Best pilot cars

[SuperFLUF]

At the risk of earning the dumbarse of the night award, what is an "airport car"?

An "airport car" is a car that you don't mind leaving at the airport for days or weeks at a time while you're away on a trip. Usually its a beater considering the relative insecurity of airport parking lots (in Newark BMW stands for Break My Windows) and the paint damage that comes from the constant shower of jet fuel from aircraft with full wing tanks venting over the lot on takeoff.

 

[jbDC9]

Cheap captains?

Top this: A few months back I flew with a capt. that drove a '78 Datsun B210 with 2-300,000 miles and is held together with 8 gallons of Bondo! He was pretty proud of this old rust bucket piece of crap, bought it new and is too cheap to part with it. And this was his main transportation, not just the airport beater!

For my ride, I used to have an '88 Ford Bronco II with some 115,000 miles; paint looked like crap but it ran pretty well... most of the time. Had lotsa clutch/transmission/drivetrain problems with it, over the course of 3-4 years I spent close to 5 grand in repairs. Ouch! Got hosed pretty bad on it. After the last problem I got rid of it and bought an Xterra instead. Nice to finally have a reliable car... 'cept that the gas mileage sucks!

 

[blott]

I gave a guy that lived in our "crashpad" a ride to the airport a year or so ago. He said something about it being nice to have a crashpad car. I never gave him a ride again-it is still my daily driver...LOL...

 

[jergar999]

Two words:

Chrysler Imperial.

Sorry, two more words:

Le Car!

 

[SDF2BUF2MCO]

So you see, not all pilots are cheap sobs who drive beaters. Some of us are car guys. I can't run with the Porsche, BMW crowd, but I refuse to drive bland cars.

regards,
enigma [/B]

Does a 99 Buick LeSabre qualify as a bland car ?

Actually living in Orlando the Buick is quite at home mixing it in with the Beemers and Mercedes that are a dime a dozen here. My kids tease me all the time about driving an old person's car. As punishment, this car will be theirs when they get old enough to drive.

BUICK the only car endorsed by the AARP and the Social Security Administration.

 

[surfnole]

I still regret giving my 86 Accord away with 230K miles on it. All because it leaked oil on my driveway and I got sick of trying to keep the driveway clean. Plus my wife had been bugging me for some time. AC even worked.

I'd rather be driving that than our old minivan, and I'm too cheap to buy a new car. I do like the minivan for carrying surfboards, windsurfers and all the associated equipment though, and thats probably the main reason I keep it.

 

[Dot_AK]

Roadmaster mountain bike, 18 speed, of which the middle six work. Remnants of purple/pink paint job, new strong lock. What I save on gas/insurance/tickets/maintenance goes straight into the flight lessons.

Someday I'll feel affluent enough to buy a car in the $1000-$4000 range, instead of the $500-$900. I hear they usually are a lot lower-maintenance.

 

[~~~^~~~]

Old Ford pickup with anti lock brakes. Unlike the newer models, you pump these your self. It can get as high as three cycles a second when you are short called on reserve on a rainy day and Gertrude and her friends pull out of the Kroger's parking lot on "senior's wednesday" with the 52 Biscayne.

It has intermittant wipers, intermittant ignition and an intermittant radio, but I like talk radio.

 

[Dave Benjamin]

88 Toyota Corolla 1.6L AT.
We bought it 6 or 7 years ago and have put over 100K on it bringing the total up to 153K. Only major repair was a rebuilt carburetor 2 years ago. High 20's for mileage. I just can't kill it. I was kind of hoping it would fail the smog test so I'd have an excuse to get rid of it but it passed.
So I'm debating about fixing the AC and taking care of a few other problems so it can go another few years.
I'm a firm believer that Toyota's are the best cars when it comes to reliability and cost of ownership. Nissans can be pretty good as well. I had a 86 Nissan 4x4 that went to 237K before the clutch went out. Other than that it was nothing but a belt tensioner and an exhaust manifold.

 

[Cardinal]

Any GLA guys seen my Cortez Cruiser lately?

LOL, this March on a snowy morning I had that thing sideways for almost the entire drive from the hotel. The heat never really caught up, but we didn't expect it to. What a ride. I'm still looking for the switch that activates the lights and sirens. With those on we could push the show time even further.