Need opinions and advice

I have a 2001 Nissan Sentra and it has poor side impact crash test ratings. I'd really like to get another car but can only get about $5000 out of mine. I'm thinking I can get a student loan for $3000-5000 and I've been trying to find a car in that price range.

I want something with side airbags; front and rear would be nice, but I'll take front only if I have to. DD is in the middle anyway and never rides outboard- she only has twice in emergency situations when picking up another child.

My car is small and I want something that's bigger to tote all our junk around and get DD in and out of the back seat more easily.

I also want something with decent gas milage. I owned a Civic a couple years ago pre baby and loved that, but it's just too small for us.

This is a car I've emailed the woman about and I'm thinking about going to look at. Does anyone have experience with Volkswagen Passats? I saw the previous thread about not liking Volkswagens- maybe I shouldn't even bother?

Do you think this car is safe enough and will meet our needs? Is there anything under $10,000 that you can think of that would be better for us? I could use all the help I can get on this- I'm a single mom with no one around who knows a darn thing about cars!! I'm clueless!

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.j...&transmission=Automatic&max_price=&cardist=50

the passat is safer than the sentra, but a 2000 passat with close to 100,000 miles is bound to be a money pit. they were know to have lots of problems.

also don't automatically assume that a car with side air bags will perform better than a different car without them. the 2001-2006 hyundai elantras came standard with side air bags, yet they were rated "poor" for side impact. i don't know of any cars that rated better without side air bags off teh top of my head, but i know there are some out there.

for your price range, you can easily find a 1998-2000 honda accord, which is about the size of the passat, pretty safe, reliable and bigger than what you currently have. also consider a 1998-2000 volvo S70 sedan or V70 wagon. those are *very* safe (among the safest cars of that vintage), roomy and you can find them for about $8000 in clean condition. gas mileage is about the same as the passat, not as good as the accord. neither of these will give as good gas mileage as the sentra. reliability on the volvos can be spotty, but not as bad as the passat...

good luck!

Thank you, that helps out a ton!!

I'll start searching autotrader again and hopefully find something!