Clunker of the Day: 1989 Jeep Comanche

I'm going to keep posting these until I see a H1 pop up on the list.



:
Samuel Jenesky loved his 1989 Jeep Comanche, but when the government came along waving $4,500 in incentives at him, he couldn't resist.

Jenesky, 58, a computer specialist in Pittsburgh, traded the Comanche for a new Chevy Cobalt LS. After the $4,500 clunker cash and other incentives, he says he was able buy a vehicle stickered at $19,000 for only about $12,000. He plans to give it to his son, Samuel Jr., 17, who is finishing high school. "This was a deal I couldn't pass up," Jenesky says. His trade in was one tough Comanche:

The Comanche was "a tank," with nearly 200,000 miles on the odometer. It was still running strong and he expected to get another couple years of service out of it. But the heater had stopped working, he had fixed body damange with Bondo and the headliner had fallen out of the top of the cab. Parting with the Comanche "was like losing a family member."

The Cobalt, by contrast, comes loaded with cruise control, Onstar, and a spoiler. In today's cover story on the clunker program, James R. Healey and myself estimate the Cobalt will save the Jeneskys about 350 gallons of gasoline a year driving an average of 12,000 miles a year.



http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2009/08/68495957/1