always the answer! They’re cheap, fun, simple, and very rewarding. Parts are super common, and there are plenty of neat upgrades you can tinker with when nothing’s wrong with it ;)
There aren’t many cheap Miatas anymore though. Maybe it’s different elsewhere but where I am the old ones are expensive because they’re old and the newer ones are expensive because they’re new. There’s a bit of a middle ground but those still aren’t that cheap.
Since when are Miata’s cheap? I guess of all the sports cars.
My knee-jerk reaction is an older Toyota Corolla or Camry, or a Honda Civic or Accord. These models are built like tanks (not that the new ones aren’t) and are a great way to learn. Also helps that they get great gas mileage. Look for models that have a serviceable transmission, I can speak from experience that 2013 Corollas are not designed to be self-serviced.
This was one of my first thoughts… the gotcha being: they don’t die. I guess if I’m not going hardcore into the powertrain, it’d be fine.
Definitely lean into old Toyotas. Can’t kill older ones.
I drive a 32-year-old Honda Accord.
It’s true, they don’t die. However, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong with them!
Last year, mine had a variety of weird issues that had it in and out of the shop. Nothing too expensive on its own. Every fixed thing was one more thing that eventually would have had to get replaced, anyway.
Turns out, it was a bad replacement sensor. The initial diagnosis truly did find the cause of the problem - but the replacement part was faulty! Took us a year to figure that out, haha
So even though the car is nowhere close to dying, there’s still plenty of stuff to work on. Including the body panels.
My vote is any four cylinder pickup. They’re built simple and you have plenty of room to crawl around in the engine bay or what have you. First gen Toyota Tacoma or anything older will be small enough plus the utility of having a truck bed is great. They are popular right now though, so finding a good price may be hard.
I hear a lot of older folk complaining about newer tech; it’s not necessarily that the new stuff is too complicated, it’s just that they learned things one way and when things changed they got frustrated. Back in my day everyone said get carburated because fuel injection is too complicated; truth is it’s not all that complicated and the benefits/advancements are very significant.
I would specifically not buy older than 1996 so you can get OBDII which makes a lot of things from debugging to modding so much easier.
100% 2000-2010 was a real sweet spot, modern enough to be reliable and fuel efficient, old enough to not have tech that’s intrusive. Parts are mostly still available and if you are talking Japanese cars, they will do 300k miles with minimal issues. I have 293k on my 01 Tundra and I beat the hell out of that truck for a long time.
Yeah this was my thought too. Mid 2000s crown vic or a Tahoe or something if you want a ridiculous amount of parts in America. Tons of them getting scrapped right now because body rust making them too expensive to repair, even though all the guts are cheap, and you can find all of it on eBay or pick n pull.
Nice thing too is if you want to do body work they have nice big flat pieces that are good to learn on.
The newest stuff is too complicated - because it adds touch screens, cutoff switches, and all kinds of other stuff they interferes with the base operation of the car itself.
If I need to take my eyes off the road to change the radio station? Or if signal interference prevents it from turning on, even when the key fob is right next to the steering column? And don’t even get me started on subscription services for hardware features that are already in the car.
Assuming you’re in the USA, I would 100% recommend an older truck. We’ve built millions of them, finding parts just isn’t a problem (assuming you avoid any weird trim levels). Ford F-150 & GM Silverado would be my personal pick, but Dodge/RAM 1500 & Toyota Tundra are also great. And, they tend to lag behind as far as technology goes, making them a bit easier to work on.
The word ‘older’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. That’s going to depend on you. If you’re comfortable with modern electronics and want to lean how to plug in an advanced code reader and are comfortable digging through Youtube videos, you might be fine with a 10 year old truck. Conversely, if you want to learn how to tune a carburetor, well, you’re going to want to look for trucks from the 70s…
Million dollar question… what’s your budget?
Tons of fun stuff to buy and fix, but it’s all budget.
A beat up 1960s Celica is gonna run you 3-5k or more…
So the question is, what’s your budget and what are you looking for? Sports car? Truck? Rock crawler? GT? Or just anything you want that’s cheap?
And boring as it is I would start with a budget for your new ad hoc auto tech classes that you are creating for yourself.
Like … how much are you willing to part with financially for the car and then monthly for the tools, insurance, parts, and loss of social life to engage with this new self propelled study ?
So before asking “which car” start with “how much”.
And it seems like a perfect chance to learn about used car auto auctions.
That’s a good question that I’d have to answer with a counter-question: What am I getting myself into?
Most of the mechanical repairs I’ve had done at the shop were no more than $2000-$3000. Stuff like replacing the cracked driveshaft, water intrusion in a strut. I am willing to put thousands into a car over time, but is that realistic?
I got into growing food with some garden beds. But it ultimately cost me more than joining the CSA from the farm down the road.
But I still garden on a smaller scale than before because it is enjoyable for me and cheaper. There are other types of things with internal combustion engines to take apart and reassemble. Old scooters and mopeds and all kinds of weird things to seek out how to master.
