Used Cars

[Ksandra]

All depends on the price range you're looking to go Ksan. I will say from a AAA perspective, Kia's are shit.

I'll do the research once I can actually compare brands, as I said this will still be like a year away so not really in the market yet. I just need a list of cars that are like this.

I know kia's aren't rated high, that's the only one I could find that does what I ask to use as an example so people know what kind of car I am talking about.

[Kalmado]

Take the vin to your insurance agent. They can run it to find far more information than a carfax.

What would an insurance agent find? I'm curious, because I sell p&c and the only thing I can tell when I run a vin is the year/make/model and some options. I work with over ten carriers and I can't think of one that tells anything that would sway decision making in car buying.

[Obsidian]

My mom had a Ford Flex as a rental for a week while her rear quarterpanel and driver-side door got replaced; that thing was freaking huge inside. I'm almost 6'5 and I had leg space for days in there.

[Rhinox]

thanks for the responses guys haven't been able to read all of it been swamped at work but lots of great advice here.

[Ddz]

All depends on the price range you're looking to go Ksan. I will say from a AAA perspective, Kia's are shit.

What?! I drive a Kia Soul and it's been nothing but awesome for the last 4 years. Service at the dealerships is inexpensive and great, car and insurance payments are low, can't beat the warranty - almost paid off and still have 6 years of warranty left. I really would like to buy an AWD Sorento in the near future. Why are they 'shit'? Just because it's a company still trying to build a reputable brand? :'(

Also, this is the only car that has held an extremely high value over time. I could still sell it privately for around $14,000.

[Talint]

Even if you don't want to take it to a mechanic for whatever reason (although I highly recommend you do), ask the seller if you can have your mechanic look at it anyway. If they say no, walk away, because there's probably an issue with the vehicle they don't want you to know about. That issue will be expensive.

I'll emphasize this too. Taking the car to get looked over is, arguably, the most important thing you can do.

An inspection will let you know if you need to get the car up to emissions standards. Living in Cali these days, there are plenty of people letting tags expire, register in neighboring states, etc. because the vehicles aren't up to emission standards.

I also like to beat on the car during a test drive (sharp turns, quick acceleration, etc.). Nothing outrageous that will harm/damage the vehicle, but if you feel/notice the car (or the owner) can't handle the stress, then you can probably save yourself from taking it to a mechanic to get it looked over.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Ksan, my parents and I have had really good experiences with our Toyotas (Scion, Yaris, and Tundra). Looks like the Highlander would do what you want (without crossing into full-sized SUV territory). The seats-fold-flat thing seems to be a pretty standard feature these days; all three of our Toyotas have them.

I'd offer more suggestions but tbh the only other vehicle we've ever bought "new" was a GMC 7-passenger conversion van that lasted two decades. With two different engines and I think three transmissions (we did a lot of towing). Thing was beastly, though. If you can afford to waste gas, I highly recommend them as cruising vehicles.

[Brill Weave]

What?! I drive a Kia Soul and it's been nothing but awesome for the last 4 years. Service at the dealerships is inexpensive and great, car and insurance payments are low, can't beat the warranty - almost paid off and still have 6 years of warranty left. I really would like to buy an AWD Sorento in the near future. Why are they 'shit'? Just because it's a company still trying to build a reputable brand? :'(

Also, this is the only car that has held an extremely high value over time. I could still sell it privately for around $14,000.

Kia's are in the top three brands that we end up servicing the most. I'm not saying that they are all junk. But based on 14 years of experience with AAA I wouldn't buy one. I also wouldn't buy a Dodge. We release a year end spreadsheet internally. One of the categories is brand serviced most where it breaks down the top 5 brands. After the brands it breaks down the models individually. The Soul did not make it onto the list. But for the last three years Kia placed 2, 3, & 3 on the list. The list usually has either Ford or Chevy as the top two simply due to the sheer volume of vehicles they have on the road. The top makes that we end up towing from Kia are the Sedona, Optima, Cadenza, and Rio in that order.

[Quixon]

Old Kia/Hyundais are much different than the new ones. MUCH different.

It's kind of hard to give advice without a budget....but the best advice:

RESEARCH. Before you even go to look at "x" car, I will guarantee you there is an owner and/or enthusiast forum online. You will find out every issue about every model year car by simply going to the forums and searching. You can actually get cars cheap this way. I bought an audi a4 for $1500 because the owner couldn't get it to pass emission inspection in NYS, and Audi wanted like $1,500 to fix it. Took about 2 hours for me and a friend to install the $100 module I bought off a salvage yard. Sold the car for $3,000 5 days later on craigslist. I found all the info within 10 minutes on an Audi Owners Forums.

A Friend that posts here bought a Mid 2000's Civic recently from a dealership and was having overheating and fluid leak issues almost immediately. We did the thermostat first since that was an easy and cheap repair. That didn't fix the issue so I took it upon myself to do a little research that I should have done in the first place. Turns out that model Civic is PLAGUED by bad head gaskets. They tend to go anywhere from 80k and up. Upon closer inspection and diagnosis it turned out to be the head gasket. Ended up costing him $700 out of pocket even though the car had a supposed "warranty". We didn't have the time to rip the engine apart and do it for him unfortunately.

I did advise him to have a mechanic look at it first even though it was coming from a dealership. I do not think he did that, or it might have been an auction type atmosphere where you really had no time to do it.


Research, research, research. Then bring the car to trusted mechanic, or bring a friend that is well versed in automobiles to check the car out. If everything checks out to your satisfaction, go for it. Or if you find issues that you might be willing to replace or deal with, use them to negotiate the price of the car down.

[Brill Weave]

Old Kia/Hyundais are much different than the new ones. MUCH different.

