Torn, 1997 Plymouth Neon Or 1992 Toyota Celica GT

[Sean]

So I still have that cruddy old Neon (daily driver), it now has 197k miles.
Pros: Actually runs (weakly)
All gears work
Manual.
Cons: Leaking oil so quickly now from the rear-engine seal…
Paint is horrible (from my grandpa’s horrible attempts at painting it himself)
All the struts have been leaking for years now.
When I turn left, ANY push on the accelerator causes the car to want to stall. (worse with harder turns)
Fuel pump still not picking up any fuel past 5 gallons (15 gallon tank).

My uncle’s dad has an old 1992 Toyota Celica GT, with 201k miles.
Pros: Toyota reliability. (even with the extra miles, the engine has no leaks or cracks)
Struts all good, paint is perfect, no dents, I can actually turn left in it, fuel pump is perfect.
Better sound system, quicker, actually more fuel efficient, Neon only gets 26-30 MPG now…
Manual.
Cons: Reverse gear broken.
Unknown other issues, driven roughly for most of its life.

He wants to sell me the car for around 500 bucks, and the Neon could be sold for 800-ish.

This leaves me 300 dollars to fix that pesky reverse gear. How hard of a job is that?
Should I stick with the Neon or the Celica?

Personally: I hate the Neon with a passion, it is slow, ugly, and boring. And I would much rather prefer the Celica.

I am asking this because I don’t want to jump into this without research. I looked into Celica GT’s of that year, (most of them, sadly, are just super-modified) and was not able to find any good all round info on them.

Topic

[Its me]

Personally, I would ditch any Chrysler product… I may even consider a bike before a Neon if it weren’t so cold…

JMHO

-Karl

[Daniel]

Celica may have alot of miles, but that has nothing to do with how reliable it can be…if a car is taken good care of it will last forever! For example, my old integra was ran hard, but i kept all the fluids changed, and tune ups very often, and she ran for about 350k before the head gagsket went out between cyl 3 and cyl 2And head gaskets on the little 4s are noting to replace so she is runing good again with nothing new other then the gasket….It sounds to me like the neon is junk, and its more sentimental because you listed nothing great about it, and for the celica you can go on and on…you know which you should pick

[Author]

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