How Cheap Are You Willing To Go? 2000 Lincoln Continental vs 2000 Toyota Corolla

This week, we’ve been looking at cheap winter beaters, but “cheap” is a relative term. The point of a car like this is that it’s disposable; drive it for a winter or two and then scrap it when something fails, with no guilt and minimal financial impact. How cheap can you actually go these days? I think I may have found out. More on that in a minute.

I expected yesterday to be a blowout, and it was. A good cheap Pontiac Vibe is hard to beat. If it were up against a lesser car, the Chevy Impala probably would have fared better, but with that Vibe sitting there, there’s not a whole lot to recommend the Chevy.

Except for one thing. Look at where these cars are being sold: one is on the fringes of Chicago’s north suburbs, and the other is almost dead-center in the state of Wisconsin. In one case, you’ll be spending nearly all your time in suburbia, or going into the city. A car like the Vibe makes perfect sense. But the Chevy is better-suited to where it’s being sold, when getting to a larger population center means driving to Green Bay or Milwaukee or Eau Claire. You’ll spend a lot more time on the highway, and I imagine you’d appreciate a more comfortable car. All things being equal, though, yeah. The Vibe is the clear winner.

If you want a sacrificial car to keep road salt well away from your nice car, chances are you want to spend as little on it as possible. But how little is that, really? Well, from what I can see, these days, it’s about twelve hundred bucks. Nothing I found that was any cheaper seemed like a viable option. These two are no prizes, mind you, but they’ll get you where you need to go without needing much work. Let’s see which one you prefer.

2000 Lincoln Continental – $1,200

Engine/drivetrain: 4.6-liter DOHC V8, four-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Fallston, MD

Odometer reading: 60,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

It’s a tale as old as time: Elderly person bequeaths or sells or gives a car to a younger relative, and that younger relative abuses the hell out of the car and ruins it. Such was the fate of this poor Lincoln. The original owner’s grandson was, the ad says, “a little rough” on the car, resulting in some body damage and a mangled transmission. The transmission has been replaced, but the body damage remains, hence the cheap price.

The transmission in this generation of Continental has a hard time of it anyway; it has to cope with a 4.6-liter InTech V8 sending 275 horsepower to the front wheels. Why American automakers insist on FWD V8 cars, I don’t know, but it has never been easy on transmissions. The exuberance of a young driver turned loose with V8 power was too much for this one, it seems. It runs and drives just fine now. The seller claims the new transmission cost $3,000, which makes its $1,200 asking price seem like a bad deal for them, but that’s their problem, I guess.

The interior is in reasonably good condition, except for a small tear in the driver’s seat and a stain on the rear seat that’s mentioned in the ad, but not shown in the photos. Everything is said to work on the inside, with the exception of the driver’s window, which is off-track and stuck in the up position. I assume it has to do with the body damage on that door. The easiest way to fix it, if you can find one, is probably to just get a whole door from a junkyard.

If you don’t care about the window going up and down, you can probably leave the door alone; the seller says it opens and closes just fine. The only thing that really needs replacing outside is the passenger’s side headlight. That’s a junkyard item as well, most likely. Otherwise, the body damage might actually be an asset in this car’s location. Baltimore drivers can smell fear; it can help to show that you’re not afraid to put a little skin (or rather, sheetmetal) in the game.

2000 Toyota Corolla LE – $1,350

Engine/drivetrain: 1.8-liter DOHC inline 4, four-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Berwyn, IL

Odometer reading: 139,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

Prevailing wisdom says that when someone asks what kind of car they should buy, there’s a two-word answer that may not always be perfect, but it’s never wrong: “Toyota Corolla.” For decades now, these little cars have provided reliable, no-nonsense transportation for millions of people, including second and subsequent owners. A beat-up Corolla, bought for cheap, can solve a lot of problems. I had one myself, not too long ago, and I might still be driving it if I hadn’t inherited my dad’s old car. That one cost me just $500, a week before COVID hit. This one is in about the same condition, and considering what has happened to used car prices since then, just about as cheap.

This Corolla is powered by a 1.8-liter 1ZZ-FE four-cylinder engine and a four-speed automatic transmission, actually just about the same drivetrain as yesterday’s Pontiac Vibe. As such, it has the same potential oil-burning problems, but this one seems to be doing okay. The seller took it to a Toyota dealership to see what they thought it needed, and of course, came away with a laundry list of minor problems. But there’s nothing in the list that would keep it from serving as a winter beater as-is, as long as you keep an eye on some fluid levels. It has one torn CV joint boot, but CV joints start making noise long before they fail, so you’ll have plenty of warning. With luck, it will stay quiet until spring.

It’s the fancy LE model, so it has power windows and locks and some nicer upholstery than lesser Corollas. The seller says a couple of interior door handles are broken; that’s a common Corolla problem, and they’re cheap and easy to replace. The driver’s side window works intermittently; my guess would be the switch is going bad, which is also not a big deal to fix. This car doesn’t have a lot of miles on it, and it generally looks really clean inside.

It has seen better days outside. The left front fender and door have been replaced with junkyard parts that almost match, but not quite. There’s also a big scrape in the left rear door that’s there in some photos but not in others, so I don’t know if that’s recent damage or if it has been repaired. At this price, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t look rusty, and that’s more important.

I looked at cars for about an hour before settling on these two. Everything else I found below $1,500 needed something urgent before it could be put into service. These two could use some help, but there’s nothing to stop you from driving them to work the day after you buy them. And I can’t see any reason why either one of them shouldn’t at least get you through one winter. Is it better to spend a little more and get something better? Probably. But if this is all you have to spend, this is what you’re stuck with. Which one would you pick?