<p>DS found one online from his school’s student postings of items for sale. Kids that are graduating and going back home (other countries) are often willing to sell the car cheaply because they can’t take it with them. He bought a used car cheaply and it’s good enough for what he wants it for.</p>
<p>I’m with fendrock. I had read the pros and cons of finding a cheap car on craigslist… but it didn’t matter. I could never find one cheaper than total cost of summer rental.</p>
<p>Maybe I didn’t stick with it long enough. I don’t think Maine is a particularly high cost area… Or maybe we should fly to starbright’s area, buy the car and drive it to our home locations :)!</p>
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<p>Worked out great!! I rented a slightly larger car because kid brought his friend along, but the rate was the best I’ve found. Thanks.</p>
<p>Will need to rent again this summer.:)</p>
<p>I live in Canada, dollar about par right now, but cars are definitely more expensive here, at least new. FWIw, I live in big city so lots of choice, but commutes tend to be short, and a climate nott requiring salted roads so rust isnt an issue. Maybe these are factors? and my brother- who knows used cars well- suggested which models. We had focused on Pontiac sun fires and also mazes with under 100k. Was a bargain - a mazda protege- sunroof is automated and stereo works great!- but not hugely below bluebook value, which I found on line. Oh one thing I noticed is the cheapest by far were used minivans. Not sure why.</p>
<p>Okay I did some searches. Here is a geo prism in Boston, 104k miles, for 1200</p>
<p>[95</a> GEO Prizm - Sedan - Low Miles - Mechanic Owned - Good Car!!](<a href=“http://boston.craigslist.org/nos/cto/2176429137.html]95”>http://boston.craigslist.org/nos/cto/2176429137.html)</p>
<p>I also found a car just like the on e we got for 1200 in the Chicago area.</p>
<p>Limit price to 1200 and see what shows up in the past week. I also put ‘low miles’ in heading to narrow it.</p>
<p>No intention to hijack this thread. On a related topic, OP says her kids don’t know how to drive a manual transmission car. This needs to change! It’s not a difficult skill to learn and it can be one that is necessary in certain situations. Went on a long road trip ‘back in the day’ and the car’s owner and I were the only manual drivers. I learned on an old farm truck at a very young age! I’m surprised at the number of young people who don’t know how to drive them! Just my two cents…</p>
<p>Panhandlegal, having my daughters learn to drive a manual transmission is under discussion, but it has become increasingly rare skill – only about 15% of cars sold in the US have a manual transmission.</p>
<p>We made all three of our girls learn to drive a manual. They don’t do it regularly by any mean, but they can get it going enough to get home/somewhere safe if necessary.</p>
<p>I actually started on a manual… for about a week… then I switched over to automatic and haven’t done it since… I don’t even know if I could if I tried… it’s been so long.</p>
<p>Wish you were in AZ…S1 will be graduating college in May and wants to sell his car before moving to San Francisco (where he has decided not to have a car, to start).</p>
<p>Just posting an update to this thread – I took the plunge and bought a 1995 Ford Taurus, about 125k miles on it, for $1850 (I could’ve had it for $200 less but the owner changed the brake rotors for me.)</p>
<p>It looks like the additional insurance will be significant to have both girls drive it. To pay sales tax, get it registered and inspected was about $250.</p>
<p>I am calling it Quasimodo because the girls think it is ugly even though it needs their love.</p>
<p>Things that have me worried about reselling it - gas mileage isn’t that great (18 miles to the gallon), you can tell the prior owner smoked (although I don’t find it that bad), and there is a slight discrepancy with the odometer (the odometer showed LOWER than what was on the title, and we will have to drive over 1000 miles on it to put it back in synch).</p>
<p>Good things about the car – runs like a top, no rust.</p>
<p>I let you know how it works out!</p>
<p>Yes, let us know how it works out for you! We decided to do the summer rental (which until I researched had no idea was even possible). I’ll drive it and he can drive my old SUV. Its going to cost a little less than 1800.00 for 2.5 months, I think. He’s off to college out of state so I have no use for another car sitting in the driveway, but he will need wheels this summer to get to work.</p>
<p>We potentially needed to have an extra car for the summer and checked local rentals as well as Hotwire.com The Hotwire rate for a small compact was slightly over $500 per month (total incl. all taxes). That sounded reasonable to me. We didn’t end up needing it, however, so never checked into insurance. Normally, when we rent a car for vacation purposes, our insurance covers it, but I’m not sure about a long-term rental.</p>
<p>I rented a car for the summer on the Enterprise Month-or-More plan when our normally two-car family was stymied by our daughter having an internship in a different direction than either my job or my husband’s. It ended up costing about $2000.</p>
<p>I drove the rental car. It would have cost extra for my daughter to drive it because of her age, so she drove my car.</p>
<p>We had to notify our insurance company because the number of days that we kept the rental car exceeded the number of days per year that we were covered for rental cars on our insurance. But the charge was small: something like $75.</p>
<p>Thanks for this thread. I never even thought of this. Son now has a license, but we can’t afford another car, nor the insurance on a third car. How do y’all handle insurance for these long term rentals? Since driving son to and from summer school is going to definitely impact my income, I"m willing to spring for a summer rental as well.</p>
<p>We just sold the Taurus we bought for the summer, so I thought I would write the end of this story.</p>
<p>The radiator boiled over. AAA towed it (no additional cost), and the cost to have the lines flushed was $65. We considered having the radiator replaced, but the mechanic advised against it, said the radiator should be good for another 5 to 6 months.</p>
<p>A rear tire had a leak and we replaced the two rear tires, plus got new wiper blades (cuz the windshield wiper squirter wasn’t working and the tire place cleared that for free), for about $220.</p>
<p>We posted the car on CraigsList and had no legitimate responses for three weeks. We were getting a bit nervous, but I think it can be explained by Hurricane Irene one weekend, followed by Labor Day the next.</p>
<p>We then sold the car for $1900.</p>
<p>As I mentioned above, sales tax and registration for the vehicle was about $250.</p>
<p>So the cost of the car for the summer (not including additional insurance) was about $500.</p>
<p>I’ll add to story too. I am someone that posted earlier on that we bought a used car, for about $1000 off of Craigslist. My brother repaired an oil leak but so far it hasn’t had any problem at all and its been almost a year. We also plan to sell it when we are done with it (ours was bought so our oldest could learn to drive on an automatic but she doesn’t actually need a car and she’s going for her test soon).</p>