I am starting to look at used low mileage Focuses as a replacement for my Escort. One thing I noticed was that the Focuses I saw seemed to have replacement or nearly worn out tires. This trait was on cars that had only 30k or less. does the focus have a tire wear problem?
Also, what are the other problems that owners have had, engine, tranny, interior, ect. I'd like to get the wagon with an auto transmission and base engine. The wagons seem to be optioned really well.
Rental cars. Stay away.
You won't find a good car under 5 years old these days, as that's the term of a typical first owner loan(unless you happen to be talking TO that first owner). Everything else is most likely rental garbage and has been abused. That means looking in the papers/ads for a private party first-owner sale.
OTOH, you can price your offer accordingly.
As for vehicles, Also look at the Sentra and second generation Neon.
Yup. Shopping for a car a year ago, I got the impression that most used cars at dealer lots were rental or lease return vehicles, near or just out of warranty, with more than 25k miles on them in the space of two years or less. (The rest were mostly trade-ins with over 50k miles -- that showed every mile.)
IMHO, the price difference between these cars and the new models wasn't enough to compensate for the risk the buyer would assume in owning a vehicle with no warranty and an unknown history of use (or abuse) and maintenance. The prices were roughly what you'd expect from applying straight-line depreciation to a new model based on an asset life of 100k miles.
I concluded that finding a used car that's really worth the money takes a lot of searching -- best done in places other than dealer lots.
I had a 2000 ZX3 with 33K. Tires still had plenty of meat on them. Another
10-15K left, I would estimate. John
Actually, the remainder of the factory warranty is still valid.
I agree. Deales buy them someplace, either car owners or auctions, usually. And they do increase the price (that's what they are in business for).
Jeff
Jeff
I have a Contour. The tires that came with the car (it was a demo, bought it with only 4k on it at a good discount) were not very good. They last only about 40 K (vs. about 55K for Goodyear Eagle GT II's). I suspect that the car makers often put low-cost, low-quality tires on the cars, rather better tires that will last a longer time.
Jeff
You are partially right. From my experiences working at a Ford dealership (sales) I noticed that the "economy class" vehicles, and the base models of the mid-class vehicles all had the cheap cheap tires, however when you step up to vehicles like Mustang GTs, Crown Vic's and some of the "money makers" they had better tires on those.
Chuck
It's the old story you get what you pay for. People today are spoiled, in the old day if you got more than 15K from a set of tires you were happy. ;)
mike hunt
Zex0s wrote:
If it is only the front tires that are worn out or brand new, while the rear tires are original tires in good condition, then it is likely to be a sign of not rotating the tires (on a FWD car, the front tires will wear out much faster than the rear tires if they are not swapped between the front and rear every several thousand miles). If rotating the tires is part of the maintenance schedule and it was not done, that could be a sign of sloppy other maintenance habits.
Yes, I know that the warranty travels with the car. My point was that miles under warranty are worth more to a buyer than those out of warranty, but used car prices seem to reflect more of a straight-line approach.
That's because over 75% of the econobox models with automatic are fleet/rental cars. I rode to lunch with my friend in a rental Altima and he had incredible joy at re-lining it and slamming the gear level manually at 30mph around town.
He had a client who rented a H2 and after three days, returned it and it barely ran. Just flogged it to death.
So the pricing reflects this.
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