I flipped and totaled my Vue in an ice storm.
I have heard nothing but great things about Subarus. I have a Kia Rio and it is surprisingly awesome in the snow. No snow tires. However I live in very flat snow and ice territory.
If we are coming home from the North, there is a very, very steep, long hill that we have to go up to get to our house. A number of times when it has snowed and has not been plowed, there will be cars strewed all over this steep hill, some sliding backwards, some spinning, most stopped. And we just keep on trucking in our Subaru Outback. No special tires, nothing. It just goes anywhere. We leave our truck, Prius, and sportscar at home because they aren’t going to make it. But that old Subaru just keeps plugging away, no slipping, nothing. I drove a VW Bug when I was younger, and would not feel confident at all driving it in the snow.
Fifteen years in Maine without an accident in a Honda CRV AWD with all season tires.
If you have the right car and AWD, stick with all season tires. No need for snow tires.
Subaru Outback Impreza 4WD and Mitsubishi Outlander GT 4WD. Good used cars for young drivers.
I had heard about the Subaru head gasket problems, but thanks for the specific engine info.
In Western wa, black ice is probably more of a problem than snow, D lives on the other side of the mts, which is much drier.
Both our cars with front wheel drive did fine going over the passes. The Jeep has snow tires, but my mini van didn’t, and H also refused to put chains on. Even in a blizzard going over Blewett pass. It was pretty hairy, but that was because I couldn’t see. ( I usually drive, cause we take " my" car)
Now I am remembering commuting to Capitol Hill in the Bug with the bad clutch.
Ugh. Not fun.
We are also looking for a used car for D. But even older and cheaper. She would like a Chevy Blazer/Jeep Cherokee/other suv type car. H has driven a few and doesn’t like that they drive like “trucks”. (He has never driven anything but cars, and usually nice cars.) He recently started looking for a Forrester, so this thread is timely for us. How low, pricewise, would you go and still expect a car to run for a couple of years? The driving would be local, around town driving.
I engaged in a used car hunt for S last summer. We couldn’t find anything with reasonable mileage for $6K. If you are willing to buy a car with 140+K miles on it, especially an old gas-guzzling tank, that’s another matter.
We live in Maine, and we’ve never had a car with AWD and never had snow tires and have never gotten stuck, except in our own driveway when it wasn’t plowed yet. 
We’ve also had nothing but Fords, and they have all been reliable.
If she is genuinely going to be driving on mountain roads, especially smaller ones, then AWD would be the thing to get. Plus snow tires.
I just finished a car search for my S. Like Consolation, I found it very, very difficult to find anything with reasonable mileage for under 6K. In fact, for me, it was difficult to find used cars with good mileage in general under 10K. I did experiment with Craigslist, but the cars we brought to a mechanic always had some serous problems. It took me months, and I ended up with a truck with 73K miles for about 7500K. But it’s not great on gas.
I don’t have a problem with buying a car with over 150,000 miles on it. The Jeep has about 120,000 and it doesn’t have any problems. What H drives to work is over 50 yrs old.
Commuting for D, would likely consist of driving through one town to the next, and she would encounter perhaps 3 or 4 stop signs, so fuel efficiency isn’t as much of a concern as if she was living in L.A…
She lives in " Americas Alps", so I would make sure she had snow tires, & antilock brakes & AWD. In that order.
Emerald…even with four wheel drive…driving on ice is dicey. Folks wrongly think that four wheel drive will make it easy to drive on ice. It doesn’t. All that happens is all your wheels spin.
AWD and 4WD work in snowy (or muddy) conditions…but on ice…not in my opinion.
Thumper is correct. Studded tires are what works on black ice. Make sure she has a bag of sand and a shovel in her car trunk!
And some states don’t allow studded tires…those that do have very strict timelines on when they can be used.
My opinion…if you are driving through mountain passes, you should be very aware how to use chains.
EK lives in WA where the tires are allowed all winter long, from Nov 1st to March 31st:
I’m sure she will be very prepared, but she is a new driver.
Im going to have my hands full finding something, H really only likes Fords( he is a bit ocd), and thinks that a truck will be fine if it is manual, because then he can tell her BF how to work on it.
( not sure why he thinks she wouldn’t be working on it herself, but idk)
I see that there are several interesting possibilities on the Wenatchee Craigslist, which is about 100 miles from where she is, but we will be going through there next week.
In our car search, we look at an AWD Imprezia. The previous owner stated his newer mini van was better in the snow. I am guessing it had to do with tire quality. The really top of the line all season radials turned my Honda fit into a very competent winter driver. The other issue is anti lock brakes, which this 2000 car did not have. So watch for that safety feature in older cars.
4WD does not equal four wheel stop. It’s a terrifying feeling when you push the brake and nothing happens.
edit: nm
There is nothing that really works well on ice, even studded tires give limited traction, it might be better than regular tires, but it still is dangerous. The problem with a 5k mileage car is you don’t know how it has been maintained, a well maintained car with 150k on it can last easily another 100k…but for example, if the CV joint boots haven’t been maintained properly, if the transfer case oil wasn’t changed regularly, you could buy the darn thing and be faced with very expensive repairs.
Okay,for 5k, what would I go for? An older Subaru legacy or Impreza, the Honda CRV, Toyota Rav4 come to mind off the top of my head. If buying an older car,I would stay away from one of the US brands, you likely are talking a car 10 years old or so (depending). I did a search on cars.com for Worcester, Mass (I don’t know where the OP is) within 100 miles, for a used car with a max price of 5k ,with AWD, and got back, for example, a subaru legacy wagon 2004 with 120k miles, a hyundai santa fe 2005 with 129k miles, 2002 forrestor with 113k, 2006 ford freestyle with 100k, and so forth, 2007 volvo s60 with 110k for 5k, number of cars. 2007 fusion with 116k for about 5, and so forth. Cars.com is not a bad place to start, I just picked up the cars above in a couple of seconds.
If you are going to buy a car like that, spare yourself some grief and insist that if you buy the car, you want a mechanic to look at it, whatever you pay the mechanic is worth it, they can tell you if major stuff looks bad, things that cost a lot, like CV joints, exhaust system, etc…
Which is why you aren’t selling it. 
You should always have a mechanic look a used car over. For me, one of the biggest problems with the older cars was the lack of side and passenger airbags, not to mention the curtain ones that protect the head. S was a fairly inexperienced driver, and his safety was my primary concern.
I drive a 2007 Ford Focus wagon that has been very well maintained. It has no problems, about 120K miles. The Kelley Blue Book value is about $4500. There is NO WAY, from what I saw last year, that I could get a car equivalent to it for that money.