I would pick that up in a heartbeat, if I could afford it right now.

Another, cheaper alternative would be something in the Panther platform... Crown Vic/Grand Marquis. I averaged around 26MPG in my MGM last summer, driving from NC to TN to FL to VA to NY. Big, comfy boat of a car, with a trunk big enough to hide several bodies in.

They were discontinued and are hard to find with low mileage, but my V6 Honda Crosstour is the ultimate touring car.
Plenty of power, fast, and 27 to 30 mpg on the highway. Great factory stereo and comfortable seats. I can drive it all
day without getting fatigued.

Let's do some math here...

We'll start with the assumption that you drive 15k miles a year. This is more than the typical American and close to the typical working age American male.

We will then assume your gas guzzling truck gets 16 MPG.

With this vehicle and usage, you will spend $3,750 per year at $4/gal and $4,687 at $5/gal.

In a vehicle that gets 40 MPG, those numbers will be $1,500 and $1,875 respectively.

If you parked your truck and drove the 40 MPG car 100% of the time, you would save $2,250 per year at $4/gal and $2,812 per year at $5/gal .

Let's oversimplify things and call it $2,500 a year. Between the purchase price of a vehicle, the taxes, registration, and insurance of an extra vehicle, and the extra maintenance/consumables, there's basically no chance you're going to "save" money in this scenario.

If your truck is solid and you like it, there's not much of a financial incentive to buy a second vehicle to save on fuel.

If you want/need another vehicle, and if you want efficiency to be a primary consideration in that purchase, it's a different conversation.

I've had that same conversation with coworkers over the years and they never listen... They also tend to buy something like an old Colorado or Ranger for their commuter, instead of a subcompact, lol.

If you had read the OP, he said that he drives 600 miles fairly regular, so let’s say weekly.

And he said he was looking for efficiency and  comfort behind the wheel.

So yeah, this is a different conversation and the majority of your post has no relation to what OP was looking for.

Sounds like your coworkers were just looking for excuses to buy a Colorado or Ranger, lol.

Hard to find is an understatement. I looked up auto trader and there are like two for sale listed.

People like to rag on Ford, but you could do worse than a used Fusion for your needs OP.

Another vote for one of the Ford Panther cars.

Get one from an old memaw who drove it to church and the grocery store. Leave the 2.73 rear in it and enjoy your high 20 mpgs while driving in a comfy land yacht that requires minimal maintenance.

I bought an 18 taurus in january of 2020. 12500 out the door with 18000 miles. It gets 26 mpg but i drive fast. If i slow it down it gets 30 pretty easy.
Wish it had a little more side to side leg room. Im 6'1" and its comfortable enough i guess. Trunk and interior room is smaller than my earlier 500. Blindspots are worse too.
Good luck OP. Hope i helped

The problem with the Panthers is they stopped production over a decade ago now. Its getting harder and harder to find a non police/taxi CV/GM/TC that's not beat all to shit. Even "low miles only driven 1 mile to church once a month" cars will have wear/tear/dryrot on things.

That said if I was going to get a beater a '03+ CV LX, Grand Marquis, or Town Car with the higher gears would be near the top of my list. TDI Jetta, or maybe a higher trim package 4 cylinder accord, camry, avalon, or mazda6 as well. A civic or corolla too but I'd rather lost a couple MPG for the larger platform of the accord/camry.

Good used Chevy Cobalt

/Thread

Are there any still running?

Toyota corolla.

I travel about 1600 miles long distance a month for work and that's what I bought.

My 2018 Nissan Altima gets 35-40mpg on the hwy 25 mpg city. Fits me 6'3" 330lbs just fine, has plenty of power, great traction control, minimal maintenance, has a trust worthy valve chain, not belt.

My experience of having to commute 110 miles per day in my last job was that an 01’ Subaru at 25-26 mpg  had exactly half the running cost of a 1 ton Cummins that got 19mpg. That was a couple of years ago, and I’m sure the similar case still holds true, in my situation the price of diesel was way higher than the price of gasoline in my local area. The truck took $80 a month in just Toyo tires. If anything, the difference is probably bigger than before.

