Looking for a used car

[obiwaynekenobi]

I live in Provo Utah, and I commute to West valley 5 days a week. Tax returns are a blessing the fact that I need a car to commute with. I need to be able to leave the van which I have been driving home with my wife for the kids.

Anyone know any websites where I could find such a car. Perfferable in the Sub $1000 Range?


I should tell you West Valley is about 50 miles from where I live.

 

[b0mbrman]

traderOnline
Yahoo! classifieds

Uh...I know more...just gimme a minute

 

[obiwaynekenobi]

<< traderOnline
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Uh...I know more...just gimme a minute >>



ok cool

I've been looking around and all I can find is like 96 or newer

 

[KingNothing]

I would look in newspaper classified sections, as well as the car magazines/classified magazines they have at the supermarket. A sub-$1000 car is going to be pretty hard to find, but...I'd look for an old Civic or Geo Prizm. You might try buzzing around the car dealerships in your area too, I looked in lots of advertisements and didn't find what I was looking for.

 

[Thegonagle]

The Nooozpaper!

My advice:

Buy the newspaper every day, and look for anything that's clean and well maintained. Miles don't matter, and model doesn't matter, just try not to get anything that's too old (more than 10 or so years), unless it's a Honda, Toyota, Subaru, Mazda, Nissan, or possibly Volvo (with those, esp Toyota and Honda, it's OK to dip back into the mid- late 80s). The question is, has the owner been vigilant about fixing everything that breaks? Gone to the same good mechanic or dealer every time? Kept all the service records?

My warning:

I don't really think $1000 cars are for car Noobs that don't do any of their own work, it's too easy to get burned with a total POS, unless you know what you're looking at when you buy it.

 

[Vette73]

Being a mechanic any car less than $1000 is going to probable need about another $1000 in repairs.
So after you look at the price take it to a mechanic you trust and have them look at it and tell you what it will cost to bring it up to snuff, i.e. how much is it going to cost to keep me from walking home and/or calling a tow truck if I bought this car.
Then add that into the price of the car. Then look at cars that are close to that price, a little under as most cars will need at least maintance, and see what that gets you.

Some good ones to look for are...
Prizm, Metro with a 4cyl(not a 3cyl), Saturn (if you can find one that cheap), Cavilar, Escort, any GM car with a 3.8L V-6.

Some maybes are Civic, old accord, s-10 pickup. These are maybes because most cars with timing belts NEED a timing belt replcament when they are sold, one of the reasons people sell honda's and other timing belt cars with just under 60K. The S-10 or a small truck is a maybe as some people overwork small trucks so check the motor out, and shocks and balls joints etc...

Best thing to do is ask someone at work if they know someone with a old car or just drive around and look for one on the road or frontyard. Cars under $1000 people are not going to spend $20-100 dollars listing it.

Good Luck.

 

[Thegonagle]

Marlin's giving some good advice, too, with a good point about the timing belts on Hondas. BUT, not all Hondas are interference engines! The carbureted 2.0 on the 86-89 Accords will do nothing worse than strand you if the belt fails. Note that this is the engine in the DX and LX, but not the LXi or SEi.

I can tell you, if you're lucky enough to find a dealer maintained 86-89 Accord that's in good shape, you've got a winner. I found just such a car, an 87 Accord LX with 208,000 miles, so I bought it for $600. I took pretty good care of it, like I would any car that I need to depend on, and I got 40,000 miles out of it (would have gone a lot farther, but I had an accident). The most major repair it required was a water pump, also the original exhaust pipe between the manifold and the cat went out. It already had the rest of the exhaust replaced with new Honda parts (Stainless steel, I believe) the year before I bought it, and those lasted fine.

EDIT: The reason I mention a dealer maintained Honda is because some mechanics will put really crummy, cheap parts on a Honda, and that basically ruins the reliability. Honda OEM parts (from the dealership) are the way to go in order to keep a Honda running like a Honda.

 

[thedarkwolf]

As the owner of a bunch of $1000 or less cars you can get some good deals. I just bought an 89 turbo dodge caravan for $800 about 4 weeks ago. Sofar I have put a new radiator $80 in it and probably another $70 worth of tune up stuff and it runs great. Look for 2.2l or 2.5l dodges/chrysler/plymouths. Those things are cheap as hell, pretty reliable, cheap parts, and easy to work on.
Omins
Chargers
Torizmos
Lancers
Shadows
Spirts
Reliants
and about 50 others

4 outa 5 of my $1k or less cars have been dodges and none of them ever let me down.

Also if you do look at these try to stick to 87 or newer. I think thats when they went to fuel injection and on of the weak points on these car is the carbs. Other weak points are the head gasket, not to bad to change if you are at all mechanically inclined, and p/s rack. Had an 81 plymouth horizan with a leaking rack so I just cut the belt and did without powersteering . The headgasket problem shows up more often on the turbo versions than the N/A ones.

 

[RossMAN]

Definitely see if you can find a good condition Geo/Chevrolet Prizm and check your local newspaper esp on Sundays (or whenever the BIG issue comes out).

 

[Lvis]

Let me be the second to suggest a chrysler product. Its fairly easy to find a 2.2 or 2.5 ltr for less than a grand. They are very durable and cheap to fix, when they need it.

 

[RossMAN]

Here's some import and domestic autos for sale in Provo, Utah.

Here's some more autos.

 

[CraigRT]

let me be the third to suggest an 80's Chryco car.

I had a 1988 LeBaron GTS... cheap transpo... extremely reliable. never had problems until the end (over 250,000 kms) and it was an extremely comfortable car to drive.. it's not a rocket, but it was comfy and dependable.. and oh yes.. $300 CAD. my friend had a 1988 Sundance RS and it was a 2.2 turbo.. he BOUGHT the car with 310,000 kms and drove it until it had 335,000 kms, about 1 year, and did not have one single problem with the car. we even took the thing on some road trips. comfy seats in that car too.. me thinks you should get a LeBaron or something of the like.

 

[GiGoLo]

i'm surprised no one mentioned this yet, but you should try Autotrader's website. much bigger selection IMO.