<p>I don’t have a particular brand recommendation. I think it’s more important to take a look at the specific vehicle including the miles on it and its condition and if you have access to the info, how well it was maintained. There are some brands that have better reputations than others and sometimes even within a brand the rep changes by model and year. If you think about it, some models simply aren’t designed that well and thus are subject to more issues, even the same model (ex: Toyota Corolla) could actually be built in multiple countries (Japan, USA) and there might be a quality issue related to that (or not), some cars are more complicated and have more to go wrong than simpler cars (ex: Mercedes luxo sedan vs Toyota Corolla). </p>
<p>Some of the biggest selling cars are among the most reliable and easiest/cheapest to fix due to the sheer volume - Toyota Corolla/Camry, Honda Civic/Accord, Nissan Sentra/etc., some Ford/Chevy/Dodge models, etc. and there are other reasonable brands as well.</p>
<p>Go to autotrader.com or cars.com, put in your area and a max price of $4,000, and see what turns up. You’ll likely see a wide variety of models and mileage. Aim for the ones with the lower mileage rather than higher mileage (ex: 100K miles vs 200K miles) but also consider the overall condition of the car as well as the gas mileage the car will get. Insurance costs will likely be relatively low because the car isn’t worth that much to begin with.</p>
<p>I just did this for my area and see the following examples of the range - </p>
<p>1997 Toyota 4runner with 260K miles for $4k –> Avoid one like this due to too many miles
1985 Cadillac Seville with 56K miles for $3,250 –> Some Cadillacs can be had with low miles and a low price in great condition because they weren’t driven that much by the sometimes more elderly owners.
1992 Honda Accord with 69K miles for $3,450
1999 Buick Century with 86K miles for $3,495
2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse with 88K miles for $3,990</p>
<p>On the scooter - it’s obviously a personal choice but you said you had a long bus ride so it seemed that you’d be riding/driving a ways and a car would be more practical and a car is definitely safer than a scooter.</p>
<p>It takes almost 2 hours to go 10-12 miles! Not really a lot of driving if you ask me. I’m from outside Waco originally and to get from my current house to the place I used to live there it would take a little over 2 hours :(</p>
<p>Be careful of cars like these. They may have been driven only for short cold start trips, which tend to be pretty hard on the car compared to piling up highway miles. Also, some things like rubber parts (including tires and timing belts), batteries, brake fluid, etc. deteriorate by age, so there may be extensive maintenance needs on such cars.</p>
<p>^^ That’s one of the reasons why no matter what car is purchased it s/b checked over by a decent mechanic. Without know details of why the miles are low it’s hard to say whether it was a matter of lots of short trips but no long ones, few short trips but some long ones, or a mix of short and long trips but just not so many of them. Regardless of that, it’s always possible the person had the vehicle maintained well and it’s fine. </p>
<p>I’d rather risk getting a low mileage car (with a reasonable circumstance for the low miles) than a high mileage car.</p>
We’ve had very good luck buying both used and new Corollas. Our current one is 14 years old. We sold our previous one for $50 because we knew that something major was about to go. (I can’t remember what it was, but we warned the guy who bought it. We felt badly when it did indeed go less than two weeks later, but he had been forwarned!)</p>
<p>" When you get over 150,000 miles things start needing work every couple of months. When you’re having to spend $500-1000 for repairs every few months, it’s time to find something newer."</p>
<p>My experience is just the opposite. I NEVER buy a car with less than 150,000. By then, in most cases, all the expensive initial repairs have been dealt with - timing belts, transmissions, brakes, converters, etc, etc., (I check to make sure, of course.) After that, it is very rare that my expenses top $1,000 a year - and that includes tires, etc.</p>
<p>Currently, I have a 1995 Saturn with 225,000 on it. I bought it for $2,200 seven years ago, and I could now sell it for signifiicantly more than that.</p>
<p>Don’t feel bad. For that price you sold it for he probably could have fixed the thing that went wrong and still had a decent deal.</p>
