We roadtripped across the country for as CHEAP as possible - Episode 1

[Music] we've taken some of the Most Extreme Road Trips possible all across the continent up to Alaska and around every single continental state and we've done it in some incredible cars cars that I would have never dreamed of being able to own and go on adventures with but road trips don't have to be in the most expensive cars just to be fun I really do want to spend as little money as possible 15.8 MP gallon how I don't know sometimes cheaper cars are more enjoyable so we found two cars on Auto Temp that might be better than they more premium variants nothing is going to go wrong the Mazda RX8 is one of the most affordable ways to experience Mazda's fabled rotary engine and the Eclipse GSX is the most costeffective way to get Mitsubishi's all-wheel drive with a turbo my car literally vibrates when you're next to me like that it's just so fun to annoy [Music] him well here we are again taking another road trip and this time I'm taking a car that I hate to love rotary Mazda RX8 I've always thought that if you wanted to experience a rotary you should get an RX8 because rx7s are like 40 Grand and I think that car is mostly priced like that because of how it looks not because of how it drives if you want a rotary RX8 is the way to go cuz it's a lot cheaper but Ben also bought a car that he hates to love similar to Ben if you want to experience the all-wheel drive 4g63 Mitsubishi magic uh unfortunately you're going to be set back about 30 or 40 Grand but you can do it for a lot cheaper if you purchase a Mitsubishi Eclipse it it is a Mitsubishi it is 4g63 it is all-wheel drive in those regards it is kind of similar to an EVO unfortunately also like an EVO it's taken all of my money I bought this rust bucket for $6500 and I've spent a few thousand more to get it actually f functional this RX8 also cost me more than I thought it would as I bought it with a blown motor and had to buy another RX8 just to fix this one we're both well over our budget on these cars we originally planned the road trip to be a budget friendly version of the RX7 and Evo but we've now both spent over $10,000 which doesn't leave much money left for fuel food and lodging on this trip so what do you say we pinch Pennies on this here road trip yeah I'm with you I'm with you on that one how about whoever spends the most amount of money on this trip has to pay for the other person's drive back home that sounds no that's a no that's fair whoever's more financially responsible gets the advantage of being more finan that I'm financially irresponsible B yeah but I'm going to blow a motor you would ruin me if I had to pay for the tri I got to add premix when I fuel up it's cost so much let's just go I just don't I don't even want to think about it I'm probably going to burn coolant going to buy more coolant I don't think Ben realizes just how far I'm willing to go with a pinch of Penny he will be paying for the trip back I'll make sure of that you good what ready to go dude all right I'll see you at the gas station oh my [Music] goshes on the other side of we don't take you and it's not easy to find a rare car like an R3 RX8 and it's definitely not easy to find a running DSM so when we were looking for the cars that we were going to be bringing on this road trip we really needed to cast a wide net Facebook Craigslist eBay we were looking all up and down the East Coast for candidates that might be interesting and cheap autot tempus made our job significantly Easier by compiling all the search results into one place and autot tempus will let you search Nationwide if you're really that desperate although I wouldn't recommend driving across the country for an RX8 the really nice thing about autot Tempest is that it's not just another place that you have to look when you're trying to find a car to buy it's kind of the only place you have to look because it just shows you everything that's for sale all at once in one place and I use that incredible power to buy a terrible dsmes on the other side of the world we don't know take it [Music] we're headed west across the country to Moab but it's not necessarily about Moab itself it's about the harsh journey to get there testing both cars through multiple mountain ranges and a wide variety of climates oh and we're also taking this trip in the peak winter month of [Music] January so we're obviously pinching pennies on this road trip and there is a bit of a competition aspect so I'm trying to spend as little money on the record as possible but I mean what Ben doesn't know won't hurt him surely some peanut M&M's and goldfish won't skew the result too much just a couple snacks Ben doesn't need to know about this at all except Ben forgot to account for the fact that I'm the one editing this video series so I saw that and I saw that it cost $445 so it looks like I'm off to a head start for the first time kind of on one of these road trips money is really a factor for us uh no joke I'm poor at the moment and I would say that Ben is probably in a similar boat so I really do want to spend as little money as possible besides the fact that there is a competition aspect to this and uh I really want to beat Ben and spend less money on this trip the one Saving Grace is that Ben decided to get an RX8 if anything is going to make a DSM look reliable it is the Renaissance motor in that RX8 and if anything is going to make this car look fuel economical it's going to be that rotary right there buddy well this is not necessarily the most ideal car for a road trip but I will say it is pretty smooth so this car is mostly stock it has