Bonka

Hello to all,

This is actually my first post on here so goes..

I am in the market for a 2nd car, aka daily driver..I currently drive a 1998 Nissan Maxima SE which I'd like to put off the road more so I can save up some more money to turn it into a money pit .

I wouldn't say that I'm familar with this generation of the Protege per se, but my first car was a 1992 Ford Escort LX, which I have known to share a lot of commonalities with the 1st gen.

Anyways, as far as my budget goes, I'm HOPEFULLY able to find one within he $3,000CDN price range. I live in Vancouver, BC, so the cars here do tend to cost more..

As far as other options I've looked into, I was really into the 3rd gen Accords (pop up lights!) but I've been searching for a few months now and there's really nothing in my price range without rust or other problems. Those cars are super reliable for their age but the owners tend to trash them.

I've also considered getting another 2nd gen Escort again but since my preference is for 4drs, I'd be settling with a whopping 70HP to the wheels

I've also looked into VW's but I am unwilling too put so much effort into a reasonably high maintenance car.

I've skimmed through a lot of threads here and it seems that the Protege gets a lot of favourable comments as far as I can see (obviously, because this is a Protege board!).

Anyways, I'm looking for cheap and reliable and hopefully the Protege fits the bill. I have no specific gripes on year of make but to accommodate, I'd probably look at a 1990-91 specifically regarding around insurance rates (100% at fault claim on my record). The older the car, the cheaper the insurance. I'd probably lean towards a LX..

Skimming through threads further, I believe these are some of the complaints against the Protege:

- Minor electrical issues
- Seatbelt chime issue (fixable)
- Automatic transmission (seeing how this is the same as the Escort, I am use to this)
- Rapidly wearing front-end steering components (DX only?)

Now, I also came across a lot of mention about 2 different crank styles and one being "apparently" the better of the two. I didn't find anything further regarding this issue but I was just wondering what is wrong with the crank on the earlier models and should this be a hinderance on my search since I'll probably be buying one (if I find the right one) with at least 100,000km's..

Also feel free to clue me into anything else you might have to say about the Protege, good or bad!

Sorry for the LONG post, I like to be thorough