Uneducated Buyer Looking to Purchase a Civic in the Next 6 Weeks. Help!!!

acemanhattan

Hey everybody, I'm Chase and I’m an inexperienced car shopper on the hunt for a used Civic in Portland, Oregon. It is a purchase I’d like to make in the next 6 weeks (though I’ll wait longer if I have to) and I’m hoping that you all can share some of your wisdom with me so that I make a smart purchase.

Here is the lowdown as far as budget and needs are concerned:

Budget: $7,000 is the absolute ceiling and ideally it would be from a private seller.

Wants: Most importantly I want to be able to drive it for up to 60,000 miles hassle free. These would be easy city miles and I’d expect them to come over the course of 5-7 years of driving. I would like it to be a 4 door sedan with good to great gas mileage (30+ on the hwy would be nice), and, as far as amenities are concerned, cruise control would be nice but A/C is essential.

So, please, start steering me in the right direction, I’d be incredibly grateful for your help.

Kirstie_H

Hi there - I'm not sure what you're looking for by way of advice, since it seems you have a great handle on your budget and already know what vehicle you want. Are you looking for resources to find this vehicle? Looking for what model years to look at?

Having your question all by itself in this discussion means it's not likely to attract attention, but if I can find out what questions you have or advice you seek, I can get you to a better place here.

acemanhattan

Kristie,

Thanks for the response.

Primarily I am looking for what model years to look at; more specifically, with regards to my hope of getting 60,000 miles of hassle free driving out of the vehicle, I'm hoping to get some insight about what my cutoff point for mileage on a prospective purchase should be.

Another question that I have been wondering about in the past few days:

Should I expect to pay more than edmunds appraisal values for a vehicle?

Kirstie_H

OK, cool. I'm going to send you to our Help Me Choose! discussion. You can basically just copy/paste your post from here to there, but make sure to include the part about looking for advice on model years. It gets pretty good traffic when someone makes a new post there.

Just click on my link to find that discussion.

PS - my son bought a 1998 Accord a little over a year ago and paid ~$3500 for it with 140,000 miles on it. It's doing great so far. No issues.

acemanhattan

Thanks a lot Kristie, you've been very helpful.