We’re talking all in.  Oil, tires everything. If you’re doing a trip like that once a month, clearly it’s not worth it. In my case I was putting on 25 to 30,000 miles per year just in commuting.

It was highly highly worth it. Saved a lot of miles on a very nice truck. not only that, I sold the Subaru for almost what I paid for it.

I haven’t done the math lately, but I imagine the same still holds true. I imagine if you’re putting a lot of miles down, getting an older car to do it and makes all the sense in the world. But I fix my own shit, change my oil, you know, all this fucking shit and nobody knows how to do anymore.

No, you’re not going to buy a new car and save money unless you off the gas guzzlers. New shit, now That’s stupidity. Now if you’re willing to get an affordable car that’s a different story entirely. But people have a fucked up definition of what savings actually is.

I think the climate you’re in probably dictates the vehicle that makes sense and your use case. If you’re in shitty weather, it’s hard to beat a Subaru. If you’re not, then probably a Honda or a Toyota.

If you’re worried about flexing and looking cool your buddies, then you’re on your own there.

Find a 20 year old car, pay cash, enjoy the savings. You can usually find them pretty cheap because all the plebs are too poor and everybody has to finance their lives away cause who can shit out 2-4k, amirite? Now assuming you’re not a broke ass chump like the rest of America, and you can actually afford to go buy shit, I think it’s a fantastic way to save a shit ton of money, and keep the miles off your nice rides.

Now the other side of that coin is, if the 200-400$ a month in gas is causing you to look up bankruptcy attorneys, then you probably need to make a few other life changes also, it’s not the car that’s your problem.

I've driven the latest model Corollas on 1k mile road trips. They do great, but they got real uncomfortable after longer periods. Ended up with a Camry another trip, and it was a world better. My Civic is a little better in the comfort department, but an Accord would beat it any day.

If I was still 20 it wouldn't matter, but shit hurts more easily now.

The math is the math.

When you annualize your costs, it doesn't matter if we're talking about someone with a long commute or someone who has a short/normal commute but takes lots of road trips.

Even if we assume OP logs double the average annual mileage at 30k a year, that only puts his fuel savings at $5k a year with our current high gas prices. Is that a significant amount of money? Yes. Is that enough to logically offset the costs of a second vehicle that's not a pile? That's a vague maybe.

We bought a 2012 VW Jetta TDI for our son. It was one of the buybacks from "diesel gate".

It's fun to drive, torque for days, great stereo. Instead of focusing on flat out speed, he tries for the best fuel economy he can get.

Just to the high school and back he routinely gets 40 mpg.

On the highway, we can hit almost 50 mpg, unless you want to drive at 80 MPH, then it drops some.

We paid about $8K, just at the start of 2020.

Before 2016 they all seemed to have transmission problems. Fords Powershift Trans wasn't ready for prime-time, and it took them about 8 years. The other issue is that pricing on cars capable of going over 30 MPG is beyond crazy for the foreseeable future.

If you can find a Toyota Avalon for a decent price check it out.  I borrow my grandparents Avalon for long road trips.  Damn thing is like a Mercedes at half the price as far as ride and comfort

For automatics, toyota finally made the move to a cvt

Not a Miata. After a 600 mile day in a Miata you would want to suck start a 12 gauge. I've done it but it was a four Aleve day.

A Civic is what you seek.

I put over 30k miles in one year on my 2014 Jetta TDI manual. I actually liked it better than my '15 Passat TDI manual for road trips.

Autopilot?

First post and all that

Try to find a GM W-Body (2001-2009) with the 3800 V6. They are going up in price right now because the secret is out about them.

Go on Craigslist and you will find one with 60k and selling for $5000-$8000.

Change the oil/filter, check the plastic intake/exhaust manifolds.

I have owned 4 of them. Now my beeter is a 2002 Low mileage Maxima which seems to be a decent car so far

@Blstr89

Sent you an IM.

Inexpensive, reliable, road trip car....

Pick 2.

A used 100k+ mile Lexus ES.

Stay renting a car. Foe inexpensive a car will vreak down on you somewhere in the 600 mile trip. It will cost more than you want to fix it. Just stick with one rental company to get bonuses.

You don't need a credit card either...