I am looking for another used car and currently looking at a 11 camry with 6 speed manual and about 100K miles. It’s been a few years since last driving a stick but it is really like riding a bicycle. It’s been over 10 years since selling my last daily driver stick shift and I still catch myself reaching for the clutch pedal and grabbing for gears.
I am a mega commuter of about 120+ miles per day and mostly all wide open 80 MPH. A clutch will last me a long time similar to my brake pads that often last well over 200K miles on my cars. I am all go and no slow.
Since I am looking at used my concern is the expense to replace the clutch on a FWD car. Any ideas on how much this might cost. I typically DIY all my car repairs and doing a clutch is something I have done many times in RWD trucks but I just don’t have the free time I use to have.
Also, the next concern is on the transmission life. I have owned many toyotas that have lasted well over 250K miles (currently driving 08 Yaris with 275K) with virtually no issues. Are the manuals as reliable as the autos? I recall a post from years ago about someone that had to replace his manual transmission and the replacement cost was much higher due to far fewer cars produced with manuals.
Any other suggestions you might have?
As much as you drive I don’t understand why you are looking at a 100000 mile used vehicle . We bought a new Ford Fiesta for less than 16000.00 and have easily reached the rated MPG of 37 . These days most automatics are actually rated for better mileage than standards.
It comes to down to it is much more economical to drive a car that has depreciated 75% economic value and only about 40% of its mileage life.
I buy new cars for my wife, and frequently take over hers when they get about 200K. Her current car is a 17 RAV4 that has 90K miles on it. In another 3-4 years it will have 200K on it. She too is a mega commuter. So her car (assuming a 250K mile life) would cost about $0.092 per mile (we paid $22.9K new). I typically buy used 100K cars for about $5K and that cost is about $0.033 per mile or about 1/3 of the cost of buying new. I let the original owner take the big depreciation hit and in a few years I will use up the rest of the life of the car. I have been buying used toyotas for years. They often have little repairs needed in the first 250K miles. I am not afraid of driving high mileage car. If it goes belly up there is not much invested. Also buying used for cash in the <$8K range, I also just carry liability insurance and save on the comp and collision premiums.
IMO, the sweet spot for buying used Toyota or Honda is about 8-12 year old with about 100K miles for $4-6K. After the car gets to 250-300K miles you can still sell it for a grand or more if the body and interior are still good.
Figure about $1800 for a clutch job. 7-8 hours of labor would be a rough guess plus parts.
The manual will be almost bulletproof.
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Thanks. This is very helpful.
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Our two manual & automatic transmission Hyundai Elantras are rated at the same EPA MPG. However, the manual is geared lower. At highway speeds, the auto gets about the same MPG as the manual, At lower speeds tho, the manual gets better MPG than the auto. Also because of the lower gearing, the manual Elantra accelerates better than the auto. Climbing up mountain passes, the manual belongs in the mountains & the auto likes flat terrain.
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