"new" car choices

[Guest]

i am shopping around for a used car for my sister. v-6 with under 60k miles. she has a budget of around 13-14k. could you guys please give me some recommendations of cars she should consider. i was thinking maxima, cl 3.0, solara, 626. thanks

[RedRum Solara]

Toyota Solara

[nkx1]

Go for the Solara. Obviously, I think many people here would agree. The Solara is an excellent value imo, and of course you get Toyota quality. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a better looking and better quality car in the $13-14k range than a Solara. The mazda 626 is a boring sedan (and I don't know about mazda quality considering they're owned by ford). The maxima is ok, but it's still a sedan. I think the Solara is way better looking than either of those cars, and it has the quality to back up the looks. I couldn't be happier with my Solara. I bought mine used in June for $15.6k w/ 26k miles. Be sure to do a carfax before you buy. Good luck!

[FLASH]

Clearly go with the Solara. How old is your sister? The only downfall I could think of is the insurance, but since she's a woman, it should be cheaper than my 3500/year for a 17 year old male.

[Guest]

my sister is 22.
also, my parents have a 2000 se maxima which, i hate to say, looks and drives more sportier and in many aspects better than my 99 solara sle. those are basically the two cars she wants and i think each has something else the other doesn't.
what kind of solara and with what options would she be able to find for under, lets say, 13,500?
thanks again

[Missay]

if she's looking for a really sporty handling car in stock form, the solara isn't the way to go. or if she wants to mod the car a lot, the solara might not be a good idea. if it's just for getting her from point a to b though and she cares more bout looking good than racing the accord next to her, then the solara is the way to go.

for 13-14, you should be able to find an SE v6 auto..but it would be hard to get a lotta options. it really all depends on where you live, if you buy it from a dealer/generic auto dealer/private seller, how well you can bargin down the price, etc etc. it would probably be really difficult to find an SLE under 14k w/ low mileage, but you never know.

you could probably find an SE w/ cloth, sunroof, etc, for around 14k. then again..i take that back bout the SLE for 14k. i actually did find a loaded green sle w/ 48k at a generic auto dealer for 16k (which he talked down to 13,999) when i was shopping around for my solara, but i really wanted black, so i was a pain in the a$$ and paid 16650 for the same damn car w/ 38k from a toyota dealer.

[nkx1]

I would be careful when looking at cars from generic used car lots. It's a reasonably common practice to buy cars that have been totalled or in accidents for cheap and then fix them up to sell them. I personally would never buy from a generic used car lot. i think buying certified used from Toyota is good, and private party is sometimes good as well. As I mentioned earlier though, always do a carfax to see what you're really getting.

As an example, my friend was considering buying this '94 or '95 Mercedes from a used car place back in June when I bought my car. It looked like a really nice car for a reasonable price. Before he bought it though, I told him he should get a carfax just to make sure the car was what it appeared. The carfax showed that the car was purchased in somewhere like Alabama, and had been registered in at least 4 other states before it somehow ended up in California. There also appeared to be inconsistent mileage readings for each registration. So who knows what that car had been through and how many people had owned it. Needless to say, he ended up not buying the car. Btw, I don't work for carfax or anything. I think Experian and some other companies have the same thing.