an intake and that is mostly for reli ability reasons it opens up the back side of the radiator so the air can flow through and cool off the engine more it's also got an exhaust so you can hear the rotary a little bit better and it has fortun Auto coilovers very comfortable coilovers and it has wheels and tires obviously I'm running snow tires because we're taking a road trip in the winter other than that it is stock I mean it's not even been tuned it is there's no check engine light we're good but the GSX is making over 300 horsepower and has a rather uh creative all-wheel drive swap done to it so I'm obviously worried about a lack of reliability costing me money on this trip but I think I can make up for it by the fact that I'm super Frugal ramen noodles are still the primary staple of my diet so my strategy is to spend as little money on food as possible of course my Eclipse has a low compression built motor which means it wasn't exactly designed with fuel efficiency in mind so there's not much that I can do about the cost of gas [Music] yeah sorry it's like a rotary thing or at least a non-turbo rotary thing is the fuel burn on its way down so somehow you found a way to be as irritating as possible that's what they tell I'm trying to give this engine the best chance that it's got all right man I really thought I would be able to beat you on fuel economy but I'm I'm honestly not sure then I've done the math on the premix every time I have to fill up it is $1.70 in Pre remix uh I don't know if you watched the last build video on the GSX the all-wheel drive swap involved swapping around some gas lines from the filler neck the previous owner swapped and did not do super well so you have to fill it very very slowly yeah like you want to see what happens oh oh whoops yeah so and that's money right there dude you just lost like don't you don't have to tell me so no that's pretty that's really actually this is then this is the worst I've ever gotten on any vehicle I own hold on let me see the car is stock it's a stock car okay well mine's not good nor is mine I was I was actually dead on with my calculation it's 19 12 miles per gallon which is I mean I I was driving like a a a silly goose at times so I could probably get that up to 20 21 if I drive a little more conservatively but that's still pretty bad I mean if you got worse than that I would I would feel pretty bad for no yeah no I didn't I didn't get uh I didn't get any I didn't get any worse than that no no I I was a lot well how many gallons did you well um oh 12 gallons yeah yeah I only used N9 and a half Ben oh I filled up for $34 uh maybe there might be a hole or leak or something somewhere yeah it's pretty yeah it's 15 15.8 how I don't know I got a leg up on you in the gas M oh it's 10 bucks every time we fill up oh that genuinely does suck that's going to be a pretty big split [Music] wow we split a hotel cost for the night and both thought it would be wise to steal as much food as possible from the hotel breakfast bar it is for the guests right except there was no way that we would be able to return to this hotel because we decided to leave early in the morning and Ben's Eclipse isn't exactly neighborhood friendly cold SE am I [Music] right I'm sorry to everybody at the wind gate by Windam in uran West Virginia oh [Laughter] Lord I look I can hear it bouncing off of the wall like I think people are coming to their Windows now it's not even that it's 8:30 Ben's car might be loud and obnoxious but my car might have a bigger problem it seems that my rotary has taken a liking to burning coolant but there's nothing that I can do about that so we're just going to ignore it so Ben thinks that he is going to be able to win this budget challenge based solely on the unreliability of my modified DSM and he is correct to a certain degree this car is definitely going to break and cost me money but what he's not accounting for is that I'm going to be able to close the gap by a difference in lifestyle I already live a very Spartan No Frills lifestyle him on the other hand he is a prissy pampered little prince who needs his Starbucks hey Ben there's a Starbucks up here um well I think exit 18 want oh they had coffee at the hotel B did you grab from there I wouldn't really call that coffee it kind of tastes like uh like ground up dog food I mean it was free though yeah I then you know I have a caffeine addiction and I need a large coffee from Starbucks so hey you know just it feels nice to hear you say it hello welcome to Starbucks what going I get for you today hi um just placed a mobile order for Ben but what Ben doesn't realize is that I have acred all a lot of points on the Starbucks app over the years think this trip might be the time to cash in on those check out $0 Don't Mind If I Do there you go great thank you have a good day you [Music] too man you want to hear the loudest sound in the world I heard you three miles back I think you've turned my car black I hope your turbo breaks and just flies out of the [Music] exhaust my car literally vibrates when you're next to me like that it's just so fun to annoy [Laughter] him so just to give you an idea of how much how much heavy lifting this glass is [Applause] doing thank God I have working Windows Ben I like that we've ascended to the point where we can know that both of these cars suck but also they're really cool at the same time yeah I simultaneously despise and also really appreciate both of the cars that we have uh and I think that we we picked two good cars to be honest yeah I'm uh ready for nice easy road trip we're going to get some nice scenery and nothing's going to go