Every winter, my van goes away because it has no heat, and it would rust away. To preserve it, I usually pick up a $300 beater and sell it in the spring. Last year I picked up a homely, but very bad condition Mazda 323 for $300. It needed a bit of work, but I was able to sell it for $500 just days before spring break. After a winter of listening to the automatic transmission struggle to choose a gear, I decided the car this winter must have a manual transmission. I also have a larger budget, so no more beaters. I intended to keep this one.

After weeks of scanning car auctions, Craigslist and other classifieds, I had a selection of beaters to go look at today. A bunch of sad, high mileage cars but they were the only ones I had found in my weeks of searching. Suddenly, just minutes before embarking on a day trip to go see them, an interesting little car popped up on Craig's List. It was apparently owned by a little old lady, classic story. So, it is a '94 model with roughly 65,000 "original miles". Very skeptical. But, it was close enough so I went to take a look.

I arrived, and found an incredibly clean, great running and ready to go car with a legitimate 64,983 original miles and a strong clutch. After taking it for an extensive test drive and verifying the mileage, I talked with the owners and settled on $700, a very great price for the car.

It's a '94 Hyundai Excel GS Hatchback!
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/...0/DSCF6890.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/...0/DSCF6893.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/...0/DSCF6895.jpg
Great running little car, smooth runner. Five speed. There is a bit of an issue with the driver's front brake caliper, it drags a little, but other than that it seems to be a good buy. Very nice transmission, very clean and the interior is almost spotless. If this wasn't actually a legit low-mileage car, then it would still be damn well taken care of. Tracks down the road straight and nice, handles well, and apparently gets great fuel mileage. Hopefully this will be a great little car I keep for years to come.

My one problem I have is that, upon arriving home, my left front brake was smoking. Just like a stuck hand brake, but up front. Perhaps a frozen caliper?

 

Great find. Best of luck with it. And welcome to the forum.

 

This is such an awesome little car! The one problem it did have, the radio being stuck on cODE, was fixed easily. Although the local Hyundai dealer wanted to charge me $45 to "hook it up here and figure out the problem", I dug through some manuals. Although I couldn't find the actual code, I tried the "3456" code they have as an example in the manual. It worked! Now I can listen to my favorite morning radio show as I take it out for the first normal drive tomorrow!

Glad to be part of this community! *toast*

 

Radio cODE came back, on hold with Hyundai U.S. Runs great otherwise!

 

Nice buy. I hope it serves you well.

Ask the little old lady if the timing belt has ever been replaced on the motor. Service interval for the belt on Hyundai engines is 60,000 miles. This car has a true interference type motor, which means if the belt breaks while running, the engine is usually toast. Since no warranty is involved, you can likely find a good independent mechanic to tackle the job for minimum cost if you are not incline to do so yourself. The brake situation should be easy to diagnose and fix once you get the caliber off the disk.

Good luck.

 

I will have to get that checked. I have edited my post five times but it keeps adding apostrophies!

The brake problem has gone away on its own, it seems.

 

It's a bug that has persisted since the site was rebuilt back in June.

Brake problems do not just go away by themselves. Funny thing, they tend to come back as you are hurtling down the road at highway speed and need to stop. Pull the wheel and and caliper to make sure nothing is wrong.