I have a question for those who care to read my (sorry long) post.
Two vans we're looking at, 93 Safari with very high mileage (345000 km), saftied, and can get it for $1300 or so. The guy selling it bought it from a lady who had to move out of the area quickly. It has a tow hitch on it and by the look of it was well used. The body is in decent condition, little rust, etc.
The other is an immaculately kept (looks like showroom condition) 92 Safari with only 148000 km. I doubt we would get it for less than $5000. It's never been driven in winter, and it's been maintained reguarly, saftied, one owner, and has never towed anything.
My fear is if we get the 92 for $5K and are in an accident (even if it's not our fault in any way) the insurance will write it off because it's an "old, 1992 van". They don't care about the mileage on it, nor how it's been maintained. We would get about $3000 for it if they wrote it off.
We're tempted to go for the higher mileage vehicle as we do have harsh winters where we live and the chance of getting in a winter accident is quite high compared to other areas of north america, so it's a bit of a gamble. Do we buy the more expensive van that we know we will get a lot of years out of and less headaches, but risk losing $2000 if we get in an accident, or buy the cheaper one and risk having maintenance problems because it is a high mileage van thats been used to tow.
Any tips for us? We're really stuck because we know the 92 is a better deal for what it is, yet there's this darn thing with the insurance being 'write-off' happy :(