The last three years straight Kia has been in the top 3 in my region. On average we end up servicing between 400k - 600k members yearly. That's a pretty good sampling size. The Optima, Rio, and Sedona are all in their "third" generations of manufacturing. The Cadenza is still way too new to be having as many issues as we see. The Sedona can be mostly chalked up to being a minivan because let's face it, minivans are shit no matter who produces them. The Optima's issues are simply because it's a reskinned Sonata(which we also service a lot of.) The Rio is a reskinned Accent, which again we service a lot of.

There are some decent Kia's that we don't see a lot of. I'm not saying you're an idiot if you buy one. I'm just saying based on my experience I would not pick one up.

[Ddz]

The last three years straight Kia has been in the top 3 in my region. On average we end up servicing between 400k - 600k members yearly. That's a pretty good sampling size. The Optima, Rio, and Sedona are all in their "third" generations of manufacturing. The Cadenza is still way too new to be having as many issues as we see. The Sedona can be mostly chalked up to being a minivan because let's face it, minivans are shit no matter who produces them. The Optima's issues are simply because it's a reskinned Sonata(which we also service a lot of.) The Rio is a reskinned Accent, which again we service a lot of.

There are some decent Kia's that we don't see a lot of. I'm not saying you're an idiot if you buy one. I'm just saying based on my experience I would not pick one up.

Ahh, that makes more sense. I'm not really a sedan lover, so luckily I won't be driving any of those

[Indalecia]

There are entire non-realistic episodes of Top Gear for this.

What I'm really trying to say is, watch Top Gear.

[Callisto]

Any of you guys have experience with places like CarMax? I can't tell if a larger chain would be more likely to sell more reliable cars, or if they're going to just have a giant price markup. My 2002 Elantra is probably like one bad pothole from having all the wheels fly off, lol.

edit: also is there a good idea to know how bad a prospective loan would be? I know my credit's pretty trashed.

[Ksandra]

Ksan, my parents and I have had really good experiences with our Toyotas (Scion, Yaris, and Tundra). Looks like the Highlander would do what you want (without crossing into full-sized SUV territory). The seats-fold-flat thing seems to be a pretty standard feature these days; all three of our Toyotas have them.

I'd offer more suggestions but tbh the only other vehicle we've ever bought "new" was a GMC 7-passenger conversion van that lasted two decades. With two different engines and I think three transmissions (we did a lot of towing). Thing was beastly, though. If you can afford to waste gas, I highly recommend them as cruising vehicles.

My brother-in-law has a highlander. I feel like that thing is fucking huge. Though it doesn't help that for the past 7 years I've driven tiny cars (VW bug, Versa). All these things feel like tanks to me.

[Obsidian]

You ought to test drive one before you write it off, but the RAV4 is pretty big too without being as big as the Highlander. If nothing else, test driving one will at least give you an idea of what you don't want.

[Ksandra]

You ought to test drive one before you write it off, but the RAV4 is pretty big too without being as big as the Highlander. If nothing else, test driving one will at least give you an idea of what you don't want.

oh snap. I actually looked online at the rav4 and they didn't list a third row as one of the features, but ya googling it I get a image for it:

http://suvswith3rdrowseating.net/wp-...2029388534.jpg


hmmm thanks! I'll have to look into this one more.

[edit] Ahhh that's why I didn't see it, they got rid of the third row in the 2013/2014 models. Good to know though. Can still possibly keep an eye out for used.

[Obsidian]

I think in the newer models the rear seats fold down into the floor of the trunk space. My mom's '05 doesn't have that back row but she's been pretty tough on it and it's holding up pretty well.

I worked in the weld shop at the plant where the RAVs are built, not Assembly, so unfortunately I don't have much more insight to offer there haha. The Highlanders honestly aren't physically much bigger than the RAV is. You may even want to look at the Lexus RX.

[Mojo]

What is your budget, where do you live, and what kind of cars do you like (coupe, sedan, hatchback, crossover, SUV, etc.)? What kind of features do you consider essential (leather seats, AWD, power windows, etc.) I've just gone through this process and I feel like I did a good job. The process is much easier when you have the answers to these questions.

[Quixon]

Any of you guys have experience with places like CarMax? I can't tell if a larger chain would be more likely to sell more reliable cars, or if they're going to just have a giant price markup. My 2002 Elantra is probably like one bad pothole from having all the wheels fly off, lol.

edit: also is there a good idea to know how bad a prospective loan would be? I know my credit's pretty trashed.

If you are not willing to honestly read/comprehend through all of the warranty paperwork a dealership is going to offer you, you have just as much luck buying from a private party as a dealership. Personally if I'm looking to buy used (NOT Certified Pre-owned... just used) then I would honestly look toward private party sales first. If you want certified pre-owned that will come with much better warranties than a vehicle that is just considered a "used car" by the dealership.


In regards to the loan, you can call up any bank and get the rates and terms on their new/used car loans. Now they are only going to tell you their best rate, which judging by your post you will not qualify for. You will need to actually apply, or know your credit score, in order to get a firm interest rate number on the loan. Credit Unions tend to give the best New and Used Car Rates from what I have noticed. I am top tier credit though, so it might be different for you.

You can then simply put the loan terms the bank gives you into a loan calculator to figure out the monthly payment. You can do a little bit of math to figure out how much in interest you will be payingfor the life of the loan as well.

The bank that consistently gives me the best numbers is a local credit union. Right now they are offering 2.99% APR any vehicle 2006 and newer. 2005 and Older is 6.99%. I would expect someone with poor credit, that would still actually qualify for a car loan, to come in slightly over double that APR.

[Anakron]

The new Nissan Rogue has a 3rd row seat, but I'd be a bit wary of its CVT. The Mazda 5 can seat 6 (2+2+2) and is more of a mini-van (actually mini).