Carfax, Buying Used, & Craigslist.org

You are out of luck because you are not nice enough and you seem to me to prefer staying with your ignorant point of view...

Is English your native language and you think everybody is the same as you? Or that if somebody who makes some language mistakes it is some indication of his lack of technical knowledge? Don't be such an arrogant American who thinks that if somebody does not speak or write perfect English his must be dumb in everything else...

Braking distance is not all what is important in car safety. Do some reading and maybe you will learn what you are missing.

I am not your buddy.

There will be no structural rust on 8 years old car but it is a good chance that 20 years old civic will not be strong enough to crash safely.

I am here long enough to learn very well how arrogant and impolite you are.

Reply to
Pszemol
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Then how do you know you "prefer" car without ABS? It is like saying I do not like chocolate icecream without trying them :-)

To apreciate ABS you need to own a car with one. Until you drive cars without it you do not know what you are missing.

Texas? Phoenix?

I was talking about daily e-mail from carfax.com, not dealers.

Reply to
Pszemol

"Elle" wrote in news:n6z9k.5022$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe15.lga:

Interesting. I wonder if curb weight listings may be a European legal requirement. Of particular and odd note here is the UK service manual's use of the American spelling "curb" rather than the standard British spelling of "kerb".

I notice our Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) appears to be called "Max. Permissible Weight" over there.

Given the differences in powerplants, equipment and structure between overseas and North America (and even between Canada and the US), I'd be inclined to use curb weights as relative, comparative measures, not absolute ones. You're doing that already, I know.

Reply to
Tegger

"Pszemol" wrote

I prefer owning a car w/o ABS because I have (1) read the reports of the additional effort required to work on brakes w/ABS; (2) seen ABS parts fail on others' cars; (3) read about how little advantage ABS is, especially for where I live (little rain and snow). More complicated is undesirable to me.

Your opinion of the better braking of ABS is noted. People can google and see reports of how they are really not notably superior especially for xyz situations and confirm my opinion is shared by many.

Reply to
Elle

oh, don't be a spoil-sport! tell us anyway!

honestly, i'm not as interested in your spelling as i am your ability to have an opinion on something you don't seem to know anything about.

eh? that's an incredibly bizarre statement! personally, i'd rather avoid the accident than have one, and braking distance is a fundamental component of that.

i read extensively. you simply don't know what you don't know.

i'd be your buddy if a helmet saved your life!

eh? have you ever been up north?

rubbish. my 19 year old california civic is completely rust free.

like i care!!!

Reply to
jim beam

I own a car with ABS. I live in the Northeast. I do find that it comes in handy when driving on black ice, but if I lived in the South, where snow and ice are rare, I'd prefer a car without it.

Reply to
Joe

WTF would you know? you live in california. THe biggest problem there is rain after after 4 months without a drop onto oily pavement and people driving into each other due to tailgating in fog at 80 mpg.

Reply to
AZ Nomad

Read again what I have written. I did not say it is not important. I am just saying it is not the only thing that matters.

of course. only you know it all.

of course not, only you have been everywhere and know it all. Everybody else is stupid compared to you, Majesty.

California again... Who is talking here about California besides you? I was talking in general. Of course in places where rust is not an issue structural rust will not be an issue. How hard is it to understand?

Exactly my point - you don't! And this is just the problem.

Reply to
Pszemol

so wear a helmet!

how hard is it for you to stop ducking and diving? you made a blanket condemnation of older vehicles on the premise of rust. i pointed out that not only is it not that simple, but that /i/ have the privilege of living in california where i get to own and drive a vehicle that doesn't have that problem. so your bullshit blanket condemnation is wrong! or, in your words, "How hard is it to understand?"

cry me a river.

Reply to
jim beam

you contradict yourself.

Reply to
jim beam

Only reader lacking some screws in his head would assume that my coment about rust would apply to car in California...

Also, I am really not sure why do you think a fact you live in California is anyhow relevant to this discussion. Are we talking about new car for you here? How many times are you going to mention again YOUR location here?

You are such a waste of my time...

Reply to
Pszemol

He just told you that you could benefit from ABS even without snow/ice in your area.

Reply to
Pszemol

jeepers - how do the treacherous slippery oily pavement conditions we get down here after the first few days of rain /possibly/ have anything to do with treacherous slippery conditions of ice and snow?

Reply to
jim beam

Yesterday I found and purchased a 1993 Civic DX four door sedan with 185k miles on it. I had actually been leaning towards a newer car lately, but for one, finding a newer used car in good condition with a clean title would cost a lot more. I can afford more car, but fact is I wanted to keep experimenting with older but great condition cars and maybe save money.

I have computed the cost of owning and maintaining my 91 Civic (sans gasoline costs), and it comes to about $800 per year. This is the initial purchase price plus oil changes, timing belts, etc. divided by the number of years I have owned it. It includes some high priced repairs from years ago that I can now do myself, so I expect my yearly cost to keep declining for some years.

On Craig's List, I did tire a little of all the multi-owner, really often beat up and raised my sites (and budget). The multi-owner part translates to an iffy maintenance history, in my mind. Plus some of those owners seem to drive their cars hard, because they know they will sell the car soon.

Here's why I ended up with the 93 Civic DX:

-- Single owner, as supported by Carfax (not 100% foolproof, but I accept it for this car)

-- Everything under the hood works. The timing belt likely needs replacement and could break tomorrow, but I factored this into my price.

-- Fuel mileage better than most (all?) of the 95 and later Civics that are most available.

