Why cant we have a front man who at least pretends to undestand the people who read this magazine ? scion ? get your poop in a group man.

What? Car Craft readers don't commute? While I would like to see him support the team who brought him by buying a modern Domestic product, I can have compassion on any person who buys any encobeater for commuting.  Gas being $3.00 doesn't inspire me to drive my V8S10 just to go to work.

I actually think Gladd may be the best man for the job.  He certainly understands the spirit of Car Craft better than Jeff Smith did. (Sorry Jeff, I like reading your tech articles, but when you changed the anti-tour name, you lost me.)

That's fine, get a sake sipper, but we don't wanna hear about it in the mag. Hasn't anyone heard of an overdrive tranny? My carbed 305 powered 87 fireturd gets 27 MPG. Sure it's a pig on the strip but I bought it for fuel economy.Street/Strip duty is done by my 11 second 455 powered 74 Omega on 87 octane.  

 dude i bought a $600  vw golf to commute in ,did some firgureing  and after extra gas and insurance it was $.16 cheaper to drive my caprice getting 20mpg and use premium ,getting a second car isn't the answer.making what you have better is the answer. and  don't ever mention scion  in here again.

"and  don't ever mention scion  in here again."

Scion.

You saved .16, but that is not a universal case. I am a bit older and my insurance is cheap, so adding a second car is hardly noticable.  And my Escort LX-E gets great gas mileage, 30+ and is fast.  Not to mention some of us have longer commutes. 

I'm all for driving your cars daily, I hate nothing worse than weekend cruisers and cars that simply can't commute with the daily grind, but I understand if the majority of your commute is setting in traffic or in my case following ten+ dump trucks up long curvy mountain roads with no place to pass, driving a high performance vehicle is literally a waste of gas.

Scion.

after driving my Cougar daily for almost 7 years, i went out and bought a truck last May. (a used, but only 20K mile 2004 Ranger ext cab/ 3.0L 5spd.) sooner or later, sometimes even though it doesnt always make a perfect financial balance to purchase another vehicle, it still is the best choice. i filled up last night and did the math. the truck got 19.5mpg this last tank. the Cougar NEVER got that. even on an open road, the best its ever done was 17mpg. of course, that was 20K miles ago and a set of 3.00 gears ago.  with the 3.50s i dont think i can hit that anymore.

the truck is also more 'friendly' during the day. the AC works alot better, has a much better stereo system too. even though the Cougar has factory AM/FM as well it has no CD player and i wasnt willing to put one in. the lady doesnt have to ride in a hot car during the summer either. it didnt bother me so much but you know, sometimes its time to move along and get something more modern and 'liveable'. im only 24 but even then the truck isnt too expensive. its less than $400 a month when you include gas, insurance and the payment itself. i stand by my choice.

perhaps i read the article wrong... didnt Glad decide to NOT buy the Scion based in the 108hp test drive?

I totally understood where Gladd was coming from. I mean yeah I love driving my Cutlass, but for the everyday stuff it just isn't working out so well. Takes tons of gas, a/c is hit or miss, depending on its mood, finding a good parking spot...etc. Plus going to college means I would have to leave it exposed in our parking lot (covers aren't allowed) and after it got egged recently, I just want it wrapped up safe for fun drives. I actually work at Longo Toyota and Scion (technically I work for Penske Automotive, but I work only at that dealership so....), and I must say they are good commute cars. Not drag racers by any means, but if you're just doing the daily stuff, they're perfect. I was going to get something from my dealership, but then I found a beautiful Chevy Cobalt customized by Rydell Chevrolet's Rydell Performance Designs, and my Costco discount on it is the same as my employee discount, so I'll probably get that.  

Dude, I'm with Doug Glad on this one--

I drive my 67 Beatercuda every day and here in SoCal, it gets hot as hell. Every once in a while I wonder what it would be like to have a car with AC that gets good gas mileage and decent handling again. Every time I do that I do what Glad does-- look at my car payments (zero), look at my insurance (practically nothing compared to a new car), and look at my gas costs.. (10mpg isn't bad when you work a few miles from home).. But, ultimately, we're 99% sure to take my girlfriend's PT Turbo anywhere that requires more than two people in the car or more than 10 miles.. Driving old iron takes guts but it doesn't mean you can't admire the subtleties of having a new car..

And, I'll admit it-- the Scion XB would be one of my choices as well. My first car was an 84 Dodge Colt Vista station wagon and the XB is about as close as you'll get to the kind of room I had in that car..

Just my two cents.

Raj
Anti-Tour 2005: 1200+ Miles in 2 days, 15.431 on skinnies, poorly tuned
Anti-Tour 2006: 200+ miles in 2 days, and didn't run it on the 1/8th mile because it'd never pass tech there.. "no tools or loose material in the cabin"... uh oh. I'm out.

I agree.  If I had to drive anything over 20 miles from home we'd take the girlfriends Focus.  71 Firebird with big cam, loud exhaust, no A/C and a stall is not great to drive everywhere.  The Focus is not a bad car.  Great mileage, decent room (I'm 6'8), and for a four banger will move a little.  We looked at Scions but they were just too ugly.  But everything else about them was ok  

SiX-Eight? Jesusonastick, I hope your TA has T-tops!  

