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A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

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1336 points kwindla | 3 comments | 25 Apr 25 15:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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PaulHoule ◴[25 Apr 25 15:15 UTC] No.43794437[source]▶
I like it. My wife runs a riding academy and we use a Honda Fit the way some people would use a pickup truck: we can fit 10 bales of wood shavings in the back. [1] We’re dreading when it fails because they don’t make the fit anymore and compact hatchbacks seem to be on the way out. Recent experiences have made me a bit of a Buick enthusiast and I can see driving a 2005-ish sedan except that I won’t get those sawdust bales into the trunk. We are also thinking of fitting in EV into the fleet, so far the used Nissan Leaf has been the main contender but this is a pickup truck I could get into.

[1] We were profitable from day one because we didn’t buy a $80,000 pickup on day one the way everybody else does.

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hansvm ◴[25 Apr 25 15:37 UTC] No.43794725[source]▶
The Honda Fit is great. You can probably squeeze an extra decade out if you're willing to swap out the motor or transmission (used, 100k miles or so, if you shop around $2k-$3k should be doable), and if you're using it heavily then you have the advantage that most cara on the market take less abuse, so you can maybe grab a decade beyond that by picking up somebody else's used Fit when you're done repairing yours.
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rockostrich ◴[25 Apr 25 16:49 UTC] No.43795847[source]▶
> used, 100k miles or so, if you shop around $2k-$3k should be doable

Where are you finding a 100k mile Honda Fit for $3k? Before I bought my current daily driver, Honda Fits were on my list to look out for and in the central NJ area I never saw one in decent condition around that mileage for less than $5k. Even looking now I see people trying to part out theirs for $2k or looking for $4k for a 200k mile one. I messaged someone on FB Marketplace that had a 2013 with 65k miles on it to try and bring down their $11k asking to $8k and just got ignored.

NJ is probably on the higher end of the market but the deviation can't be that big.

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1. hansvm ◴[25 Apr 25 17:37 UTC] No.43796438[source]▶
Sorry I wasn't clear. You can get a motor with 100k miles from a totaled car for $3k, including the labor to replace it.

To your actual question, I bought mine (2008, manual) in 2018 for $5k with 100k miles in The Bay, and it took about a month of waiting for a good deal to crop up. I've put another 100k on it without issue and plan to drive it a long time. Inflation and the chip shortage have roughly kept up with depreciation, so I'm currently seeing some good options in the $6k range and similarly expect that $5k is around the bottom of what you can pay for a nice vehicle with 100k miles on it.

Also, deviations can absolutely be that big. It's more prevalent at the top of the market, but there are big differences in Subarus and Civics, for example, in different parts of the country, even in the sub-$5k range. It's often worth a flight and driving back to purchase a car (if you value your time at $0 or have other things to do while you're there).

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2. rockostrich ◴[25 Apr 25 20:32 UTC] No.43798222[source]▶
Damn, that's a great deal. And yea, $5k seems to be about the bottom of the barrel in terms of getting a decent car.

For my "daily" driver (I drive a few times a week and it's rarely more than 20 miles), I ended up buying an imported WRX on an auction site. Cost more than a used Honda Fit but it's a ton of fun to drive.

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3. zdragnar ◴[26 Apr 25 01:42 UTC] No.43800164[source]▶
Don't forget, 2008 was before the "cash for clunkers" program that hit the used car market and drove prices up across the board.