The 95 Civic DX manual tranny could not be beat. A couple of these crossed my radar. The problem was I found I really liked power steering, and the 95 Civic DX manual tranny does not have power steering. HX's are in short supply. By contrast, the more fuel consuming EXs are abundant. The coupes' small size started bothering me at some point, and I went back to four-door sedans recently. More fitting for a woman my age, too.

One thing I am theorizing at this point is that the KBB prices (private party and retail used) tend to reflect the concept of one owner, so better car. The retail used cars tend to be one owner. It makes a difference, from all I saw. I ended up buying from a new car dealership that has just started doing internet used car sales. I saw a new ad on Friday and called Saturday. The sales pitch (if any) was toned down compared to that to which I was used in regular dealership sales departments. They still cajoled, behaving like money should really--oh come on--not be an object. I smiled and good humoredly quipped back that it was an object, and "Here's why I need /this/ out-the-door price, and why /you/ need this car off your lot... " I got a free hot dog and two bottled waters out of the deal too. My local advisor and I talked via cell phone during the back-and-forth, and he said that lunch was just assumed to be a part of the deal, so cut them no slack on the out-the-door price we had planned, just because they'd fed me. I was ready to walk away at all times. It is sure nice having reliable wheels at one's disposal when buying used. Anyway, working with the internet sales crew seemed consistent with reports in the last few years here of negotiating over the intenet for a car. The internet sales departments are much less ridiculous as they try to make their money. Knock-on-wood my new used car does not fall apart in the next seven days.

My new used car sure drives nice. I have already tried it on the highway for 40 miles or so. It is better aligned than my

91 Civic, or maybe the new 93 Civic has had some suspension work. I found a better driving experience (compared to my 91) to be rare. Craig's List had a lot of cars that needed the sort of work I do want to try some day, like CV joints (that is, half shaft replacement) and a questionable A/C system, but I wanted to try to start off with a fairly clean history of maintenance. The value of this became clear as I drove much newer, younger cars and compared the feel of everything to my 91 Civic, the car I have owned and maintained since 1991. My 91 Civic was way too often far superior in feel, looks, and general condition.

I spent a little more, and I think I got a little more. If this second Civic lasts five years, I will be quite happy with the initial investment. We are looking at some serious gas savings as well.

I did learn that autocheck.com is thought of as a wee bit superior (and less expensive) than carfax.com, when it comes to title checking.

I really do read all the posts to this and other threads. At a minimum, they go into the "put 'em up on the shelf; take 'em down when you need 'em" category.

Forward with new experiences with the 93 Civic DX.

Reply to
Elle

May I ask how much was it? Thanks.

ps. good luck with your purchase!

Reply to
Pszemol

"Pszemol" wrote

I paid $3400 out-the-door.

Excellent condition KBB private party is $2860 and retail used is $4005.

The fuel mileage was a big factor in deciding whether to purchase or not. From

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city and highway mpg (manual tranny only), and comparing to my 91 Civic:

93 Civic = 29 and 36 mpg laboratory; 6 actual drivers' lo and hi = 33 and 45 mpg 91 Civic = 27 and 32 mpg laboratory; 7 actual drivers' lo and hi = 27 and 39 mpg
Reply to
Elle

That is for me a lot of money for such an old car... So there is still some hope for my 95 camry with 246k miles ;-) Camrmax priced mine for $750 :-)

I think fuel price for an average driver is kind of overrated. It is not rational, it is just emotional - sticker shock effect. Think about it - on average one can make - what? - 12000 a year?

Lets say you compare a car making 30mpg to a car making 35mpg.

12000/30 is 400 gallons. 12000/35 is 343 gallons. Difference is 57 gallons. With todays price less than $5 per gallons it is 57*5 = 285 dollars PER YEAR. 23 dollars per month...

Now let's do same math for a cars making 35mpg and with 40mpg.

12000/35 = 343 gallons, 12000/40 = 300 gallons, the diff: 43. 43 * 5 = 215 dollars PER YEAR. 18 dollars per month...

Is it really such a big deal to make a car purchase decisions based mainly or solely on fuel consumption? I think sometimes we apply too much value to higher mpg and we are ready to pay much too much for a car with lower consumption compared to what the car is able to save us on fuel cost...

The same applies to buying toyota prius and comparing it to - let's say - toyota corolla or camry, but camry looks much bigger car... The purchase price difference has to be compared to the amount it is saved on gas between these two cars.

Of course one can speculate on future fuel prices - with the fuel price per gallon, le'ts say $8, the situation would look different. But we are still not there, yet :-)

Reply to
Pszemol

"Pszemol" wrote

~$20/month is something a lot of people do mind. That's a nice lunch somewhere once a month. There's no point in paying it, if it can be avoided. Twenty bucks here, twenty there each month adds up.

Reply to
Elle

Save it all up and you might be able to afford a new battery when the time comes. The payback period for most hybrids is greater than the life of the car. You'll have more money in your pocket if you simply get a standard car. Better yet, get a one year old standard engine car. The difference in cost will be more like $150/month.

Reply to
AZ Nomad

But if you pay a 1000 dollars more to save this $20 a month it sounds silly. $20 a month is $240 a year, so spending $1000 more (or maybe 5000 more in case of prius and other hybrids) would not equalize after so many years that the old car would not be worth this price difference...

Do you see my point?

Some people are so focused on milleage per gallon that they forget the bigger picture and they overpay for a car with a higher mileage much more than they save on gas through the life of the car.

Reply to
Pszemol

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