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What's a good less than $7,000 diesel car with a manual transmission for commuting?

Back story: I commute 60 miles round trip 5 days a week which is probably pretty common for a lot of people. My 10 year old manual Honda Civic suffered an unexpected early timing belt break. I did the math and with some of the other repairs/maintenance at the time I decided to buy a certified pre-owned Honda Accord.

I was getting 35MPG in my manual Civic at the time of it's death. I am getting 28MPG in the 4-door manual Accord. I'm not complaining about that, but I HATE the car payments. I am considering buying a diesel for the MPG and durability.

Looking for suggestions of something I can pay cash for and just keep up the maintenance and fuel costs to get from point A to point B.

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This question is right on the definition of "Too Localized", cost of vehicles fluctuate wildly between different regions/countries, are constantly changing over time and even trying to suggest a model isn't practical as the difference between two used cars of the same model are extreme based on what the previous owners did to them as covered in Top Gear's Season 16, Episode 4 when they each bought a BMW 325i and they all had different issues with them. – ManiacZX Sep 7 '11 at 12:16

closed as too localized by ManiacZX, Bob Cross♦, Larry♦ Oct 8 '11 at 18:44

This question is unlikely to help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet. For help making this question more broadly applicable, see the FAQ.

1 Answer

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Without a location it is really hard to answer this question. If you are in the United States the only vehicle that you can purchase at that price point that is diesel, efficient, and manual is going to be a Volkswagen Jetta (or some other VW). There are not that many diesels imported or produced in this country.

There have been other diesels sold here however I can't think of any others that would rival the MPGs of a (insert compact car) other than the VW diesel family.

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