wrong nothing is going to go wrong uh Ben we need to take the next exit because uh my check engine light just came on and I'm going to need to give that a check bro you're joking Ben we we are in West Virginia we've only made it one state over okay Ben don't think I didn't see you at the last stop trying to adjust your car and I I saw those wrenches out fixing stuff yeah nothing's broken it was preventative I don't nothing's broken either I just got a light on the dash that's it buddy I'm not wishing ill on Ben I think it's important to point that out it's just funny when we were working on this car it had I think six check engine lights initially okay so it could be a lot of things I think p42 p420 that's the cat P0420 P0420 um I have this little button right here I can press that and now I don't have a check engine light so now so now I'm I've got now the problem has been fixed there's no problems anymore yeah we we are good to go all right my first reliability scare and we're only one state over I'm only $5 behind so far but with each gas stop I'm going to fall further behind so I really can't can't afford to have any breakdowns thankfully I can rely on my stellar trip planning to save me some costs I think we're okay I think we'll I think we'll be all right I actually have the foresight in planning to pack food with me which I have in the back seat here I've got tons of snacks tons of food tons of drinks water I I can make peanut but and jelly sandwiches unfortunately I don't have food with me and I'm definitely not going to spend all of my money on eating out so I'm going to make a quick stop at Walmart and see what we can scr up this little number right here reduced chocolate muffin 88 cents that's breakfast right there baby got $1.78 French rad with garlic herb okay so that's lunch got $3 GIF crunchy that's going to last me 2 days got some uh unripe bananas so that'll delay me eating them these are cheap got four gala apples these were $137 a pot some Red Bull cuz it's going to be more expensive to buy at the gas station so saving some pennies that one $1 1982 and I think this should be at least two days worth of [Music] food [Music] okay so our fuel economy has gone up a little bit we're at 18 flat uh unfortunately Benz has also gone up he's now over 20 so uh that puts me another $10 behind I am honestly blown away at just how inefficient this car is this is the most modern rotary you can get how is it this bad at gas mileage the Model T got better gas mileage than this car what I'm pretty impressed that we've made it this far on only 150 bucks and by now we're deep into Kentucky as a matter of fact we're almost to [Music] Paris wait no then you're on this oh yeah right yeah obviously obviously eiel Tower Paris France whatever they got that idea from Paris Kentucky really this this is the original this was here before now actually they put this in in 2021 yeah that makes sense is the eiff tower also white I don't know I've never seen it I don't think it's white well then I I guess you know we're kind of already we're in France as it is so you know you want to bust out some lunch I've got some water from Walmart yeah same so obviously you know we're trying to as Frugal as possible that smells really nice garc uhhuh when it comes to being food Frugal Ben has no shot because I am willing to eat garbage you might be more frugal than me but I'm far more prepared in uh bringing stuff from home so I have all of this food um so let's see we got full loaf of bread it is great value yeah but I didn't know that we were doing this until until you pop the oh you just don't prepare well you were planning on spending all thist money I also have some bananas some uh trail mix and a nice Ziploc baggie to make myself a little peanut butter and jelly on that bread there let's look covered raisins chug me in water chug me in water big dog for real that's going to cost you bro this is like this is like 25 cents or so my God I'm adding that one to your T after a wonderfully peaceful lunch we decided to leave Paris and keep heading west what a calm and tranquil road trip this has been so far it'd be a shame if one of us had a catastrophic mechanical failure right about now and I just I think I just lost the engine uh it could be a serpentine belt or something maybe the car just completely shut off can you make it to the exit yeah I can't make it up the exit but I can make it C to it yeah just roll as far as you [Music] can uh I was cruising just steady stay throttle in fifth gear and suddenly it just went and then just shut off completely timing belt Yeah Tim belt is it still oh no yeah you blew the motor [Applause] wow I'm Legit I'm speechless yeah I mean it's my fault cuz I saw it was working its way over and I didn't didn't try and change it but I've never heard of that happening like if I guess your timing pulley is like a little bit bent it's going to force no it have to be bent this way it's going to force the P the belt outward I guess yeah until it just phras itself apart which is clearly what [Music] [Applause] happened word word this might be a bad time to mention the fact that rotaries don't have timing belts yeah I mean that car is done so well let me [Music] see dude it does suck yeah I'm like really conflicted because I really did like that Eclipse I think it's a really good car I'm like I was jealous of it not going to lie it's cool but I'm also like super happy now because I I'm I think I've won the I've won the cough challenge for yeah good great like this is like a actual like I am personally yeah well I don't know yeah so what's the plan what do you want to do I can take it