Bostonman
I can’t give you any advise on what kind of car to buy. I can only provide what I have as a recent experience in trying to buy a used car.
Specifically we were on the hunt for a minivan. With 4 kids nothing else worked. We had our mind made up that we were going to buy a Honda anfer lots of consumer report recomendations. What we found when we started searching was a market that was loaded with older model cars and prices high above blue book. For the newer model’s with 40k miles they were asking only about $4k less than a new minivan. Ultimatly we deicded to just buy a new one because rates were .9% at Honda which is like borrowing free money.
Long story but I am in this market to some extend in that we have a joint venture with GMAC. The used market has been destroyed by the economy for people looking to pick up a used car. People on average are keeping cars for 10 to 11 years now instead of 4 or 5 years like the mid 2000’s. The lack of available credit to all but the most credit worthy has forced people with lower credit scores into the used car market by force. This results in no inventory in the market or at least no inventory on desired makes and models. GMAC expects this to be the case for another 3 years is what they tell me.
To further back that up my wife owned a 2002 Mazda protoge she bought 4 years ago for $7k. We listed it and sold it for $4800 after we bought the minivan. The amortization on that is $45 a month. 8 years ago I would have been lucky to get $2500 for that same car yet it was sold in 2 days.
So, a long winded story that in the end tells you nothing you wanted to know. I just had a few minutes until my next meeting.