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Smart Shopper Selecting and Buying My First Car
764 messages, Last post on Aug 17, 2009 at 12:29 PM
You are in the Smart Shopper Forum. Your Hosts are kirstie_h & tidester
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Nothing fancy but decent cars for less money than a Civic or a Corolla. Be sure to get it checked out. I don't know why but the Craig's List stuff always hits me as second rate but that's me. I guess I figure that if they cheaped out on advertising they may have done the same thing with maintenance. It could be a good car for you. |
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After looking so far, here are four I'm currently considering. I haven't yet followed up on these ads, so I'm not yet certain that there's not something hidden wrong, or that perhaps the price is negotiable lower. Which do you think is the best long term value? $4950 - 2000 Mazda Protege LX Sedan 4D 64k miles Automatic link $6450 - 2002 Chevy Prizm Sedan 40k miles Automatic link $4000 - 2001 Ford Focus 63k miles Manual link $9999 - 2005 Toyota Corolla 4k miles link
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Replying to: latham (Feb 16, 2005 5:55 pm) The Corolla COULD be ok, but the lack of information is not very helpful. If its a completely stripped base model, I don't think its so hot. |
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Replying to: latham (Feb 16, 2005 5:55 pm) I haven't gone back and read your earlier posts but the question I would counter you with is which one are you going to be most comfortable driving for the next 10 years or so? The best "deal" that I ever received in a vehicle (60k miles for $1500) was in a vehicle that I never liked. Personally, I would lead toward the Prizm. You really need to be "pressing the flesh" - that is visiting car lots and seeing what is available and gathering specific information rather than reading ads all the the time. That will get you to your goal more quickly. |
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Replying to: latham (Feb 16, 2005 5:55 pm) |
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........ Nothing but good advice here, time for me to move on .... Terry. |
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Thank you all very much for your input. It's very helpful to me to know I'm getting some impartial advice from those more knowledgable than myself. jlawrence, that's a good point about trying the cars themselves. That's the next step for me I think. I'm going to try to go this afternoon with my wife to see and drive the Prizm and the Protege. As you can probably tell from the links, it looks like the Prizm is being sold by a dealer and the Protege by a private party. Do you have any advice for this stage of evaluation? Should I try to have the cars inspected? After I choose one, perhaps? Should I try to bargain for a better price from one or both? I also signed up for CARFAX at this point, and ran the Prizm through (I emailed the owner of the Protege for the VIN but haven't gotten it yet). It turns out the Prizm is a former rental vehicle. Is this good, bad, neutral? Is there a reason they wouldn't list this in the ad? Here's a link to the report for the Prizm. I really appreciate your input.
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I just found another interesting one. It seems like a good deal (too good?). The ad says "Nissan GXE" which I think means Sentra. $6200 - 2002 Nissan Sentra 38k miles automatic link Would you choose this one over the Prizm and Protege?
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Replying to: latham (Feb 17, 2005 9:47 am) -Mathias |
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Smart Shopper Selecting and Buying My First Car
