My wife bought Goldie (our 1984 Tercel wagon w/4wd) in 1989. She bought it because her mother's car (also an 84 Tercel wagon, which they still have) was a good, reliable vehicle. Goldie was a one-owner car with about 39k miles. The car now has 81.5k miles. We recently received a 95 Previa and are reluctantly selling the Tercel. I like putting my mountain bike on the Yakima roof rack and heading to the trails.

Our car has an automatic transmission and 4 wheel drive making it s-l-o-w. But is is reasonably comfortable and can haul a fair amount of stuff (better than our 92 Corolla sedan). Sometimes I wish that it had the SR5 option with the 5 speed manual. Our car is good in town, but can't keep up with 70 mph traffic. The good thing about this is that I'm less likely to get a ticket.

Our car has had to have some work: last year the transmission went out and we had a used one installed; it had a timing belt at 72k; last year it also got new tires and a front brakes (rotors/pads).

Things like CV boots do wear, so the comments by JohnTaurus aren't entirely unfounded. However, a car with 199k miles is basically living on borrowed time. The only cars with that mileage that are OK bets as used cars are usually Mercedes diesels. A friend at work had a Tercel hatchback that was going strong at 250k until it was flooded during Hurricane Fran. He said that it would have hit 500k without a hitch if the waters hadn't gotten to it.

So if you want a cheap wagon, the Tercel wagon is good basic transportation. If you're mechanically inclined, the car is a jewel to work on. It doesn't have many of the computerized gadgets that the newer cars have.