QuestionHi, thanks for volunteering. I'm a single mom on a budget trying to by a used car. I have done a trillion hours of research and feel pretty confident about what I'm looking for, but I have a few questions. I'm using an equity loan to make my life more affordable. One thing I want is a car that gets excellent gas mileage. I've settled on Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla or a Scion xA. I haven't driven any of them yet. I would like to spend no more than $10,000 cash and my 2001 Hyundai Sonata with front end crash damage as a trade. I drive it everyday and it has 95,000 miles on it. I HATE this car with everything that has gone wrong on it. I don't want a payment so this will all paid upfront. I live in Jacksonville, FL 32225.
I've read up on all models I'm interestd in and the Civic seems the best gas mileage and do-able handling. I have no problem with a 1.7 lt engine, but again I haven't driven one yet.
OK, my main question is, is it OK to buy one of these cars with 80,000 miles on them? Seems they hold value to about 130 miles. I think my limit should be 60,000 miles on the car I buy. BUT, I found this ugly Civic with 82,000 miles on it- click the link...
http://www.atlasimports.com/autodetail.asp?StockNumber=992009
It is way below my price and has 20,000 more miles on it that I want.
What do you think? Will a Civic or Corolla with higher miles be a good car still? I drive ALOT with my teenage son, work and I go to school too. I need a car that can be driven alot for years.That ugly Civic would be the right price for sure, but will it still last awhile with that many miles?
Any help you can give me on these questions would be very appreciated!
Thanks,
Lisa
AnswerLet me start by saying to avoid that "ugly civic", all those body modifications may be only visual, but chances are the previous owner made it look like his idea of a race car and probably drove it like it was one. For 10,000 a civic or corolla would be a fine car, I'm not a big fan of the shape/style of the xA but its a good car as well... and for 10,000 I know you can find a ~2001 or so civic with~50,000 miles or so.... I've seen them around where I live and car prices here are very high. A civic/corolla with high miles is still a great car (my sister has 150,000+ on her 1996 civic with almost zero problems)- but shop around some more, you should be able to find a lower miles civic, and even if its slightly older (1-2 years) it really wont matter on these cars, the lower mileage will help resale as well later in life. Look for unmodified cars, inside and out.. aftermarket intakes, exhausts, body kits, rims, etc... are usually the sign of a younger driver who would have driven the car hard (even if he/she shouldn't have... like a civic... not a fast car but people seem to like to pretend)... find a nice completely stock civic/corolla with ~50-70k miles (maybe higher) and it should get great gas mileage and last close to/if not 200,000 miles (as long as you do regular maintenance and take care of it). That is my advice.. avoid that horrendus red abomination... that civic is ugly... real ugly.. and you can find better for the price.. I assure you... (oodle.com, cars.com, autos.yahoo.com, autotrader.com) - Good luck on your search!
