Cheap Cars

I get a lot of requests for cheap cars, and I see lots of people searching for 'cheap cars' when they come to my website. What is a cheap car??? I confess, I dunno for sure.

My girlfriend's daughter's ex-boyfriend (gotta think about it, don't ya?....) bought a cheap car. He paid about $2k and half the electrical didn't work at time of purchase. Now, I hear that the alternator is shot and obviously none of the electrical works. Was it cheap? Yeah. Was it a good buy; not on your life! Was it reliable...heck no.

According to some stats I read earlier this year, the average used car sold in 2006 for just under $10k. That's a stretch for the 16 to 20-somethings who are just out of school. I sell cars for a little under or over $5k, but I have to look HARD to find them, I have to look for weeks, and, quite often, they have over 100k miles on the clock which turns people off. My real average sale is $20k, twice the national average. At half that price, you can get a great used BMW or Porsche, btw....

Would I rather have a mediocre car for well under $5k, but the car is unreliable, or would I rather have a reliable car, like a Toyota, with 100k plus miles.??? Me, I'll take the Toyota every time.

My experience is that cars will run reasonably reliably until somewhere around 150k miles, then larger problems start creeping up. Now, a diesel will keep running past 200k miles. There are still quite a few old Mercedes diesels running around, right? But a 2000+ Toyota with 100k miles is going to cost over $5k.

My advice, take a bus or rideshare until you have the $5k minimum to get a more reliabile car.




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