<p>Speaking of low miles on cars - just think of how many cars have abnormally low miles because the college students (undergrad and grad) leave them at home for many years with them being driven little other than breaks when home (although hopefully every now and then by a family member to keep everything lubricated). There are lots of reasons a car might have lower than normal mileage and be perfectly fine.</p>
Not really. By then some of these items haven’t yet failed but may in a short timeframe and some of the items that have been replaced will need to be replaced again (ex: timing belt, water pump, belts/hoses).</p>
<p>
Not to me! ;)</p>
<p>Note - I have a couple of cars with >200K miles on them and they’re fine but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if a transmission or timing chain (not belt - chain on these) failed at some point anytime.</p>
<p>“Not really. By then some of these items haven’t yet failed but may in a short timeframe and some of the items that have been replaced will need to be replaced again (ex: timing belt, water pump, belts/hoses).”</p>
Again, not really (generally speaking). There’s little question that a new car will be more reliable for the next 5 or 6 years than a car with 150K miles on it and even if something does break, chances are it’s covered under warranty for most or all of that time. When a car gets quite high mileage more unusual things start to fail that don’t typically fail imminently on a new car including steering and suspension components, engine expansion plugs rusting through (which on some cars can cost more than the car’s worth to fix), differential failing, wheel bearing failing, starter, alternator, A/C compressor, radiator, heater core, power windows, seat frames, etc. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean not to buy a car with a lot of miles on it - one just needs to know what they’re doing or be willing to either pay to fix the problem or just junk it if the fix costs more than the car’s worth and replace it with another cheap high mileage car (maybe what you do). The economics will likely favor the latter I’d expect but it comes with the downside of a less reliable car which means more likely to be stranded somewhere and more hassle and possibly unexpected out of pocket expenses (but probably more than balanced by the lack of ‘expected’ expenses in paying for a new car). </p>
<p>OTOH buying an old car can come with that ‘old car smell’ which I actually like (seriously) depending on the car.</p>
<p>We’ll just have to differ. I’ve owned a bundle of cars purchased with more than 100,000 (usually 150,000) miles on them, and I just haven’t had that experience. Again, my total average yearly expenses on TWO cars together (including new tires) is well under $2k a year for the past 10 years.</p>
<p>We’ve had two Subaru wagons, one Nissan Sentra (LOVED that car, he was nicknamed “Tank”), three Saturns, two Ford Escort wagons, one Honda Accord (my daughter’s first car - it was the lemon of the bunch).</p>
<p>My main issue with older cars is that they may lack the safety improvements made over recent years. </p>
<p>Not long ago we sold a Toyota Camry we had had in the family for almost two decades (passed down to different members). Great car, low maintenance, roll-down windows --which I loved, one less thing to go wrong!
BUT I always worried about its safety if it were ever hit, as it had no airbags.</p>
<p>A lot of this depends on WHERE the car has “lived.” Cars in the deep south (away from the ocean) last a LOT longer than cars in the north, where we pour salt on the roads every winter. I don’t care how well rust-proofed a car is, eventually salt will do it in. </p>
<p>I’d pay more for an older car that has lived its life in the south (not near the salty ocean breeze) than I would for an old car that has been in the northeast. My S recently sold a car to a friend I “met” here on CC. It was a 12 year old Camry with over 100k miles and it had spent its entire life in upstate NY, MA and NJ. It had rust that was just beginning to show behind the back wheels. He sold it for just under $3k. Camrys are incredibly reliable cars and this one was well maintained, but 12 years of salt on the undercarriage means its remaining life is limited. The engine may go forever, but the body and frame will give out.</p>
<p>People in my extended family have 4 VWs from the early 2000s. All are doing fine and all have been reliable. The only issue we have seen is that sometimes an issue can develop with the power windows. </p>
<p>If you appreciate driving a German car, then a VW can be a good way to go, if you don’t care about that, then the extra cost (at least brand new) may not be worth it.</p>