Iant333

Im torn. Been planning to buy some little crap car for like 500 bucks to drive me back and forth to school this winter to save on gas and not have to rust up the Jeep with the copious amounts of road salt we have here in Upstate NY.

Would probably uninsure the Jeep from like December to the beginning of April and drive said crap car instead, then go back to driving the Jeep when there is no road salt and 40 mile roundtrip commute every day. I'm not a fan of winter wheeling anyways.

My buddies think its a stupid idea to take an offroad vehicle off the road for the winter. But I honestly am only really "required" to drive in bad snow like 2-3 times a year, and only once in my 3 winters of driving have I really needed a 4wd vehicle it was so bad, just makes it easier to drive.

Then there is the economics of it, after buying the car and fixing all the stuff that is bound to go bad on a 500-600 dollar vehicle I dont know if the gas savings and maybe slightly lower insurance payment are going to even put me ahead at all. Especially the issues that are going to come with my XJ sitting 4 monthes a year then the car sitting for like the other 8 monthes.

And finally rust. I have never seen an XJ older than 15 years old in all of upstate NY that wasn't half eaten due to rust, and plus its just so nice not to have every other bolt snap off when im working on it. But im pretty good about keeping it clean in the winter.

What do you guys think, worth it or waste of time/money?

Addy

Whipping out a bit of napkin math:

Assuming you'll drive the car you buy for 6 months out of the year.
Assume your Cherokee gets 17 mpg
Assuming your 500$ car gets 30 mpg (maybe you want a metro which gets 50 mpg!)

a 40 mile round trip every single day for 6 months is about 7,200 miles you'll drive the car each year. That would cost you:

(unleaded 89 gasoline at guessing ~$2.65)
$636.00 in gasoline to operate the 30 mpg car during the winter months
$1,122.34 in gasoline to operate the Cherokee during the winter months

Saves you about $486.00 the first six months of this switch from a 17mpg to 30mpg car. Or it could save you $740.75 if you bought something hideous like a metro and shot out the 50mpg. You also have to take into account things like tax and title, but I have no clue what that'd cost up there in cold land.

Tural

it never hurts to have a spare vehicle. do u have a place to keep it? if you take off the insurance, you'll have to take off the tags and swap them over. you'll need two inspection stickers. two tax payments.
but, as i said. it never hurts to have a spare vehicle. maybe get a 2wd XJ for better gas mileage, and that way you have spare parts if you need 'em.

caged

i bought a lifted tj for a winter car/dd. the cherokee used to stay indoors for the winters, but now just sits in my driveway all winter, still insured, but not driven.

so, yes, i would buy a cheap car and park the xj for the winter.

superj

i have a spare car that is driven only in emergencies. plus, we have hte liberty which is the primary vehicle since its the wife's car. the spare though, a 1991 bmw 318, cost me 1250 to buy and gets a bit over 30mpg in town and city driving combined. its never broken down in the three years we have owned it and it looks great. (plus, its a euro model that some army officer bought in germany and brought home with him so its even rarer)

BLACKSPORT

yea i would and i think that you can just swap the coverage from one vehicle to the other but still keep the tags and such or at least it seemed that way when i switched vehicles multiple times b4 the xj (1st vehicle to last over a year!!) lol

caged

just leave fire and theft on the xj. it should only cost about 60 bux for the winter. but you can't drive it.

xj_maniac_newb

get like an 89-94 2wd toyota pickup, cheap on insurance, unstoppable 22r engine will last forever (seen trucks with 999,999 mies), gets around 30 or better mpg if its the 4 banger and 5 speed, and if you throw some snow tires on the back it will take you anywhere you need to go

superj

they are light in the rear end though so if there is snow it might slide out on you.

but they are damn fine little trucks. we had an 87 and a 91 and they were great

xj_maniac_newb

that is very true, had the rearend slide sideways on rainy days sometimes...

superj

yup, me too. the 91 we lost because the rear end came around in the rain entering the highway. i saw headlights twice after going up the on ramp, then the wall, then the sky two or three times, and then we were on the driver's side for a couple of seconds and ended up back on the wheels. engine was still running though and if i didn't have a wheel that the bead broke on, i could've just kept driving. i pulled it off the highway though so no one would hit us and make it worse. nothing happened to us though and we still sold it for 1k after that. it was bent like really wide v at the point where the cab and bed meet.

xj_maniac_newb

they can take a beating like nothing else. something went wrong with something in my tranny on mine and i couldnt use the clutch at all, so since i had nothing else to drive i just slammed it in gear at around 4,xxx rpms. got that fixed 3 weeks later and she still drove like a charm

superj

i went and looked at an extended cab one a few months ago and if they had usable space in the back, i would probably have on of those also. that engine combined with the size of the truck was perfect for a city truck

xj_maniac_newb

absolutely

Addy

you don't have sandbags in the back of your suv/trucks in winter?