new job..lots of travel, what to do with car?

[ReNaToMS3]

get a used acura tsx

That was my previous car! lol. It is a very good car BTW. Bought @50k miles, sold it @94k and just had to change oil, coolant, transm oil... all the basics pretty much, no big problems.

But i would def. buy a cheaper car for traveling. Seriously, you gonna kill your mileage and when you try to trade it/sell it, it won't be worth that much. Much better going for a $4k car that has cheaper maintenance, drives well, and won't give you much headaches.

 

[nolacola]

Thanks guys for the input and congrats.

Good to know about the tax write off.

The job is traveling around Florida for 2-3 days a week South Florida one week North Florida the next..traveling a route where I stop at various k-12th grade schools servicing a computer system and staying in a hotel for the days I'm gone. All my expenses while I'm gone for work are covered, food, hotel, mileage.

I guess as of now as a lot of you have said, I'll give the ms3 a shot for awhile and just make sure and keep cruise control on at 70 for decent mpg. The thought of my poor speed3 being at 100k miles in two years from now really sucks as I can't imagine it would be worth much at that point and up till now I'm only at 18k miles in almost 2 years of ownership.

I guess as long as I could still get 8-12k for it I'd be ok with that. And if I find it to be too uncomfortable I'll look into a used Acura or something.

 

[Jasnall]

Do you have to sell it in 2-3 years?
I put 30k on my 08.5 speed in 10 months doing service calls around LA and stuff. I get 26 mpg avg right now, mostly highway. I find it pretty comfy except for long stop and go traffic(stupid clutch). All I've done is normal oil changes and tires. Just had my brakes checked and still have 60% left at 35k. I get 6-7k on full synthetic oil.(Don't freak out, I send my oil to Blackstone and wear is perfectly normal thanks to highway miles.)

I mean whats more fun than getting off the job and driving home, or to hotel, in ur speed3?

Like they say its a Mazda not a Ferrari. Drive it, love it, keep it. No reason it shouldn't last well past 100k with regular maintenance.
OH!!!! Get better commuting tires once your stockers wear out! Stocks have like a 140 wear rating, get something above 300 imo.

 

[BillTheCat]

OH!!!! Get better commuting tires once your stockers wear out! Stocks have like a 140 wear rating, get something above 300 imo.

FYI, the treadwear rating means absolutely nothing. A Michelin with a 180 wear rating could give you twice as many miles as a Goodyear with a 400 rating, because there's no standard for WTF the number is supposed to mean. So look for real world reports of miles driven on different tires to see how long they truly last, keeping in mind that some folks will naturally shred tires, and others will baby them.

For the OP, unless you know you're going to want to trade/sell in 2-3 years, why worry about depreciation? The older the car gets, the less the mileage affects depreciation. And if your concern is solely financial, you have to weigh the *possible* depreciated loss versus the cost to buy, register, insure & maintain a 2nd vehicle for the ensuing 2-3 years, too. (i.e. 5 year old MS3 with 25-30k miles value, versus 5 year old MS3 with 80-100k miles value... $2k difference? Maybe $3k? $4k tops? Can you buy, insure, register, and maintain a 2nd vehicle for 2-3 years for that?)

If the concern is not so much financial and you just want your MS3 to last you forever, then I can understand wanting not to rack up the miles too fast. That's an entirely emotional concern and nobody but you can make that decision.

 

[Huligan]

I would get something very comfortable. Something with an automatic transmission and quiet on the inside.


Keep the speed if you can to drive as a fun car. The speed as a work car traveling that amount.....no thanks.

agreed 100%.

i find the speed to be very uncomfortable after 5 or 6 hour trips