When we found out my wife was going to be working again this fall we decided it was time to buy a second car. My daughter would be going to preschool and there would be days that I would need to pick her up or just be available if she were to get sick.
I started looking on craigslist mostly at older Honda Civics. I wanted a cheap reliable ride that gets good gas mileage (don't we all). I found a 2000 Honda Civic EX coupe with 140,000 miles on it for $3,300. It had a manual transmission. The only problem was that it was 33 miles away. I decided that it was a good enough value, if I could talk him down to $3,000, for me to make the trip. I got out there and started looking at the car. The first thing I noticed was that it was covered in rust around the engine. The rear bumper would need to be replaced, there was rust underneath the car, and the driver's side door and front fender had been repainted. I drove the car anyway and it drove pretty good, but the rust scared me off. I made the long trip home without a new (to me) car.
A week or so later we had Hurricane Irene. I drove our van right after the hurricane and it was not running correctly. It had very little power and when I finally got to about 25 mph it shut off. This got me worried enough that I rented a car for the next week so my wife would have a way to get to work. Later that day I got into the van and it drove great again. It was almost as if it had to dry out after the hurricane. I had already paid for the rental car so I figured we'd take advantage of it. I had Monday off and looked for more cars on craigslist. I found a 1999 Honda Accord EX sedan with 139,000 miles for $3,500. The ad on CL said that it was a supernice (one word) car. I emailed the guy and he told me that it was really clean and nice and that the car had no problems. I made an appointment with him for that day around 5:30. He too was located far away from my house in Gainesville, VA (29 miles away). The drive out there required me to drive on I66, one of the busiest freeways at rush hour. I left at 4 to make sure I got there in time. It was stop and go the whole way. One time when I stopped the car behind me didn't. I was rear ended by a college age girl with Vermont plates. I was in the rental car. I parked the car in the middle lane and got out to inspect the damage. There is no shoulder on this freeway. There didn't appear to be any damage to either car even though I felt like we got hit hard. Luckily my daughter was OK too. I got her information in case something came up as cars whizzed by us and was back on my way to look at the Accord. I met the guy in front of a Dick's Sporting Goods. Immediately, I could see this car was not as clean as advertised. There was visible rust bubbling up through the paint in many places. There was a ton of rust under the hood. The interior was filthy and stained. I couldn't believe this guy wasted my time. I decided to drive it anyway. I got out on the highway and the check engine light came on. I breaked at a stop light and the front breaks shuttered badly. The car was a POS. I think my daughter was more disappointed than me. She really wanted a new car.
I decided after the first two experiences that I might want to increase the amount of money I was going to spend to like 6,000 to 7,000. I emailed 4 people I was interested in their cars and got no response. Again none of the cars that I liked on CL were remotely close to my house. I still haven't found a car and am going to keep looking. Hopefully, I have better luck than the first two that I looked at.
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