is it okay to daily drive a 30 year old car or is it too many problems

plastic and rubber parts will begin falling apart
thin steel will be rusting away, structural steel may be compromised
part availability will be spotty, depending on the specific car

>>28525785 (OP)
I daily drive two nearly 30 year old cars, it's not a problem if you can wrench. If you rely on mechanics to do all the work for you, it'll bleed you dry.

>>28525785 (OP)
Well, is it a Celica GT Four?

>>28525785 (OP)
>new
best time to drive a car if you have it
>10 years
still great - all the parts are still in production and most of everything should still work anyways
>20 years
parts starting to go out of stock. Rubber getting tired everywhere. Will probably need to go to scrap yard for things occasionally.
>30 years
Unless the car has GOATed reliability and super responsible owners in terms of maintenance, the car is gonna have constant big jobs on the horizon, parts will be scarce, parts available won't be OEM, they will be gone from scrap yards, and rust will probably start having to be addressed.

I think 30 years is really the limit. That's when it becomes a project car. Once you get ahead of all the work it needs done, it can be a daily again. But you're stuck with bargain bin aftermarket and used ebay parts for life after that which makes repair intervals even smaller. It basically gets stuck being a shitbox for life at that point.

If you have to ask, then you probably can't handle it as your only vehicle. I've done it, little stuff starts failing like a plastic part of my clutch pedal assy broke and fell into the floor, a fan stopped working, the water pump went out, yadda yadda. It was easy for me, and I'm pretty average at wrenching, but you have to be ready to handle it. Have a shop manual for your car (I get 2 and cross-reference) and some tools.
Make sure you have AAA at least, or a friend / family member with a trailer to tow you. I've had clutch slave cylinders go out on me thrice, it's a $50 replacement but you can't move the car and need to trailer it.

>>28525819
Pretty much this. Both mine are over 30. No rust and most of the plastics are fine. Paint's fucked on both but they run well. In addition to larger items, I change a lot of smaller parts when I buy them - underhood hoses and gaskets, belts, bushings, brake hoses, etc.
But parts are getting harder to find for one of them since it was cheap and not popular so most of them got scrapped I guess. And you aren't likely to find a mechanic willing to sort them out to a decent condition so you have to DIY. They'll probably do bigger jobs but won't touch the smaller issues you'll have.

>>28525785 (OP)
Depends on what it is. A 90s diesel Mercedes? Probably good to go. 90s Land Rover? Complete garbage.

My recommendation would be to get something that's known for being reliable and pay the $4-5k premium. If that premium is too much for you then you need to stay away from old cars as they can easily eat that up when they shit the bed. Even reliable models.

>>28525785 (OP)
Wrenchlet question

>>28525785 (OP)
My daily is 46 years old and is simple jappo engineering.

Haha!

>>28525795
>>28525819
>>28525852
>>28525855

Listen to these guys though. You need money to buy tools and parts (that should be plentiful otherwise absolutely no) and a brain that can research problems and how to fix them.

The more complex the car means the problems will also be more complex.

For example, I don’t have a 1985 Maserati BiTurbo because the engine is goofy dago (I love Romans but wtf is this) engineering with almost no parts availability (try to find rotors) and the electrical stuff will be flakey at best. They have really nice interiors though.

To add to all that has been said already you also have to have the correct mindset to own an older car. Parts will break and you will have to hunt for them and it gets tiring sometimes. Especially if issues start to pile up. I have a 33 and a 37 year old car and I might slowly be getting over owning them because when shit works it's fine but when it starts breaking I'm starting to lose energy to deal with it. This goes whether or not you can wrench.

>>28525905
I found that setting a few maintenance goals earlier in the year helped me with the burnout. You get a longer time to plan it out and get parts, plus you're able to schedule the work instead of being forced to do it because something broke. Of course, it only works if you know something needs attention.

But I'll add that you need the correct circumstances, too. I drive 40 miles to and from work and if I were to break down, I could easily just call out; the boss once even let a guy take off to go to the junk yard. But if I had to drive farther and had a more demanding job, just having 2 90's cars would make me anxious, even if they're reliable.

>>28525785 (OP)
Can you take it apart and put it back together? Then yeah it's fine. If not then don't bother. These old cars are restoration projects at this point.

>>28525785 (OP)
If the previous owners didn't seriously neglect it you will be fine and run into very few problems.

Honestly it makes sense for restoration to add up. If you're fixing the car to be good as new it'll obviously total to the cost of a new car. Of course you're not financing a new car when it comes to wrenching you're just fixing things bit by bit and if you want an enthusiast vehicle you need tools anyways so to me it always made sense.

>>28525935
I work from home so I don't need any of my cars for commuting but I absolutely hate putting things off. This is why it's mentally draining for me when I know there's things that need to be done but I haven't gotten around to doing them thanks to either time, money or something else. It's especially tiresome when several things pile up at the same time like I said.

>>28525785 (OP)
i daily drive 95 camry, it's a nightmare but i keep going

>>28525785 (OP)
dont daily drive a celica gt 4

>>28526010
If you're doing all the work yourself you could bring a car back to 20k miles status with like 3 grand.

if you dont do everything yourself then you shouldn't be thinking about restoring a 30 year old car. simple as.

>>28526034
But if you have a plan to tackle those problems in an order, maybe it'll help you feel like you're not putting them off? I'm pretty particular about the mechanical condition of my cars but I'm trying to be more realistic about it and getting into the mindset of not screwing with them unless they really need it or I'm prepared to deal with the possibility of extra work.

>>28525785 (OP)
Cheap expensive cars are cheap for a reason. A friend ran a G4 until a couple of years ago.
He is mostly seen in the van he uses as a parts hauler.

>>28526035
based xv10 enjoyer

A lot of the complaints about older cars will go away if you just drop the $$$$ and go thru a big refresh and it won't feel like your constantly needing to fix something. Only problem is we're talking more than the car is probably worth...but afterwards you have a new car in a lot of important mechanical ways.

>Drop engine and replace all rubber / wear items deemed probably good to change
>Drop suspension and replace all rubber / wear items. New struts/shocks, replace brake lines, replace pads / rotors maybe

>>28525852
Good summary, but I would never daily a 30 years old car to save money on fuel economy. I would get a 30 years old car for the weekend instead.

>>28526338
i dailied a 30 year old car because even that was still fun as fuck. now i've got a 60 year old car that i'm gonna daily

>>28525822
Yeah I really want one since it's so cool and it's AWD and affordable. But I'm not looking for a project so I'll probably just get something newer. Maybe someday I'll have a bigger garage and I can do it.

I daily a 2002 Trans Am

If you can work on shit and know where to source parts, it's fine.

If you're not, don't do it.

I love not having a payment, not a ton of electronics comparatively, and it gets a lot of attention.

>>28525785 (OP)
Just hard to find parts

just get in the shitbox and do the junkyard jiggie like the rest of us, anon. you'll figure it all out simply through exposure, like browsing this board. trust.

>>28526090
I've got other more important things on my mind than the cars so that isn't helping either. Maybe if my situation calms down it'll change but as it is now they're starting to be more and more of a burden.