I'm Afraid we Can't do That, SC.

[Null Requiem]

Yes there is. I own a 98'. Love that car. I hope it makes it to 20 years. The body might rust out first, though.

Good luck with that. I had a 2000 Cav that just recently had to be replaced. Just too much wrong with it to keep it any longer. I did enjoy the car though.

[Kal]

When King of the Hill first debuted, a coworker and I were joking about how we both could understand Boomhauer and what did that say about us and our relatives.

I understood him fine, mainly due to years of translating my uncle who's much the same but with a thick welsh accent and false teeth. The fact that hardly anyone who's not relatd can understand him never stops him from talking.

[blas]

Cavs were about the best you could do for an inexpensive, fuel efficient car for younger/college type folks for many years. Much better than the Dodge Neons, in my opinion.

[wolfie]

To give you all the nessecarry background, this car got yanked from a marked "15 minute zone" with a cold engine, and the following didn't take place until at least another 30 minutes went by......

Doesn't apply in this case, but that's no longer conclusive proof of "been parked a long time". Some of the new plug-in hybrids can go 50 km before they need to fire up the on-board generator, so someone could legitimately be parked under 15 minutes and still have a cold engine - ran on batteries from home to the 15 minute zone.

[protege]

Cavs were about the best you could do for an inexpensive, fuel efficient car for younger/college type folks for many years.

Other favorites were Ford Escorts/Tempos, Honda Civics/Accords, Toyota Corollas... All were reasonably efficient and inexpensive. In fact, we used to call the Cavalier the "Cadavalier." That is, performance was dead

[wolfie]

Don't forget a couple other inexpensive (especially if bought used) fuel efficient cars:

Hyundai Excel (up to '94 model year)
Hyundai Accent ('95 and up)
Hyundai Elantra

[Argabarga]

I'd have kept my Elantra, had it not rusted out.

Yeah, it had no acceleration, no top speed, no frills, and they didn't see a problem with equipping a 00' model year car with a TAPE DECK standard........ but still, easy on gas, easy to park, reliable 99% of the time

Lousy road salt......... and it persistently ate wheel bearings, but working where I did, it was an easy fix.

[Jester]

For years, my mom kept buying Toyota Corollas. Reliable and efficient. Can't say a bad thing about them. Hell, I put the first scratch in the first one with an idiot's head when I was 15, and got that same Corolla airborne when I was 19. (Mom doesn't know about the second incident, and never, ever will.)

[Kagato]

My first car was a Toyota Corona hatchback, used to belong to my Grandfather before he upgraded and gave it to me, lasted a good 6 or 7 years on top of however long he had it, before it finally gave up the ghost.

[AccountingDrone]

My first car was a 1959 Nash Metropolitan in the turquoise and cream. I bought it for $250 and sold it for $500 Then I bought a 1968 MGB mk 2 roadster, and in 1979 I bought a 1975 Mustang 2 ghia with the 302 V8 which I got bored one winter in my machine shop and hauled it in, pulled the engine and followed the rebuild directions in a Chiltons and sent the body out for painting. I don't know jack shit about engines, but as a machinist I can follow cookbook directions I also had a TVR 2500M Vixen I bought of an exBF, and then I took up with an abusive jackass and moved down to Virginia beach and ended up in pink ghetto jobs [girly crap that is effectively lowpaying.] The only unusual car I had in Virginia was oddly enough one of the first Yugos in the country. I liked it, but I also Abarthed it [it was effectively a Yugoslavian built Fiat, and all the Abarth goodies more or less bolted right on. Zippy and fun little car when treated like imported Euro-metal instead of a workhorse crappy US econobox.] Then I got my 1979 IH Scout 2, which I adored and was my workhorse of a vehicle until it died in an accident about 10 years ago. In 10 years we put something like 350 000 miles on it. Then we moved into VWs, and we had a bit of a collection - a 58 beetle, a 64 squareback, a 72 nonSuperBeetle and a 74 van, and a 96 JEtta that Rob rolled so we got a 97 Jetta, and then a 2006 Jetta in diesel and we just added a momvan about a year and a half ago. We sold the elder VW collection - lack of money for insurance.

[wolfie]

I'd have kept my Elantra, had it not rusted out.

Lousy road salt......... and it persistently ate wheel bearings, but working where I did, it was an easy fix.

Strange - mine ('96) is on the same set of wheel bearings as when I bought it in '07. I'd understand the "bearing munching" if yours had been of a different generation, or earlier in the generation than mine (i.e. not all the bugs worked out of it), but it's unusual for an "early" car to NOT have a problem that a "late" car of the same generation has. '96 to '00 were the same "generation" of Elantra (that's why you'll see wagons from that range of model years, but no '95 or '01 wagons).

[Argabarga]

I think at least part of the problem was extremely poor-quality replacement bearings after it ate the first set through what was fairly normal wear and tear.

First the left, then a month later, the right, bad enough the garage suggested I box them up and send them back as defectives, but at that point, I knew the car was nearing the end of life anyway, so I never bothered.

[downforit2008]

For those who don't know, Boomhauer was a character on the animated KING OF THE HILL. He was famous for mumbling _everything_ and you couldn't understand a single word he said the entire series!

I think I understood one or two words...but that was because my TV has captions!

[eltf177]

I think I understood one or two words...but that was because my TV has captions!

There was that one odd episode where all the characters had fantasies. Boomhauer's was that _he_ was the suave, articulate one and the others were babbling idiots. Loved that episode!