Spring is a time for new beginnings and a lot of people start looking for a new vehicle this time of year. It’s important to be an informed consumer & to know how to maximize the money you have to spend.
Consumer Reports (www.consumerreports.org/) says the average life expectancy of a new vehicle is around 8 years or 150,000 miles. Most vehicles start showing rust in critical areas after 10 years. There’s no way to tell how much longer your car will stay trouble-free, but somewhere down the road, even with the best maintenance, a major part is going to fail. “When a vehicle exceeds 200,000 miles you are riding on borrowed time and the car is paying you back,” says John Ibbotson at the Consumer Reports Auto Test Center.
Many of our customers are in the market for vehicles in the $1k to $2k range and it’s not always easy to find dependable, safe vehicles at this price point.  So how do you get the most value out of a small budget?
In our experience:
*Look for common and mass produced vehicles.  Some foreign vehicles are great when they’re new but costly to repair when things need to be replaced. Search for vehicles that are commonplace because used parts will be easy to find & are a must have to repair your vehicle in the event of an accident.
*Have the vehicle inspected. We do a complimentary inspections on any car or truck. Trusting Carfax is not always wise. Have us check it out and we can let you know if there are common problems with the make and model you’re  looking at.
     *Expect more maintenance with more miles and budget accordingly. Everything is made to wear out. 
     *Beware of weekly payments or high interest loans. Some lenders  have no integrity and don’t make the details of loans clear to the customer. Be sure to understand the amount that you will pay for the entire loan. We see vehicles with values of less than $3k with the loan amount of $8k plus. These loans are a trap and usually are never designed to be paid off. They know the vehicle will not last for the duration of the term of the loan and they will try to convince you to roll the bad debt into a new loan term, making a bad thing worse.

Search our vehicles sales tab for vehicles you might be interested in. We stand behind our cars. If we don’t have something that fits your needs, please contact us to set up an inspection if you find one somewhere else.