Conclusion to my Opinions
In a nutshell, here are my opinions of buying a cheap used car.
Used Cars to Buy-my Preferred List
Buy a Honda, Toyota, or Subaru – any year, any model.
Honda includes Acura, and Toyota includes Lexus.
Mazda, Nissan, Hyundai, are good too.
Infiniti and BMW just make this list.
Used cars to avoid
Don’t buy Detroit, Sweden, and Land Rover; they are not safe, have horrible reliability ratings, and Detroit is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Detroit:
Detroit is GM, Ford, and Chrysler.
GM: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, Pontiac, and Saturn.
Ford: Lincoln, Ford, Mercury, and Taurus.
Chrysler: Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep.
Sweden:
Volvo is owned by Ford.
Saab is owned by GM.
This is why Sweden is not recommended – they are simply and extension of Detroit.
Others to avoid:
Audi, Jaguar, Lotus, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, and Volkswagen.
Reliability is the Achilles Heel of these manufacturers. Their cars look good but expect the spend time at the mechanic’s garage and big bucks for the privilege of owning these cars. I can’t imagine ever owning one of these cars myself.
OK cars:
Everything else is “OK” – not the best and not the worst used cars. Each car has to be viewed by itself. If there is anyway you can avoid this car I would and go to my preferred list of used cars. Here are the manufacturers:
KIA, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Scion.
KIA is up and coming and their reliability is beginning to become strong. Sadly older KIA’s have reliability problems and thus don’t make my preferred list. Maybe next year…
Scions are looking interesting too. Maybe next year…
Mercedes-Benz is sadly a car company who has lost their way. Too expensive and too many maintenance problems. Sounds like the profit motive has determined to make a cheap version of their past glory. You can do better than this.
Link to this page