OT- Used Car ideas
Hello MGoBoard,
Seeing as JeepInBen hasn't posted a Talking Cars Tuesday yet I am here to steal some of his thunder...
I am looking for a used car, ideally something like a higher mileage Honda Accord or Subaru that I can drive for a couple years and then resell with decent value. Any other suggestions on make/model are welcome, my budget is around 4-5,000... only requirements are good mileage, reliability and hopefully nicer inside than my beater of a Chevy.
Any ideas on places around Ann Arbor/Metro Detroit to look? Have you used cars.com, Autotrader, craigslist in the past? Suggestions welcome.
I've owned a Lotus, Audi's, Porsche, Mini Cooper, Nissan, Honda's, Chevy's, Dodge, Jeep, AMC, Datsun, Pontiac, Chrysler, Mercury, Ford.
I like Honda's and we have had good luck with them. That said I think the perceived gap between domestic and foreign cars made in the 2000's is narrow. And I usually found the cost of repairs to be "generally" higher for my imported cars.
The only true pieces of trash was my early 80's AMC and my Datsun Pickup.
One of the other posters suggested finding a car with good maintenance records. I think most brands (post 2000 or so) if well maintained will be fine. I'd rather have Grandma's Caddy or Buick than a Honda that has been beat by a wanna be drifter,
The Civic or Accord would be great.
If you want smething a little bigger the Camry's are good to. I put my college kid in a late model Camry and he is still driving it 5 years later.
I like one owner cars with service records to review. This way you know they told care of it.
No love for suggested an American Car? A hell of alot of you engineers will end up working with or for GM, Ford or FA. I say any car you can get with less than 100K on the speedo will probably last you another 100K. All cars today are built in ways that last forever. Better oil, better gas and most importantly tighter engineering tolerance have made cars so reliable I would be surprized if you could get a bad one. Could I suggest a Ford Focus. I had a toyota Carolla and a Ford Focus both cars were almost the same. Same gas mileage same sort of power. Both went over 200K after they were turned over to the kids. Disposable econo boxes. Drive the wheels off them then throw them away. A low mileage Focus can be had for a song.
I got a Ford Escape and I'm really happy with my choice. If I every buy a lawn mower I will consider Honda but for a car... NOPE