I had considered buying a new car that got around 30 mpg to replace my 72 Dodge Dart with a slant 6 for daily driving duties, but once I did the math, and weighed the pros and cons, I found it was better to stick with the Dart.

1. A/C.  Some claim its a necessity , but after learning to live without it, both in my cars and sometimes even at home, and having survived a year in Kuwait and Iraq, I see it as a luxury that I can do without to save some coin.

2. Operating costs. Ok the slant 6 gets around 18mpg around town and I go through about a tank and a half of gas per week. Thats for all of my driving, both going to work and running errands and the occasional trip out for a night on the town. 30 mpg is about all one can reasonably expect from most modern vehicles in city driving under real world conditions. EPA ratings are a load of crap, its even been in the news lately that they are over optimistic. So instead of spending 60 bucks a week on gas, ill be spending roughly 40 give or take a buck or two. Thats a savings of 80 bucks a month or 960 bucks a year. Based on this figure, if I spend 15,000 bucks on a (very cheap) new car, I will have to drive the car for 15.62 years before the gas savings will pay for the purchase price of the car and thus actually start to save me money.

What can I affords to buy for 15 grand? A Hyundai maybe? Even if I take care of it , based on my average annual mileage per year , after 15.62 years thats 304,590 miles!! The Hyundai has a 10year 100,000 mile warranty, which is good but not when I have to go over 200,000 additional miles to even start saving money! Remember, the Dart is already paid for.

So how much maintenace and major repairs will I have to do to keep the Hyundai on the road that long? How many times will I have to replace the clutch, the front suspension, the plastic parts that dry rot, and everything else that can possibly go wrong with a car that was built to survive the warranty period and then fall apart?

Compare that with the slant 6 Dodge Dart. I bought the car for 600 bucks about 8 years ago.  So far Ive personally put over 150,000 miles on it. It was showing 73K on the clock , who knows how many miles it actually had? All I have done to it is change the oil, do tune ups, replace the brakes, the tires, and once, the battery. Everyone who knows about slant 6 cars know that they are like the Energizer bunny, they just keep going and going and going. Maybe one day Ill have to rebuild the engine and tranny and suspension. Cost to rebuild the engine to its stock configuration might be 1000 tops, including machine work. I have a buddy who rebuilds automatic trannys for 500 bucks and does great work. A stock rebuild kit for the front suspension runs me about 300 to 400 bucks. So with me doing the labor (naturally) it would cost me less than 2000 to rebuild the Dart good as new. There isnt any rust. Ready to go for another 250,000 plus miles.

People who think that buying a new vehicle to save a few bucks in gas are only thinking in the short term. One always has to remember the cost of the car itself, the entirety of which must be realised in gas savings before one saves a dime! If youre making payments, you have to figure the interest in as well as the requirement for full coverage insurance versus liabilty. Cha ching!!

For some of the same reasons Ive already mentioned, a used economy car is a big gamble. How much stuff will you have to fix? They werent built to last folks. If it isnt under warranty, youre playing Russian roulette. Even a 5000 dollar used car would take some one me 5 years and 100,000 miles to realise any savings, which is a long time to hope and pray nothing goes wrong.

Would you rather pay 75 bucks at NAPA for a 1 barrel carb for a slant 6 or pay  1000 or more for a new fuel injection system that you have to buy at a dealership? Would you rather replace a 500 to 1500 dollar ECU or a 15 dollar set of points?  

Very good point.  I wouldn't mind having a slant six Duster to drive.  

Longo Toyota in El Monte? i didnt know they were Penske owned as well. i was going to get a job at Penske Toyota in Downey once... then turned it down for a job that screwed me over after a friggin month.

so i went back to selling paint. ehh... its a job and i get a killer discount.

Change the variables.

If your Dart had a high-performance V8 in it and got 10 mpg and you drove 75 miles a day to work and back.

I have always had some sort of economy beater, I have never paid more than a couple hundred dollars for them. If something major goes, they get parted out and scrapped.  My Escort gets 30-33 mpg and it was given to me.  And the air works.  I've been driving my Escort for two years now and have only had to replace the fuel pump and change the oil regularly.  Shopping for, owning and maintaining economy cars is just like choosing the right cam, research has to be done or you have wasted a lot of money. $5000. would buy a lot of good beaters.  I have never paid $500-1500 for an ECU, is there such a thing now a days? 

A lot of people have children, and those children have to be dropped off at school or daycare, Air conditioning is a need. Spouses that carpool don't want to listen to your cam lope over their NPR shows. 

Owning a six cylinder classic is a good option, especialy since an overdrive tranny could put them in the mid-to high twenties for gas mileage. 

There is no disgrace in having a daily driver.  I have a 66 Chevy pickup with a 383, four speed, and 4:11s...7mpg.  My Frontier gets 17mpg.  My dad has a 38 Ford and a 04 Chevy.  Bro has 70 Chevy and a 94 Bonnie.  None of our rides are trailered, but do drive them daily can be foolish and expensive. 

That said....a Scion is kind of pusing the limits.   
                  
Fear this....