If you had $3500 to spend on a car

nosidammai

nosidammai

New member
What would you buy/look for? I need help. We'll only have $3500 and we need a second vehicle. I'm mainly looking for minivans/SUVs but anything in the price range, that will fit 2 car seats will work.
I just have no idea what to look for.
 
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Melanie

New member
The Chevy/Geo Prizms are a good deal. They are a rebadged Toyota Corolla and even made in the same factory. But since they don't say Toyota they don't come with the premium price. I've seen it spelled Prism on Craigslist too. It's going to have a little backseat, but just having 2 car seats should be fine.

Toyota Matrix has something by Pontiac that's similar, but I don't remember what the Pontiac is called.
 
nosidammai

nosidammai

New member
Melanie said:
The Chevy/Geo Prizms are a good deal. They are a rebadged Toyota Corolla and even made in the same factory. But since they don't say Toyota they don't come with the premium price. I've seen it spelled Prism on Craigslist too. It's going to have a little backseat, but just having 2 car seats should be fine.

Toyota Matrix has something by Pontiac that's similar, but I don't remember what the Pontiac is called.
Click to expand...

Oh we definitely need something bigger than a Prizm lol
 
J

jjordan

Moderator
If you go to a site like autotrader.com that allows you to look in a certain price range, you'll get an idea of what you can afford. Looking for cars around $3000 - $3500 in my area, 2000 or newer, I'm seeing:
- several cars with well over 150k miles (I'd skip those)
- a 2000 Toyota Camry with 121k miles
- a 2001 Chevy Cavalier with 87k miles
- a couple of 2002-2003 Ford Tauruses with around 120k miles
- a couple of 2002 Ford Windstars with around 150k miles
- a few others

Among those options, I'd be inclined to go for the Taurus or Camry, personally.

I think you'll be better off getting a medium/large sedan rather than an SUV/minivan. You have only two kids, so a sedan is really plenty of space, and you get so much more for your money - not only now, but paying for gas later.

I find MSN autos helpful when researching cars, both for features and so on, as well as reliability and safety ratings.
 

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