Find a budget that doesn’t crumple your savings strategy and find something to learn. It will pay off though perhaps not in ducats. Cars included.
Oh yeah, I’m not going into this assuming it’s going to be cheaper than a class or anything. It’s for the fun of learning.
My biggest fear is purchasing a vehicle, and then finding out something dumb like “Oh, that’s a European market vehicle and the USA doesn’t stock any parts so it’s all expensive imports from now on”
Maybe call up your local junkyards and ask them what they have the most of. Junkyard part will always be your cheapest option and you get extra practice by removing the parts from your car and removing the part you need from the junkyard car.
I recently bought an 08’ Nissan Altima that was mechanically totaled. So far I’ve spent roughly $1500 on basic stuff and another $500 on an expensive scan tool to fix an obscure bug that caused the car not to start when I tried to program extra keys with a cheaper scan tool.
Rockauto and harbor freight are your friends, make sure to get the 5% rockauto discount code. I did buy some stuff from Amazon as it was cheaper there for the same thing as rockauto. Just don’t buy no name parts from Amazon, spend a little extra and get name brand from rockauto.
Here is my parts breakdown so far:
- Control arm 62.79
- Ignition coil 42.79
- Spark plugs x4 25.56
- Brake pads 18.93
- Brake pads 19.84
- Rotors 36.26
- Rotors 22.46
- Wiper blades & Lugnuts 30.96
- Window regulator 25.73
- Abs sensor 25.63
- Muffler 68.43
- Exhaust tip 21.12
- Exhaust gasket 7.62
- License plate bulbs 4.24
- Battery hold down 7.62
- 4 extra keyfobs 65.38
- Valve cover/gasket and transmission filter kit 51.92
- Two tires 392.15
- Windshield 331.31
- Still need
- Alignment ~$100
- CVT Transmission fluid ~$70
Tools bought
- Topdon topscan pro 108.71
- Launch x431 CRP919XBT bidirectional scan tool 517.91
Here is a link to the issue I had:
https://www.nissanclub.com/threads/2008-altima-keys-wont-program.530800/
Volvo 240. It will quickly replace whenever youre daily driving as your preferred ride tho
I am willing to put thousands into a car over time, but is that realistic?
The hobby is full of people willing to dump $20k into a vehicle worth $2k so you’ll be in good company at least.
I also vote for an older Honda as a project car. They’re pretty reliable plus you can transition over to performance mods and have some fun with it. My daily is a Camry (the other user’s other suggestion) and I love the thing to absolute death, as I’ve already put 200k miles on it since buying it used and it just keeps going on fluid changes and basic maintenance, but it wouldn’t be a very fun project car. Alternatively there’s trucks from the '80s-'00s that are plentiful and can potentially be cheap. Stuff like the S10/Ranger/Tacoma
I’d think about what you see yourself doing with the vehicle when it’s “done” like cruising, going fast, offroading, cornering, etc. Also what kind of cars draw your attention when you see them out on the road?
I’d really try to avoid something too rusty or crashed as paint and bodywork is a whole other beast and many people get way in over their head with projects like these and never finish them even after dumping thousands into it. Get something you can work on in small chunks while still being able to drive and enjoy it. You’re not going to enjoy wrenching on something for months and years without ever driving it.
Speaking with a lot of experience, this is an expensive hobby to get into. There is no such thing as cheap. The sweet spot for availability is find locally popular mainstream cars that are 10 to 20 years old. Anything older gets classic car tax on parts and everything starts to become rarer. Anything newer is more expensive just due to the fact its sort of current. Anything you would be proud to work on will cost money, anything extremely cheap will either require substantial work or you won’t be proud to work on. I don’t want to put you off, just be prepared to spend money. Good luck.
I could have worded that a little better I suppose. I feel like anything I accomplish would be something to be proud of. Fixing a car is such a large task, and I totally realize this will likely just be a money sink with the end result being one more scrapped vehicle.
But I don’t really have a desire to start with stuff like lawn mowers and mopeds. There are transferable skills available to learn, but it’s not something I’d be proudly using.
Personally I’d recommend just going for it on your daily for most of the stuff you mentioned. Just learn enough before you start to understand the various ways to fuck up, and manage risk accordingly. Helping with friends’ cars can also be a good way to learn if you have friends that do that. For specific recommendations, old Hondas and Toyotas are great, like other people are saying. However old (and new although less so) Honda automatics kinda suck so I’d either avoid their autos or look into trying a manual swap. If you get one with lower miles on the transmission it will make it a while.
If you can find a cheap malaise era RWD car that starts, stops, and shifts - and has a decent non-rusty frame - go for it. Yes, you can still get parts, although it’ll be a little bit of a hunt. (That’s also something worth learning and is great fun.) They’re dead simple, and you won’t feel bad if you mess something up and have to start over.
