I bought my car to drive it, so I drive it all year. Plus I don't have the garage space to store it all winter.

Everybody says a beater is cheaper than snow tires - but the cost of the snow tires is really a wash because I will always need tires anyway. I run sticky summer tires for 8 months and the snows for 4, so I should be able to get 50,000+ miles out of the two sets. So the only actual additional cost is that of a second set of wheels. I bought cheap wheels and expensive tires, so for $600 I can have a car that I can drive all year. I wouldn't want to be stuck with a beater that cost less than $600 - I would think maintenance costs would add up real fast. I drive about 300 miles a week and I'd rather not get stranded in the middle of nowhere in a crappy $600 4WD.

Like Stoener said, I just pull through the do-it-yourself car wash once a week and spray off the undercarriage, and I get to enjoy my stang all year long.

 

I'd consider getting a beater if I had a place to park it but I don't. Plus I found this really good touchless carwash, but I've ever seen or used and doesn't get a lot of business so it stays clean too.

 

Yeah, parking the extra car is somewhat an issue for me. The beater no biggie, in the summer I keep it at one of our shops that has extra parking. But the stang, I need to work on a place for that in the winter.

 

The winter beater has snow tires on it too. Previous owner did all the maintence, single owner, non smoker. New clutch, timing belt, I sold him 4 snow tires, lol, A/C works great, moonroof.