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Ok, so I'm in need of a new car. I've got around $7000 to spend and I'm looking to buy used from an owner rather than a dealer. As we all know Civics have a great resale value but that also leaves me with cars in the +100,000 mile range. Normally I'd be afraid of that but, hey, its a honda. My first car was a Civic and if my parents had dropped that extra $1000 into it I'd probably still be driving it. Anyway. In my area I've found two cars.

1st Car: $7500 - 2002 Civic 2 door (sorry that's all I've got on it) 110,000 miles.
(This one is close to my home and I can get it ok'd by a mechanic I trust.)

2nd Car: $6000 - 2002 Honda Accord (sorry) LX V6 Coupe. 136,000 miles.
(This one is not near my home but I've got a Carfax report on it that appears pretty clean.)

Please, I have to convince my wife that it's worth buying a Honda for this price even when it's over 100k miles. Any help/insight would be very much appreciated.

Thanks everyone.

 
Rep Power: 201

have you tried looking on craigslist. you can get a really nice civic for 7000 on there.

 
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7000 should get you a better car than a civic with 110k.. like 2005civiclx said take a look on cragislist. I got my 2001 Honda civic with 124k for $5995.

STEER clear of 2001 automatic honda civics though.. My transmission died on me at 133k and the average death of the transmission is around 90k for 2001s.

 
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I would start with using carcomplaints.com, this site is really helpful in finding common issues with cars and is people like you and me entering the data.. For example their are some year civics ( 2001 ) that have many issues. Also MSN reliability ratings is another website. Once you decide on the year, use the dealers to take out several cars. This way you will see any abnormal differances between each. Use Autocheck.com and you can have unlimited searches for vin #s. And most hondas have vin #s on most body parts and engine to see if something has been changed. I just bought a 98 civic ex private party original owner for 5K with 45000 miles. Most of the small car dealers had auction junk with a zillion miles and alot of money. Every one of them was hit. Also take a good look underneath the car for rot especially if you live in the northeast. Private party is the way to go if you have the time. good luck