Planning to buy a Used Honda civic or Toyota Corolla in Austin - tips please?

Question

My budget is 7000$ and the car should be no older than 2000.

The mileage should be less than 130000 miles.

1) Should I go to a dealer? If yes, which ones are good?

2) Should I buy from an individual? If yes, are there any classifiedes sites I can look?

3) If I buy from an individual, what checks do I need to do to ensure the quality of the vehicle?

Answer 1

1. You can try a dealer, because with your spending limit, it is not going to be that hard to find a car (but make sure you don't give your spending limit to the salesman, let him work a little bit.

2. You can buy it from an individual, but before you buy it, make sure you run it through carfax and also take it to a local mechanic. Craigslist is a good site to look for individual sellers.

Toyota Corolla has a better gas mileage, but Honda Civic looks better, I had a Honda Civic for  four years and I loved it

Answer 2

Almost every city have Carmax go there or go to certified

Honda or Toyota dealership used car sold by them have a good inspection and some warranty the price u r talking about

will get u good car my choice Honda civic.

Answer 3

If you go individual you're likely to get a better price.  Make sure the seller agrees to let you have a mechanic of YOUR CHOICE look the car over before you sign any paperwork.  If he doesn't, he's trying to hide something.  Also, it would be worthwhile to run a CARFAX on it.

Answer 4

1) Avoid dealers..they're just out to make money and they s***w you over most of the time.

2) Yes, try craigslist, ebaymotors (search your zip), autotrader in your area, and the classifieds from your local paper.

3) Get a good mechanic to check it.  If you dont know cars that well, forget about checking it yourself..theres a lot (a LOT) to check on a car you want to buy.  

I would personally go with the corolla.  From my personal experience, Toyotas are much better designed and are safer / have just as good gas mileage if not better as honda.  They're more powerful as well.  Plus, you won't get made fun of for being a ricer with a Corolla.  Usually people dont try to mod out Corollas..they stick with better Toyotas.  But yeah it should be pretty easy to find a nice Corolla for that price.