So I am the son of a mechanic of 35 years. He's been able to keep up with the current technologies and has worked on some of the most basic and advanced vehicles in the modern era.
It pains me to see people say, "buy a cheap reliable car" as if that is something easy to do. Unless you know a good mechanic that has access to dealer trades and auctions it can be tough. Here in SW PA, cars over 150k miles are usually junk. Rust due to salt, transmissions blown due to hills, etc. Unless you live in the suburbs, cars are not garage kept. My dad and I set out to find my grand mother a replacement car. I gave her a 2005 grand prix in 2014 with no rust and in 4 years of being outside, the rockers cannot be patched anymore.
We looked at around 35 cars and unfortunately my dad is retired. So he does not have access to dealer trades or auctions and most of his contacts have moved on or retired as well. This is a compilation of what we saw.
35 vehicles total
20 costing between 4-8k
- 11 had rust beyond belief
- 6 had check engine lights for multiple things (dad had a scan tool)
- 3 had a fair bit cosmetic or mechanical issues (suspension or a ton of wear items)
15 costing 8-12k
- 6 had too much rust
- 3 had check engine lights for multiple things
- 3 had a fair bit cosmetic or mechanical issues
- 2 were priced way over market value
- 1 we found for just over 12k that we bought (was listed at 14k)
We looked at a wide range of cars. Sure about half were GM, but the rest were Subaru's, Toyota's and Honda's. So this idea that people can "easily" find a "cheap but reliable" beater is a but insane. Many of these cars would cost even us thousands to maintain for a year. They could easily strand my grandmother as she travels to my uncles house every month (2 hour drive). Her old 2006 grand prix started to have issues, water pump, suspension work and the rockers were shot, patched 3 times.
Now I am not advocating for buying a new car. But we ended up reaching out to my other uncles and they all put together money for a 3 year old chevy trax for her. It has far more safety features than her old car, does much better in every crash test, should be reliable for 3-5 more years, etc. We could have gotten her a sonic/cruze but she didn't feel comfortable in them (too low and small) and she's in her 80's so comfort is a thing.
But the moral to the story is, when offering "advice" you need to understand that a "cheap but reliable" car is not an easy find and if you live up north very difficult to do in many cases. Don't assume that everyone has connections and has a reliable mechanic that can easily find good and cheap deals. My dad found me that 05 grand prix that I drive for 5 years and it was about 8k when I bought it in 2009, but that was back when he had unlimited access to thousands of cars.
Submitted April 29, 2019 at 12:32PM by Snaebakabeans http://bit.ly/2V0nvOK
