Where do you shop for used Cars?

[6]

We have a little bit of money for a new car for Kristen. We are very used to shopping for the cheapest thing that will pass inspection. We had a small windfall and are aiming a little higher on this purchase. I'm hoping to be in the $4000-$7000 range. To go to 7k or above it would have to be a unicorn vehicle. I'm seeing more horses with a horn glued on.

We have been looking at Trailblazers, Cherokee's, Tahoe's, 4-runners, pathfinders, x-terra's, etc.

Seems like a decently easy order to fill, no? No.... Not at all.

Chuck and Kristen and i went to look at a $4500 Trailblazer today. There is NOTHING nice you could say about that truck except that the owner is a magician with a camera. How he hid that rust i still don't know. How the truck ran enough to get there without a control arm bracket breaking off...? You could barely hear the huge exhaust leak over the ticking in the engine and it smelled like raw fuel and broken dreams.

And that one seemed like the nicer of the options we found.

I've been looking on CL and FBMP.

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Where else is good to find reasonably local cars for sale?

[ParcNHawk]

Buy something that has a lot of cheap aftermarket replacement parts for it. I'm not saying to use those cheap parts but the more of them that are available then the more of them are available.

Especially when it comes to regular replacement parts.

Don't buy anything special or rare -- even if (especially if) it's just a different version of a common model.

I'd take a Pathfinder to an X-terra any day of the week... would stay away from a Rogue. You would be better of yet with a 4Runner.

No clue where to go though.

[bk94si]

I buy mine off Autotrader and Craigslist usually.

[6]

Buy something that has a lot of cheap aftermarket replacement parts for it. I'm not saying to use those cheap parts but the more of them that are available then the more of them are available.

Especially when it comes to regular replacement parts.

Don't buy anything special or rare -- even if (especially if) it's just a different version of a common model.

I'd take a Pathfinder to an X-terra any day of the week... would stay away from a Rogue. You would be better of yet with a 4Runner.

No clue where to go though.

We don't want a rouge, we want an SUV, not crossover. Ideally a body on frame SUV.

I would take a 4-runner over all of them,. The 4 runners are CRAZY expensive. 7k MIGHT get you into a 200 mile truck that needs some work, if you are lucky. I found a 1999 that needed suspension work and had 185 k on it yesterday. It was $6800. It sold as i was texting with him.

Pathfinders less expensive. but still not cheap. There is a -07 with 180k at a buy here pay here lot (so every broke person in town has owned it at one point) about 2.5 hours away for $6999 0 option truck and its not very clean. There is another one, a nice one about the same distance for $5500 but its 2 wheel drive. We would be very happy to find a good x-terra, any x-terra in our budget has been junk.

We found a Cherokee. Its a nicely optioned, seems well cared for and clean. Its a 2005. 138k miles. $5500. It has "a loud noise" when it goes into drive. CEL is on for "spare tire air pressure" She is having her mechanic look at the noise. That one is 4 hours away and leading the pack right now.

Its a tough market out there. NOT a good time to buy, but we don't have lots of options. Her civic is having big problems. She tried to go to nh yesterday and had to turn around with the car wandering. Both tie rod ends are gone. We just had it inspected, dude who inspected it needed to "weld in a patch".

I looked at the "patch"

He welded the patch top the nut.. Just to the nut. The nut that holds the trailing arm on. The arm is held on with nothing right now, but at least the hole is covered......?? (come on man.. really? ) Even if i fix those things she is refusing to drive it back. There has been a problem every tip for the last 6 months.

Rugged time to buy. But its a good time to have some money for a car.

[6]

I buy mine off Autotrader and Craigslist usually.

Thanks! Never thought about auto trader. I just looked and emailed a few trucks off of there!

[Goshawk]

CarGurus.com seems to consolidate many of the sites under one roof. Mostly dealers on there so you’re gonna be pressed to get a deal.

Don’t buy a used car in CT. Too many law there protect the seller…dealer has no responsibility after the sale, and all sales are final. Explains why most of the used cars near me are located in CT.

-P.

[bones]

This is one of the worst times I can remember for wanting to buy a used vehicle of any sort, especially a truck or suv.
Good luck with your search.
This past summer, I used cars.com to search for cars and bought a 2017 sedan based off ads on that site but I know others that have had good luck using FB Markeplace.

[frinesi2]

4Runners are priced to the moon and only going up. People are selling them for more than they paid for with triple the mileage when they got them.

Autotempest is a decent search aggregator. I also browse on cars.com a lot.

[6]

This is one of the worst times I can remember for wanting to buy a used vehicle of any sort, especially a truck or suv.
Good luck with your search.
This past summer, I used cars.com to search for cars and bought a 2017 sedan based off ads on that site but I know others that have had good luck using FB Markeplace.

