Used Car Advice

Or Honda, the ones I see were all made in the USA.

 

I'd definitely buy Toyota or Honda. I was giving my D&D answer since that's where he requested advice.

 

If I have a long work commute, I would get one. The acceleration is impressive but nothing is better than auto pilot.

 

I watched Fog of War because you wrote something in here about it. Im pretty sure it was you. Had no idea about him before

 

Man, your task looks difficult, JV. I bought a used 2002 Accord EX with leather (they call them an EX-L these days) from a friend of my sister's for $2,000 for our youngest kid, who was in his last year of college in Dallas at the time. It was about 2 years ago and the car was, quite literally, barely driven with 40,000 miles on the odometer. Taken to the dealer regularly for service. Put about $1500 into it, including replacing the tires (dry rot - it was barely driven!) and the thing runs like a champ. I knew it was an amazing deal, but didn't realize how amazing until looking on CarFax out of curiosity when I saw your post.

$4000 gets you perhaps a 2004-5 Honda (likely a Civic) with at least 150K, probably more like 175K+, unless you fall into a deal like I did. That's based on a quick look. My sister's friend had first mentioned wanting to sell that Accord about 7 years ago, and I immediately told her to let me know when she actually decided to do it, knowing the mileage. I'd given up on it when, out of the blue, she offered to sell the thing to me (wanted a new Accord). That's when having an older sister (yes, older than me!) with a bunch of equally old girlfriends who view cars like they are alien constructs comes in handy. The friend had just replaced the battery, so I insisted that I reimburse her, feeling like I was already robbing her blind. I had asked her what she wanted for it and never said a word about a price.

Just so you'll know, telling you about that deal was my form of punishment for posting this in the wrong forum!

 

Buying used will help you avoid paying extra because of the tariffs.

That's as close as I can come to a political spin.

 

Make it a blue car.

 

It's a risk buying a used car that old. If you could find one that is a single owner that kept up with the maintenance, then maybe it would be a good car. I would say it's a needle in a haystack. I would up the budget a couple of thousand to find something a little bit newer.

 

Try to find a car with low mileage (under 80K) and less than 10 years old. Common things that can get costly to fix are the AC/compressor, transmission, catalytic converter, brake calipers/lines - have someone take a good look at the condition of these parts. Find out about previous owners and accidents as well.

 

Yeah, probably me. I love that movie. What'd you think?

The next documentary profile I want to see is Gorbachev by Werner Herzog.

 

If that's your budget, buy lowest mileage (regardless of manufacture year) Toyota Camry that fits your budget. Those things will hit half a million miles easily with proactive service. You will get the lowest labor charges because they're easy for mechanics to work on and you will get the parts easily because there's a lot of stock and tons of these vehicles floating around.

Hondas are fantastic but if you want to be extra nitpicky, an old automatic Honda is significantly more likely to make them cough up $$$ on transmission issues.

 

You can pick up a barely used presidential limousine pretty cheap if you can wait till 2020.

 

Since we elected a used car salesman to run the country, I'd look at whitehouse.gov and see what they recommend.

 

You can get some older SUV's for that, and even less...and they will almost run forever. Built better, since they didn't have to worry so much about weight. You might look at some older Sedans as well. Yes, they don't get the gas mileage the Honda would...but that's also why they are cheap.

I would also suggest a leasing company like D&M, although most of their vehicles will be newer and out of that price range.

Look for something that has already had significant work done to it...an engine rebuild, etc . Does wonders for the longevity of the car, and doesn't add much if any to the selling price. This applies more to American makes, maybe...I think once the foreign makes start to go...they start to go. Also don't see a lot of rebuilt engines, etc for those.