Which Dirt-Cheap Car Would You Daily? 1998 Chevy Lumina vs 1999 Honda Accord

Welcome back to another fabulous week of questionable cars! This week, our mission is to see how low you are willing to go and still feel comfortable driving something daily. We’re starting off with a price cap of $1,000, and doubling it every day until we reach $8,000 on Thursday, then on Friday you will be voting on where your personal comfort cutoff lies.

On Friday, I gave you a silly scenario with the week’s winners, and you responded with some silly answers. Bravo. Despite a few rather dishonorable mentions for the big colorful Ford truck, most of you did the sensible thing and went for the Sebring or the Fusion. The Sebring won, which probably surprised some of you as much as it surprised me.

I think the Sebring is the right choice too. My mother-in-law is no longer with us, but I get the feeling she would have appreciated the comfy Chrysler convertible. The Fusion would have appealed to her sense of frugality as well, though. I could go either way on that one.

Driving a cheap car on a daily basis is not a lifestyle for everyone. I get that. I’ve been doing it for so long that whenever I actually have a nicer car, I end up needing to own a beater as well, just to have something I don’t have to worry so much about. But I know some folks can’t stand to have anything without a warranty. But the question is, where is the transition line these days? At what price point does a car start being “nice?” I know one thing: it’s not this price point. But we have to start somewhere. Let’s check out a couple of cheapies to get the ball rolling.

1998 Chevrolet Lumina – $700

Engine/drivetrain: 3.1-liter OHV V6, four-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Kenosha, WI

Odometer reading: 139,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

For a very long time, this was the unofficial car of the upper Midwest. Roughly every fourth car in any given parking lot was a Chevy Lumina. You don’t see many of them anymore; most of them went to the great parking lot in the sky ages ago. And when you do see one, it’s usually pretty rough. Time has been especially unkind to the white ones; there was something wrong with white paint in the ’90s, and it came off in sheets.

The good news is that, mechanically, Luminas are bulletproof. There is absolutely nothing special or fancy about the drivetrain: it’s GM’s 60-degree V6 and a four-speed automatic, just like millions of other cars. It has a few foibles, but they’re well-understood. Parts are cheap, repairs are easy, and maintenance is largely optional. This one runs well, and the seller says it is currently daily driven.

It’s a little grubby and dirty inside. I wish the seller had cleaned it up a little before taking the photos. I mean, I get that it’s a $700 car, but you can still take a little pride in it. They do say the air conditioning works fine. No word on the CB radio, though.

The peeling paint is actually pretty impressive: the entire hood, roof, and trunk lid are bare, and the doors and fenders aren’t far behind. There’s surface rust on the roof, but not the other panels. Is the roof not galvanized, and everything else is, I wonder? The worst rust-through seems to be around the fuel filler, which is a common spot for rust on W-bodies. It’s worth taking a look underneath to make sure it’s all structurally sound, of course.

1999 Honda Accord EX – $1,000

Engine/drivetrain: 2.3-liter OHC inline 4, four-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Addison, MI

Odometer reading: 309,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

If you’re looking for a reliable car, Honda is usually your second stop after Toyota. If a Camry is just too vanilla for you, or if you can’t find one, the Honda Accord is your car. Rust is a concern, as it has been with Hondas since the dawn of time, but other than that, you can’t go too far wrong with one. Even this one, with over 300,000 miles on its odometer, can probably still give you your thousand bucks’ worth of service.

This generation of Accord is powered by a 2.3-liter four-cylinder, in this case backed by a four-speed automatic. Yeah, I’d rather have a manual too, but at this price, beggars can’t be choosers. The seller says it has had a bunch of work done, and it runs fine, but the dashboard is lit up like Clark Griswold’s house on Christmas Eve. The check engine, ABS, and some other warning light are all on. Nothing that will keep you from getting home, but concerning nonetheless.

This one is kind of a mess inside too. What do people have against vacuuming out a car? It takes five minutes. There’s a tree air freshener hanging from the mirror, and a bag of beef jerky sitting on the passenger’s seat. Any bets on which smell is winning out?

The outside is pretty rough as well. There’s some badly-repaired damage on the passenger side, and scuffs and dings all over. What is encouraging, though, is that the rear wheel arches don’t show any signs of rust-though, and that’s often where it shows up first on these cars. Maybe it has escaped the Honda rust curse.

I have to be honest: compared to some of the heaps I was driving when these two were new, they don’t look bad at all. Pending a test drive and an inspection, I’d drive either one of them if I had to. But I know my frame of reference is a bit different from most. What say you, Autopians? If these are all you had to choose from to get to work, which one would it be?