Used Cars: Used car for teen, chevy malibus, chevy impalas

Question
Hi Jay,

I'm looking to buy a used car for my 18 year old that'll manage local driving..  We're looking to spend less than $4000, and safety is our main concern -- though he doesn't need to drive it in snow if that's an issue. Any recommendations? Oh..there's a possibility that we'll unload this car in a year so longevity need not be an issue.

Thanks for your advice!
Sharon

Answer
The perfect car for your situation would be an import,Honda, Toyota, or Nissan with high mileage, that has been taken care of extremely well.  Now...those are a little hard to find, but that would be the #1 pick.
The ones I would avoid are chevy malibus, dodge neons, dodge stratus', ford taurus'/mercury sables(unless they have been taken care of EXTREMELY well), any of the big luxury cars like lincoln continentals, or cadillacs, just stay clear of them.
The ones outside of imports I would put on that list are Ford Focus', they have their little issues here and there, but nothing major, and they do good gas mileage.
Saturns...they seem to hold up well, Hyundais, very cheaply built, but all in all pretty good cars with GREAT gas mileage.
The problem you will be facing is trying to cover safety at that price, you will probably run into a bunch of cavaliers, sunfires, dodge cars, but most of the vehicles that were cheap when they were new, are not the safest you can find...generally they are just built cheaper meaning first and foremost, not the safest, and you will hear wind and road noise a lot more than upper level cars.
Chevy Impalas are pretty good cars, not to be confused with the Malibus, which are junk.
Just stay away from dodge cars in that price range, most of them were junk when they rolled off of the assembly line, excluding the 300M, which you will likely not find in that price range.
I would really just try like heck to focus on finding a Higher mileage Import, and just try and find one that has been taken care of the best.  If you find one that you can find out some history on, that would be my choice.  And even if the imports have 150k to 200k miles on them, if they have been taken care of, I would put them WAY above any of the others sitting around 80k to 120k.  If you focus in on a couple that I have not mentioned, feel free to email me with further questions.