...Just stay away from the mid 90's Mazda's. During those times, Mazda had a joint operation with Ford. Ford gave Mazda the same 2.2L engine they put in there Ford Probes...not that great.

 

S10 with a 4cyl and 5speed. It'll be slow, but they are cheap and plentiful.

 

I would stay away from that Stratus idea (not to good from consumer reports IIRC), look at Awd Subaru's, Civic's Accords, corolla's, camry's, nissan?? older 4x4 toyota's .Yeah foriegn..

 

Not that I am disagreeing with you much (if any at all) on the Stratus, but don't put to much stock into Consumer Reports. I've read from a lot of sources about how the foreign car companies invest money into Consumer Reports or things associated with Consumer Reports, so just like most other things, they are not unbiased.

Not saying ignore them, just stating don't use them as your sole source of information about what cars are good or bad.

 

I agree about the Consumer Report Thing, but, I personally would go off of personal experience with different car manufactuer's, What first came to mind about the Stratus was the Intreped having that "sludge" problem, I thought they both had that same problem was it the 2.7 L ?? "SLUDGE" problem with the motors taking a crapper early.

 

Can't go wrong with a little Toyota or Honda.

 

honda civic or accord, 4 cylinder with manual trans.
if you can afford to keep the truck and continue to make money from it do so, otherwise dump it due to the money drain it will be.

 

I debate your question every now and than and I find that adding a 3 grand car to the cost of insuring my 2500 Ram and flue leaves me more in the red than if I ran my truck every day, 24/7 for 365 days a year.

Maintance, repairs, don't go away with a 2nd hand car.

My truck is paid off, so I'm not in a hurry to go new, or go back to used.

 

The fords were the problems, not mazda, the probe is identical to a mazda 626 in 4cy mode or v/6 mode.

 

just go with a honda civic. there are tons of them around and most of them seem to have the same engine.