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Never purchase an NYC car, meaning a car that spent it's life driving in NYC.
You will need to replace the control arms, ball joints, struts, springs and exhaust hangers every 30 thousand miles because of NYC having the most uneven, pot hole riddled broken road surfaces of anywhere in the United States.
You can get a really basic OBDII for $20. It'll spit out a code(s) which you then run through Google on your phone.
This is very true, but it's a really good investment to purchase one of the better OBD2 tools especially when you buy out of warranty cars. The cheap ones don't read ABS systems and can't clear check engine lights for you. If you're going to spend 10K (lot of money 2 me) I recommend you get yourself a good OBD2 for now and in the future. I'm sure it will pay for itself, charge people 5 bucks to borrow it as an eternal usage fee. I understand buying the more affordable ones too, but there are significant feature differences between them.
It is indeed if you're buying from a dealer. Most cars in this range will be sitting on crappy little pot-lots that you probably don't want to do business with, anyway.
You're probably better off buying a car in this price range from an individual seller. (And if you do, avoid buying from kids. Buy from 30s and up adults. As a whole, they'll have taken better care of their vehicles than 20s and down...)
But I agree, buy an inexpensive car. And be aware, a clutch replacement could be expensive if needed and you can't do it yourself.
Why do you say he can't replace the clutch himself? It isn't rocket science. I can replace one in a day by myself. Anyone mechanically inclined can replace a clutch or transmission.
Oh, I guess you read this sentence as two separate thoughts. Sorry I didn't write it clear enough. I'm not saying the OP can't do it himself, but rather if it is needed and he can't do it himself, or does not want to, or has no mechanical knowledge, it could be expensive. As I noted in the following sentences of my post, it can cost over $1,000 if a shop does it, and as little as $250 or so if he does it himself. So the clutch condition and the possibility of it needing replacement is something to certainly consider when buying a manual transmission car.
I was not happy the clutch failed on the car I recently bought after only 12,000 miles. The fact it had a new clutch was one reason I bought it. The prior owner put 160,000 on the previous clutch. Even though I've done several clutch jobs on my Mustang, and can do one in about 4 hours on the garage floor, this FWD car took me about 9 hours total. A lot more stuff to take apart. Had to suspend the motor by a hoist when you remove 3 of the 4 motor mounts, remove CV axles, intake box, wiring, brackets, shift cables, etc from the housing. I can see why they charge a lot more for labor.
Oh, I guess you read this sentence as two separate thoughts. Sorry I didn't write it clear enough. I'm not saying the OP can't do it himself, but rather if it is needed and he can't do it himself, or does not want to, or has no mechanical knowledge, it could be expensive. As I noted in the following sentences of my post, it can cost over $1,000 if a shop does it, and as little as $250 or so if he does it himself. So the clutch condition and the possibility of it needing replacement is something to certainly consider when buying a manual transmission car.
I was not happy the clutch failed on the car I recently bought after only 12,000 miles. The fact it had a new clutch was one reason I bought it. The prior owner put 160,000 on the previous clutch. Even though I've done several clutch jobs on my Mustang, and can do one in about 4 hours on the garage floor, this FWD car took me about 9 hours total. A lot more stuff to take apart. Had to suspend the motor by a hoist when you remove 3 of the 4 motor mounts, remove CV axles, intake box, wiring, brackets, shift cables, etc from the housing. I can see why they charge a lot more for labor.
Cheap Korean clutch that disintegrated on me:
oh myyy that sounds like a lot of work..
but if its possible to save more then $850, it definately looks worht it
You may also want to check gas station lots a lot of them offer warranties/guarantees with the purchase and some of the cars aren't bad, plus it's one of the few places left where you can negotiate the price of a car.
Yes "feathering" a clutch constantly can cause premature damage but when you are stopped on a steep hill with a manual transmission there are only two options: Apply the parking brake and release it as you engage the clutch OR gently feather the clutch keeping it just at the point of engagement until you can engage the clutch to start moving again. A hand pulled emergency brake is a lot easier to use with this technique.
Heel and toe is something altogether different. Heel and toe means operating the clutch, brake and foot feed all at the same time during shifting of gears or braking. A technique usually used only by race car drivers or drivers of big rigs. It was necessary in older transmissions that did not have "synchronized" gears in order to "double clutch" while shifting up or down gears . Any big rig driver knows how to "double Clutch" to change gears but MOST drivers with more than 500K miles logged will not even bother with a clutch except when taking off. This is called floating the gears. Any driver of a big rig that hasn't learned how to do this is a rookie.
That reads like you copied some of it straight from links found by googling.
Anyway, heel and toe is not just used during shifting of gears or braking. It is also the proper technique for starting out from a dead stop when on an incline using a manual transmission. You fully depress the clutch with your left foot and hold the brake with your right foot until you are ready to start moving. The car will be simply idling and clutch stays completely pressed. When you are ready to go (red light turns green or whatever the case may be) you twist your right leg a little and use the toes of your right foot to press the accelerator peddle and get the rpm's up while at the same time continuing to hold the brake with the heel of your right foot. You then simply start releasing the clutch and then start removing your heel from the brake and off you go. No fooling with the parking brake, no "feathering" your clutch and burning it up, just simple proper manual transmission driving technique. I can do this without even thinking about it but I learned to drive on a manual and several of my first cars were manuals with a couple being performance cars.
Once you master heel and toe from a dead stop, you can go from dead stop idling with clutch fully depressed to moving in about a second without having to fool with a parking brake. This is why most cars do not have hand pull emergency brakes.......you don't need one if you know how to properly drive a manual transmission.
I have never even been in a manual transmission car and saw someone use the emergency brake. I have seen other people and have personally feathered the clutch while at a dead stop just for fun but everyone I know and have ridden with know how to heel and toe from a dead stop.
Sync shifting is pretty easy as well. You can slightly pull on the gear shifter and when the gears synchronize, you will feel when the pressure starts coming off the gears and you can slip it out of gear and straight to the next without ever touching the clutch.....super easy to do with hardly any learning curve whatsoever. After you drive a particular car through a few shifts, you will learn at what rpm's the gears synchronize and you will get to where you can sync shift without giving it much thought.
To the OP - I learned with 15 minutes of training followed by an hour long drive by myself on some not so busy roads. It isn't difficult to pick up driving stick... you just need some time by yourself practicing (and also getting used to stopping the car/turning it off properly with clutch in so you don't lurch into whatever happens to be in front of you).
Any of the vehicles you mentioned will be fine to learn on. The trick is that you will want to make sure the car you buy has a good transmission and clutch... only a mechanic will be able to tell you (or someone really good at driving stick). So whatever you intend to purchase I would have a mechanic take a look at because you probably won't be able to tell if there's a problem being new to manual transmissions.
Clutches are themselves a funny thing... they can last 120k+ miles in most stick shift vehicles, but if someone doesn't know what they are doing they can be burnt out in less than half that. Even a mechanic will have a difficult time telling whether a clutch is really worn with just a visual inspection or with "feeling" it while test driving. They will have a much better chance of picking up on a problem than you but it's still not a 100% situation.
Best of luck to you.
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