Hi Scotty,
I've been looking for a reliable, borderline luxury sedan and saw a 2016 Toyota Avalon Limited for $20k at a local Toyota dealership. 53k miles, automatic, front-wheel drive, pretty good condition judging by pictures. Scheduled a test drive for over the weekend. I googled for 2016 Avalons, it seems like a fair price. Are Avalons reliable? Is $20k too much for an 8 year old Avalon? If you had suggestions for alternatives, I'm all ears.
Thanks
Looking For A Car
Overall the 2016 Toyota Avalon is an excellent choice for a quality-built, comfortable, reliable sedan with a smooth running and strong V6 engine.
However if the vehicle that you are interested in is the same Avalon I saw on Carfax then you may want to carefully review the maintenance history especially regarding the oil change intervals.
Here are the odometer readings that are recorded (in miles):
1st owner:
10,883 17,708 18,732 23,802 31,932 41,271 52,568
2nd owner:
53,714
The recommended oil change interval by most folks here and elsewhere is 5,000 miles or once per year, whichever comes first. Unfortunately most dealerships now recommend 10,000 mile intervals which seems to be what the original owner was complying with. So, I would be very concerned about the potential damage which may have already occurred inside of the engine on parts you can’t see. If the intervals had been every 5k miles, then I would be interested in it myself. 😉
Excellent choice assuming it checks out. Others I would consider are a Camry, LS and ES for sedans.
