Most reliable DD and best gas mileage
 

Like the title says. Whats the best DD, best gas mileage cheap car. I was looking at 4 door saturns, civics and neons. So far I have seen the saturn up to 40 MPG highway 5 spd. Whats the more reliable out of these cars and cheapest to fix if something goes wrong? I may need to buy one of these little cars for a new job. I might go into bridge building and I would be driving 60 miles there and 60 back each day. But wtf for 33 dollars an hour I will buy a cheap car, get it dirty and drive it a million miles.

basically any Civic but the early 90s Civics are lighter and are readily available on the market dirt cheap.

i vote civic just because i used to own one and loved it. plus in my opinion they are easier on the eyes

The Pontiac Grandams are fairly cheap to get ahold of and damn comfy to ride in too. Corolla, Camry, Civic, it's all in the options that you are looking for. Hell, you can get a Chevy Cobalt for a decent price and they are pretty comfortable and not too sluggish to drive either.

a civic hybrid or honda FIT

TDI vw jetta or golf. I average 52 mpg city and hwy in the summer. Come winter fuel it drops to about 48 average. thats with my tdi golf. My wife has a 04 auto tdi jetta and she sees about 47 - 48 in the summer and 45 or so in the winter. On a side not they are actually a zippy little ride not a slow rev the he11 out of it to get it to move automobile. As far as hybrids go the battery technology still does not justify the price diffrence. In 3 or 4 years when you have to replace the battery you just lost all your fuel savings.

Im not sure about the other cars that you mentioned, but my first car was a 95 Toyota Tercel. When I got it (for $400) it had aobut 190k miles on the clock. I filled the tank once a month and got 300 miles to it every time. As you can tell I didnt drive it much, but still. My dad now drives it to and from the city everyday and its still kickin.

tdi's are nice but they stopped making them, and they are very expensive if ur gonna buy used, they hold their value.

We have a (05 SXT) neon as our extra car and the gas milage is horrible! FYI.

You wanna talk about bad gas mileage you should check out my dads benz. I think it gets like 13mpg highway

nothings cheaper to fix than a honda

how about a corolla?

get the geo prizm hatchback 5spd, man that thing got so many miles to a gallon above 40 and it was a very fun fun drive.

I would say any civic would be perfect 88-91 are dirty cheap but lack some comfort options, the 92-95 are a little nicer but not as cheap...They are very cheap to own and parts are plentiful and easy to work on...

Also 90-93 Integras can be found for dirt cheap and they have more options standard than the civics and a little more power but similar in gas mileage...

Ultimately I'd say look for a 88 CRX Hf, damn light car, makes a whooping 58hp i htink but awesome on gas...

geo metro 3cyl, prob. best gas mileage your gonna get on a non hybrid, i used to get almost 40mpg doing local driving

They stopped making them for 07 only, they'll be back next year. They do hold their value amazingly well I bought mine 3 years ago "just before all the gas price hikes" and I can actually sell it today for more than I bought it for then.

a corolla is an excellent choice, im pretty sure they are on the top 10 for best mileage, they tdi's were stopped last year cuz they needed a new engine to meet low sulfur emission requirements

http://www.shoesformen.net/running-shoe.jpg

they can take a beating, best of all there is no maintnence you just toss them out and get a new set


seriously though, geo metro, $500 and pretty reliable, cheap to repair, insane mileage

+1 for the Metro and Civics. I've had both and there are times I can match the Metro's mpg with my Civic currently. I've gotten 45-50 mpg on the highway with my Civic.

Heres a Metro over on Craigslist for $1300:
http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/car/295388938.html

If your going to be looking at Saturns, the Sc/l/w 1's have better gearing for the highway than the Sc/l/w 2's.

If it's only 40mpg, then you're probably driving it harder than you need to...unless it's the SOHC which is understandable because it takes WOT to get it up to speed, pretty much.

If you're worried about gas, the DOHC manual could snag 45ish easy. Some people have squeezed 50's out of it.

*edit*
You're completely correct, however, the gearing is so long, and the engine so weak, that "passing gear" is non-existant if you were to need it, and getting up to speed is just about as bad as an old school VW Bug.
Go with an older one (91-99.5) and you should be fine. They rarely ever have anything wrong with them, unless you're a very unlucky person.

And the suggestions in this thread are great ideas too. It all depends on the amount you have to spend.

You COULD swap the long geared trans into the DOHC and milk even more MPG out of the engine, but that would require you to actually do something on the car, and most people would rather their daily be a daily and not modified.