Facebook marketplace is a needle in a haystack.

Everyone and their brother has a facebook account and list every POS they have at top $ and just waits to see if anyone is dumb enough to bite. Both the guys that work for me have their POS daily drivers on market place, both are worth about $1500 and are listed at $7000+

Cars.com and i forget the the other one, carvana maybe? are good for nicer cars, but set your budget at $7500 and there are three cars for sale.

Budget shopping is tight atm. But we have no car.

[bones]

Shopping for an inexpensive daily driver is tough no matter when you want to find one but in today's market it is damn near impossible to do.

If you were closer I would offer you a car I have that is just sitting.
I took the motor apart to do replace a bunch of stuff since it was time for a timing belt and I just never put it back together.
I installed a new water pump, timing pulleys, timing tensioner and I pulled the cams to replace all the valve seals.
Was getting ready to do the valve seals when the little woman decided she should rip out the carpet in the master bedroom.
All of the furniture was on the back porch and there was no floor in the room when I got home from work one day.
Needless to say, my attention turned to doing hardwood floor, paint and moldings.
After the room was done I had lost interest in the car and it has sat for over a year with no cams.
It's going to the bone yard soon but I'd give it to someone that would put it back together.
Car is a 2005 Kia Optima with about 180k miles but I have owned it since it had about 60k miles.
Great driver with the coldest AC I've ever had in a car.
Has tires with less than 500 miles and fresh rear struts.
Interior is perfect but the paint is a little on the hurtin' side.

Good luck with your car search, this one isn't going to be easy to pull off.

[6]

Thanks for the offer man. But if I drug another project car home and told Kristen it's her new daily, I'd be divorced before I finished the sentence.

That's where we differ, her and I. I'm looking for something that I can get cheaper than its worth and do some work and we have a better car than we could otherwise afford.

She wants to drive it home, put her garage clicker into it, hang her "girly shit" from the mirror (her words not mine) and then drive it.

I've no issue buying something that needs an engine, trans, front end work, a rear end, cool. NO RUST but the rest, I can deal with. As long as the math works out, I'll do the time. She wants no part of it.

Every car we get is always "it only needs" and she is sick of it because most end up being pieces of shit but that's what you get shopping on a $1800 budget. On a bigger budget I think I could do a lot better... She doesn't like the idea even still.

That said, I still keep an eye out for a nice trailblazer that needs the 3/4 clutches done. Haha

[rpcraft]

You might check into autotempest.com when searching. It appears to aggregate across multiple car trade sites. I'm also still usually eyeing deals on marketplace and also autotrader from time to time. I have not looked on craigslist in a long time and from what I have heard the fact that they are charging for car ads there now has driven most of the stuff to marketplace but searching there is really horrible to me.

[bones]

Thanks for the offer man. But if I drug another project car home and told Kristen it's her new daily, I'd be divorced before I finished the sentence.

That's where we differ, her and I. I'm looking for something that I can get cheaper than its worth and do some work and we have a better car than we could otherwise afford.

She wants to drive it home, put her garage clicker into it, hang her "girly shit" from the mirror (her words not mine) and then drive it.

I've no issue buying something that needs an engine, trans, front end work, a rear end, cool. NO RUST but the rest, I can deal with. As long as the math works out, I'll do the time. She wants no part of it.

Every car we get is always "it only needs" and she is sick of it because most end up being pieces of shit but that's what you get shopping on a $1800 budget. On a bigger budget I think I could do a lot better... She doesn't like the idea even still.

That said, I still keep an eye out for a nice trailblazer that needs the 3/4 clutches done. Haha

You and I are a lot alike in the sense that I would rather pick up something that needed a little TLC and save a ton of cash.
But I also get where your wife is coming from.

Heck, with the way the used car market is, I may just put that Optima back together and sell it instead of sending it to the junk yard.
I have everything to put it back together, I just lost all interest in it.
Besides, I would sell it cheap enough that some lucky bastard will get a great running and driving car for far less than they would have otherwise.
I'm very anal with it comes to vehicle maintenance.

[BillnOroville]

I got a 2002 Ford Sport trac with 50k on it many years ago and had it 12 years . Cheaper than a Toyota 4 door truck but just as heavy duty. liked it a lot. Some are pretty cheap now and might be in your price range. I got 6k for it 3 years ago and it had 110k miles. Some even had manual transmissions. Mine had a waterproof cover that was nice to keep things dry in the back. Like most old cars with automatics, lots of miles worried me when I was looking. Just my thoughts about a used vehicle I had. Good luck. Hard market right now as private sellers want dealer prices too.