# Getting a cheap car and seeing how far it will take you?



## GreenthornTraveler (May 10, 2019)

Has anyone done this? Purchased a somewhat junker cheap car for traveling and driven it until it was on its last legs then sold it to the scrap heap and started hitching or other forms of transportation at that point? I can see some down sides if it breaks down in the middle of now where and you end up owing for towing bills or impounds or something.


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## NineMoreSteps (May 10, 2019)

My only thought is that it sounds kind of wasteful. If you're going to be using alternative forms of travel anyway, why not save that money for the road or use it on gear?


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## RoadFlower33 (May 10, 2019)

Btw, @GreenthornTraveler, I see your asking alot of old questions. Answers for most things can be found on this site. The search bar is amazing though it can be tough to find things bc we as ppl get creative with titles and such. So you might have to rephrase you search a couple times b4 you find it but I almost guarantee its here.


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## GreenthornTraveler (May 10, 2019)

Yeah i thought about it after i posted. I am doing some more research so i don't clutter things up with a bunch of unneccesary new posts. Momentary lapse of judgement.


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## GreenthornTraveler (May 10, 2019)

I would probably be better off finding a rubber tramp and throwing some gas money down on there rig if that was the form of transportation i wanted to take.


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## Beegod Santana (May 10, 2019)

Done it a few times, as long as you've got the title on you it's easy to get a scrap guy to pick it up. Normally got around $300. Worst case scenario it gets impounded and eventually siezed.


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## Beegod Santana (May 10, 2019)

And selling it to the scap yard really isn't being wasteful, if it's a simple fix they'll get it going again, if not, they'll strip the parts. A clutch job that'll cost you $1000 will just cost them the parts.


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## beersalt (May 10, 2019)

My partner, and a friend of ours @shwiskeygumimaci bought a junker late last year.

$500 Toyota Corolla. Spray painted matte black; they named it Trashgirl... Because they ended up doing a decent amount of repairs before really making miles. Basically cost as much to repair the car as it cost to buy the car off of facebook..

This fucking car ended up making it to Louisiana, from North Carolina where it was purchased. Then all the way AROUND texas, to Southern California. Then to Washington state!

By the time we reached Arizona this car was burning through so much oil, it was blowing ashes outta the muffler. Hahaha

A cylinder ended up going out in Northern California, and that bitch made it all the way to our final destination on three damn cylinders.
Hoorah, Trash Girl!!

Oh, and we also got away with all of this cross-country hallabaloo WITH NO LICENSE PLATE. Fucking ridiculous.. 

Good luck!!!


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## Deleted member 24782 (May 10, 2019)

GreenthornTraveler said:


> Has anyone done this? Purchased a somewhat junker cheap car for traveling and driven it until it was on its last legs then sold it to the scrap heap and started hitching or other forms of transportation at that point? I can see some down sides if it breaks down in the middle of now where and you end up owing for towing bills or impounds or something.



I'd encourage anyone to know how to do some basic maintenance on their vehicle before hitting the road. Why drive it into the ground then scrap a perfectly good car? I mean, unless this is some sort of social experiment!! Go for it!


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## Deleted member 24782 (May 10, 2019)

dumpsternavel said:


> My partner, and a friend of ours @shwiskeygumimaci bought a junker late last year.
> 
> $500 Toyota Corolla. Spray painted matte black; they named it Trashgirl... Because they ended up doing a decent amount of repairs before really making miles. Basically cost as much to repair the car as it cost to buy the car off of facebook..
> 
> ...



OMG thats amazing.


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## beersalt (May 10, 2019)

Ha! I think so too! @Brodiesel710 
It's so hilarious to me how many people tell you that you'll never get away with certain things because of the lawwww

But we got stopped in Arkansas for speeding, and they let us off with a warning, but made us remove the license plates because they didn't match the vehicle apparetally.

So, when we got stopped for the last time during this trip (which was also in Arkansas lol) for not having a license plate, we simply explained that other officers from the state already stopped us, and told us to remove them it's a new purchase blah blah blah
And got away with it!


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## beersalt (May 10, 2019)

So basically, what I have come to realize- it that you have A LOT of lee-way with the police in a newly purchased vehicle as long as you have to bill of sale to prove it.

Your amount of time without papers, and shit can last two cross country trips! 
Like, fuck..


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## Deleted member 24782 (May 10, 2019)

dumpsternavel said:


> So basically, what I have come to realize- it that you have A LOT of lee-way with the police in a newly purchased vehicle as long as you have to bill of sale to prove it.
> 
> Your amount of time without papers, and shit can last two cross country trips!
> Like, fuck..



A good friend of mine has an amazing similar story about stealing a Cadillac in Pratt, Kansas and driving it cross country, TWICE. But he ended up in jail, he was in his 20's. I think thats how the story goes, I've heard him tell it 3 or 4 times I should probably remember by now.


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## roughdraft (May 10, 2019)

dumpsternavel said:


> So basically, what I have come to realize- it that you have A LOT of lee-way with the police in a newly purchased vehicle as long as you have to bill of sale to prove it.
> 
> Your amount of time without papers, and shit can last two cross country trips!
> Like, fuck..



laws and loopholes are like pizza and beer, peanut butter and honey - and if politicans can do it, we can do it too!


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## Mrcharwe (May 10, 2019)

I bought a $500 minivan. The owner swore it was on its last leg. I lived in and drove that van around for 2 years. After 2 years it would no longer pass emissions and I sold it as a "running parts vehicle" for $500. So I recouped my initial investment, I did minimal maintence expecting it would die at anytime, and I had a free place to live for 2 years. I've had good luck with junkers, I got burned once and lost $1000 as soon as they signed the title over, but I have normally been able to keep a cheap vehicle going for a year or two.


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## GreenthornTraveler (May 11, 2019)

One less combustion engine on the road is not going to hurt my feelings if it goes to the scrap yard once its useful life is over.


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## iamwhatiam (May 11, 2019)

I bought a beater car up in Alaska one summer for around $500 or $600 bucks, with the intent on camping in it for the summer which I did. The thing looked like a taxi cab, bright yellow....and the ignition was fucked up on it, you had to pull a wire to start the thing. Burned through oil like crazy. Car got stolen the day I bought it and I ended up hitchhiking across the state to track it down. Got it back. Never even registered it or had insurance. Some good memories in that thing! After the summer, ended up selling it to someone who wanted it for parts. Think I sold it for 400, so got a lot of my money back!


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## RobHASboots (Jun 4, 2019)

GreenthornTraveler said:


> Has anyone done this? Purchased a somewhat junker cheap car for traveling and driven it until it was on its last legs then sold it to the scrap heap and started hitching or other forms of transportation at that point? I can see some down sides if it breaks down in the middle of now where and you end up owing for towing bills or impounds or something.


People totally do that...
Even itinerant workers and what's left of travelling-salesmen of sorts have been known to purchase junkers for a few hundred stones, drive them where they need to go, and then abandon them. I imagine that the more skill one has as a mechanic, the more success one might have with this venture; bare essentials, keep Chitty on life support.
As far as legal repercussions go, it may depend on where you abandon, and where your car is registered. I've 'donated' a few cars to the city and never heard anything from them (-not even so much as a 'thank you'). If anything, the city wins; they either auction, or sell the vehicles for scrap.


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