to my tuner Ken uh he says he has another head and we can put it on the motor we have a game plan we're going to trailer my eclipse from Kentucky all the way back to North Carolina and have the cylinder head swapped by DSM Builder Kenny McDonald who tuned my car previously but rx8s can't tow car trailers so the first step is to get a [Applause] [Music] [Applause] U-Haul right now the gas gauge is at zero so we have to leave U-Haul and go directly to fill it up with I would say this probably has like a 40 galon gas tank and it's a 7.3 L V8 then don't forget to count this up on your tally I want receipts for all this gas this will be at least 100 bucks right oh yeah yeah I I think at least if if this truck beats the mileage of my RX8 I'm going to be really sad all right now we just got to go to Valene drop the ar8 off then we're going to Charlotte North Carolina and we're getting this head swapped valin's headquarters are here in Kentucky and since I don't want to risk putting extra miles on the rotary we're going to drop off the RX8 here for a little detour back down to North Carolina because I don't want to push my luck any more than I have to and I might as well save the fuel cost as well you smell the coolant too I do smell coolant yeah so maybe let's just leave it here yeah game plan we're bombing it to Charlotte tonight okay you're driving yeah head on the car tomorrow and then we'll be back here tomorrow night to pick your car up tomorrow night that's the game plan okay all right let's do it am I riding this yeah you're riding can I maybe riding the eclips maybe the seat reclines at least why do you like the eclipse all of a sudden well this because the eclipse is no longer loud get in yeah we're getting about 6 and 12 miles per gallon right now Towing the eclipse with a 20ft box truck uh we're driving 6 hours tonight we should get there around 1:20 a.m. and Ken said he might start on it tonight so I love it all I have left is to be excited I don't I don't know what I did to deserve is it cuz I made fun of the previous owner so much in my build series previous owner installed them this man man is my Nemesis no I think you just bought a bad car Ben yeah anybody could have told you that think about it this way Ben nothing that you did to the car broke that's true hey that makes me feel good yeah I maybe I should have checked that timing belt before we left though probably it's about a 400 mile drive down to Kenny shop in North Carolina I tow the eclipse non-stop through the night on our 6-hour drive back from Kentucky I'm willing to throw away sleep if it means getting this car back on the road for a reasonable price so we've gone um 203 mil and we need gas uh we've been getting 7 m per gallon so maybe this truck is a rotary power boy howdy I'm about $1,000 behind Ben at this point as far as the budget's concerned I have to keep reminding myself that Ben does have a rotary powered car for this trip so his time for repairs will come my only hope is that Kenny can get the car fixed tonight for relatively cheap it is currently 2:01 a.m. we have made it to North Carolina and uh These Fine gentlemen right here are going to get this DSM back on the [Applause] road Kenny is an OG in the DSM Community he's been building dsms for decades now when I sent him a video of my timing belt failure he was confident that the bottom end was fine and we could have the head swapped in just a night and we'll have to get the job done tonight because this failure threatens to put the trip massively behind schedule with the help of his fellow DSM enthusiasts Lorenzo and Isaac we all get started tearing the eclipse apart as quick as we [Music] can oh did it break the sensors son of a gun I wasn't trying to fix that but guess what being always prepared I know there's a lot of Riff Raff about Gates and uh gry timing belts because they're very stiff and there's not a lot of give to them but there's nothing wrong with it okay and one thing I noticed the most when doing timing on a lot of these cars is they're over tension baot all right you don't have to take it for me but I've never had a problem with these it turns out but the failure happened because of a loose tensioner that made the belt walk outward away from the motor until it hit the guide pulley on the oil pump which has a sharp edge and cut the belt in half yeah it's built it's definitely built uh I don't know what brand Pistons these are cuz I don't feel like taking out the oil pan to double check but uh these are definitely at the market Pistons yeah it's not bad it's okay it Ain it ain't do no damage to these to my amazement there is no significant damage to the bottom end but the valves did make contact with the Pistons so we can't reuse the head that's why we're at Kenny shop though because he's got a new head ready to go [Music] on oh that's it that's it heads on baby it's morning time fellas it's 7:00 a.m. now only 5 hours after we got started but the car is all together now and we're ready to fire it up and be on our way hey on the next episode of the road trip Ben tries to act like he's not impressed with my Eclipse Ben eats unsalted potato chips and Ben tailgates me thanks again to autotempest for sponsoring this trip head over to autotempest.com or download the autotempest app with the links in the description below to find your next car just make sure you make better choices than we did

Channel: Gears and Gasoline

Views: 965,127

Keywords: roadtrip, gears and gasoline, Mazda, RX8, Rotary, Mitsubishi, Eclipse, GSX, Budget, Cheap

Id: -hPV1E5rRg0

Length: 28min 12sec (1692 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 10 2024