Wife's car got stolen, soliciting suggestions for yak friendly replacement.

Hi all--

Woke up this morning (ba da du da domp) to find my wife's car stolen. Of all the insult-to-injury-ness of it, it's a 2000 Dodge Neon with faded paint. Who steals a 16 year old american passenger car, much less a pretty crusty neon? Come on people, there's a million civics in the area you could have stolen more easily. So much for urban camo.

Anyhow this brings me to the point: soliciting suggestions for yak friendly replacement cars: something that's wagon-y would be good, while being city-parking friendly size. We've got an ancient Previa we use for most paddling junkets, but I'd love to have access to something a lot easier to roof-top load than that (it's about 6.5' tall, with J cradles it's about 7').
Budget: cheap. I think we paid $3400 for that neon about a decade ago, and unfortunately, that's about the budget now. I'm pretty good at beating down craigslist, so it'll be doable, I just need to find some cars to focus my energy on.

Total roof-top yak cartage weight would be around 130lbs max for 2 boats and racks, more often though it'll be between 55 and 75lbs for a single +racks.

Thanks!

Ron


Oh, on the theft, it was weird, we saw someone tried the night-before-last to get into the car by screw-drivering the locks, both sides. Totally destroyed the driver's, largely borked the passenger side.  They didn't get in, and we thought it was motivated to see if there was anything of value in the car (common around here, and there wasn't).
Never occurred to me someone actually wanted the car itself, much less come back the next day to finish the job.

Suggestion: if you notice that someone's tried to get into your car, consider pulling the battery leads or fuses/relays to something essential like the fuel pump or starter. Gonna start doing this any time I leave town for any amount of time.

I had good luck with a honda CRV, in the 2000-2003 generation.
price is in the range of your budget, especially in 2WD. It hauled 2 kayaks no problem, with a yakima rack on it.
 if you can find one that has close to 100k on it, be sure the 100k service has been performed. Mine lasted another 100k before we upgraded.

That sucks! Sorry to hear that. I just picked up a 2003 Subaru Outback. Great on gas has a roof rack. Plenty of room for fishing, kayak and camping gear. paid 2k has 160k miles. No problems from it. Took it up to Tahoe a couple of weeks ago.

Perps like cars that blend in. They steal them to ride to another town and leave, or park somewhere and drive around town. Happened to me 2 years ago. Found the car 4 weeks later, about 2.5 miles from my house!

Damn that sucks!  I'm a big corolla fan, and since a Vibe is a corolla wagon with Pontiac badges, that's probably what I'd be looking for...

Subaru Forester around 2001 generation.  I had one and it's darn near perfect for kayak fishing. 

Perps like cars that blend in. They steal them to ride to another town and leave, or park somewhere and drive around town. Happened to me 2 years ago. Found the car 4 weeks later, about 2.5 miles from my house!

I'm fully expecting this is gonna happen. My only hope is it doesn't get used for an outhouse or bonfire first. A friend had her pathfinder boosted a few years ago and cruised the streets in a fan-out pattern from her house. Found it about 2 or 3 miles away on day 3. I liked the car, but not that much.

Thanks for the recommendations, keep 'em coming!

My wife's partial to the CRV and to the Vibe/Matrix, so I think we're gonna look at those. Actually she's also into the Sub's so...

As for vehicles that fit in, I think it's time for some international orange and green camo on the next car.

Thanks again for the recommendations, but our long national (over)nightmare has ended, the car (and surprisingly also the perp, arrested) was found this morning by OPD!

Fully functional, but kinda disgusting--lots of general detritus, mud, blunt ash everywhere. It's amazing how dirty it got overnight. I'd normally take care of that myself, but it's bad enough I might see if the insurance can tack on a thorough detailing.

Locks & ignition cylinder need to be replaced, and the asshat tore out the dome light (really?), but I'm still counting this a win. Car has an extra 200 or so miles on the odometer, and we got some fun random crap he'd collected overnight.  I think the thief just ran out of gas and was looking for his next ride when he passed out in front of someone's driveway.

Like Snapperhead said, it was found just 6 or 7 miles from my house. Got lucky in that it was still in the same town, and we were able to pick it up before OPD had to tow it. Also doubly lucky in that they found it before we went to look for it, it was in a neighborhood near Lake Chabot that we would never have thought to look.

Glad you got your car back! Maybe the camo paint job is now in the works? At least its drivable and they didn't wreck or torch the car.

That was fast.....sorry you had to endure that headache.

VW golfs hold a ton of gear inside if you fold the back seats down and it isn't a very tall vehicle so car topping a kayak is relatively easy. Decent gas mileage, relatively affordable and city parkable.

Good luck with the search.

Cheers,
Brad

I bet they have a Neon with a blown engine or tranny.

I concur with the Subaru suggestions.  We have a 2000 Outback that is still going strong at 140K.

Bushy

I've got a 2004 CRV with about 220k miles on it. I'm aiming for 1M...

Glad you got your car back! Maybe the camo paint job is now in the works? At least its drivable and they didn't wreck or torch the car.

seriously. I was fully braced for having to deal with towing and impound fees on a crispy burnt-out husk of a car!  I'll get back to you on the camo

Seems the theif was more than likely on a bender, and probably just looking for the next car with a half tank of gas or better. Aside from the other stolen car left behind by our house, when we got the car, the ash and stink we found was definitely blunt, and there was also  the "anti-theft" collar from a liquor bottle and a loose vicodin rolling around the back of the car, of course, in addition to his being passed out,

Glad you have the car, bummer the cleanup will have you thinking of this for a long time...