I'm looking into purchasing a car that is under $3000 as a DD but I'm concerned about the reliability. I'm not looking for anything flashy. Civic, Corolla,etc. Just something that is cheap and can get me from A to B. My concern is that the car will be unreliable and the $3000 will quickly become more.

Anyone have success purchasing a cheap, high mileage (120k+), daily driver? If so, what are some things you looked for to help qualify the purchase? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Should I favor a manual over an automatic? I'm leaning toward a manual for two reasons: better response and I feel it's a simpler drive train.

 

I just spent $3500 on a used civic. It ended up around $4000 after TTL, New wiper blades, oil change, and brakes.

My brother said I'd lose money quickly as I spent $300/month to keep it running. He was wrong, and it's been almost 6 months without a single repair.

It's an incredibly simple car. Make sure you don't get a VX if you're worried about maintenance. Their O2 Sensors can be found for no less than $350.00 and they need to be replaced at about 80,000 miles.

Good luck!

 

Any time I've found the need for an inexpensive DD I have turned to my trusty friend the first generation RX-7.

As long as you start with one that's pretty solid anything that goes wrong is pretty inexpensive to repair, and even at more than 20 years old they STILL get tons of looks and comments.

 

You can't go wrong with a used Civic.

 

i guess buying a used, high mileage car can be hit or miss...but i had great success w/my old '96 subaru outback impreza. picked it up w/ 130k miles for less than $4k. put another 50k miles on it..trouble free. all i did was get oil changes and fill it up w/ regular gas..

hope this helps

-c

 

Civic or Corolla. Look nowhere else.

 

^ huh? Ok...
Ford taurus if you really don't care what it looks like. You can get one with probably 60k miles or less for $3000. They are very reliable and extremely cheap to fix.

Both of my parents' sables (mercury's version) lasted to well over 150k miles and had very little ever go wrong. And everything that did was dirt cheap compared to say their toyota avalon.

 

I picked up a 92 civic sedan EX 5spd for 1700. it had 110k miles... i think i did good, all it needed was a exhaust mid pipe..I did have a budget of $3k but that would have included repairs...

like everyone says civic /corolla are safe bets. and 5 spd tranny are a safer bet also

 

When you get that low I'd probably not look at the Japanese cars, but that's just me. You can get an early '90s Accord for that kind of money or you can get an '02ish Taurus with fairly low miles for the same price.

Obviously it depends on what you're looking for. The Taurus is bigger, nicer, more comfortable. The Accord would get better gas mileage and be more fun to drive. I seriously doubt the Accord would be as reliable seeing as its probably going to be 10 years older and have 100,000 more miles.

 

I'm selling my 89' mr2 for $1300 and it's dead reliable. I'm guessing it really depends on the car.