I only have 3,000 cash so at that price range I mostly looking at 90's Civic or Camry with over 200,000 miles for under 3,000. Can I drive long distances everyday on those old cars as long it runs good and taken care?
If it was meticulously looked after its whole life, and you're mechanically inclined and do all your auto repairs yourself, maybe.
Otherwise forget about it. Moneypit.
My '97 Saab has been pretty reliable since buying it in 2011 for $1500. At that time it had a bit over 200K miles. Until I went semi-retired in the wake of Covid I was on the road constantly for business in that car, sometimes traveling to customers over 100 miles away. Of course it has needed repairs over the years. Only got stuck once though years ago when the fuel pump quit on me, but that can happen in any car. (When that happened I had AAA tow the thing home and I just installed a new pump.)
Which brings up that you need to bear in mind with an older car you do have to be prepared for things to wear out. Even if the engine and drivetrain are basically in good shape there are lots of other parts that can fail. It helps a lot if you can do most of your own repair work or you can wind up with some pretty hefty repair bills. Also good to have AAA or another towing service just in case. Also keep in mind that if you do need to use a mechanic a lot of them won't work on pre-OBD2 cars so might want to stick with 1996 or newer vehicles. (Even if you do your own repairs it's nice to have OBD2 diagnostics available.)
Welcome new member. Driving "long distances" in a 30 year old car is always a risk. I appreciate what you are saying about price, but you need to be careful.
To make it work, you need to be very selective. Don't just snap up the nearest Camry and hope it works out.
- Find one that is absolutely cherry - perfectly maintained engine and transmission, no deferred maintenance, etc.
- Look for one that does not have a lot of options. Manual transmission preferred
- Get it thoroughly inspected, including a compression test
- Keep a good set of tools, work gloves, jump starter, and headlamp in the car at all times and know how to use them
- Be prepared to do your own service and repairs, up to and including replacing the clutch
The more you do your own work, the more comfortable you will be making roadside repairs.
And always remember... with a used car, there is a reason the previous owner is getting rid of it. Don't take his word for it. If you don't know all the problems a car has, don't buy it.
All depends if it's taken care of if not is not even worth it
I would not limit yourself to just 90's cars. Toyota Corolla, Matrix, and Yaris can be found cheap at times.
Follow the advice from @dad2lm2 about being picky. I searched and found a 2005 Matrix with 191k on it a year and a half ago, one owner and good records for $2800. I have had to do some work on it, but I do most of the work, and now it runs great. I even drive it for deliveries, at least 2-3k miles a month.
If you are willing to drive a ways to get it, it increases your chances of finding a good one, for a good price. I got a lift from a friend, about 100 miles if I remember right, and I drove it home.
Take your time, do your research on what cars have what issues, so you know better what to look out for when buying it. Make a list of everything you need to check before considering it, and all that will greatly increase your chances of avoiding a bad car, and getting a good one.
Out of curiosity, do you have the list that you needed to check the Matrix before buying it?
@jxyooj71 I first of all did a lot of checking, starting with what the seller sounds like over the phone. When asking the right questions, sometimes in a purposely not so knowledgeable way, I can feel out what was done to the car. Like "So what have you done to the car?", Rather than, have you been doing oil changes, transmission server, etc. I might get more specific if I don't get what I need, but I just feel them out. I once had a guy say, well it is a toyota, so you don't need to change oil oil as much. That is when I hang up.
If the person starts telling me about the car, like my Matrix he said they changed the radiator a couple of years before, and had the transmission serviced at 90k. I double checked that with Toyota's website. He also told me where they went to do oil changes. Also that they changed the charcoal canister a few of years before with oem, which I verified before buying it.
I just like to feel them out, and see if I feel like they are being evasive because they know something is wrong with the car. I also ask if I can take it to a mechanic to have it checked out. I have never actually done that, but I want to know that they are not bothered with me doing it, if they were, they may fear something might be uncovered.
Once I am nearly certain that I am ready to buy it, I will pull a autocheck or carfax, as they can provide some useful information, like where they had work done, and how much they were driving each year, or if the car was sitting without being driven for some reason. It can possibly show wrecks as well.
When I get on site, I look for issues like the spacing not matching up from the doors or hood, indicating they possibly replaced parts due to a wreck.
I check the muffler for oil, check the car with a scan tool, while driving I check if the steering wheel has any play, or anything feels wrong. I check for rust, check for leaks, check the transmission fluid, brakes, AC, locks, etc.
The matrix doesn't really have any weak parts like transmission or engine, so I just check everything as best I can.
When I see things like transmission service done at the right interval, that makes me feel a lot better, knowing that they went above and beyond with maintenance, rather than doing the bare minimum.
If I were buying something like a Subaru, I would especially look for service done to the CVT, as that is a bit weaker point on them. If they had been servicing it every 30-40k miles, that is a big plus.
Any car you want to buy, I like to check out the owner reviews on edmunds, and see what the ones that rated it the lowest were saying. If the car had something like a bad transmission or engine, the owners will be complaining a lot. I like to see the biggest complaints being something like, it doesn't have enough cup holders, or the seat wasn't quite as comfortable as I like. That was what people were saying when I bought my 98 Corolla in 2004, needless to say, it was crazy reliable.
Hope that actually helps 🙂
I have a 1999 Ranger with a 3.0 Vulcan V6 as my daily driver. Unfortunately, shortly after I bought the truck, I noticed the transmission seemed to slip a bit when I was driving uphill at highway speeds. It never tripped the O/D OFF light (the transmission flashes that light when there's a problem with the transmission). It had 251k miles on it. I had the transmission rebuilt, and the thing runs like a scaled ape, even after 293k miles. I only have one good hand right now (I had low grade brain cancer last year), but I still perform my own maintenance whenever possible, or a good friend will help do it if it requires two hands. Recently, a mega-fuse corroded, and tripped the battery light. I was perplexed for a while, but my good friend and I figured out it was the mega-fuse, not the alternator. If you're handy, they can still be great cars, but, if you're intimidated by automotive work and need to have mechanics do the work all the time, it'll not be worth it over the long run.
Always look underneath. I live in Minnesota and most 90’s cars are quite rusty underneath. Hit bottom of frame with a hammer to see if frame is solid. Even if you live in warmer climate where they don’t use salt, you never know where the car may have lived previously
They really started doing away with cars having separate frames by the 90s. Only Impalas, etc. we're still built on B-Body frames. By then almost all sedans were becoming unibodies.