May 20May 20 My stepdaughter's car is entering its death throes. She needs to replace it. We're thinking late-teens Honda or Toyota. Is CarMax a non-starter? What about dealerships? I suppose we could look for a private sale and have it looked over by a good mechanic. Our other daughter bought a 2015 Toyota off a lot in south Austin and it has been a gem, but maybe she just got lucky. Recommendations?
May 20May 20 Searching CarGurus is probably the easiest way to check for used cars across the city. You can tighten the perimeters to fit your needs.
May 20May 20 8 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said: My stepdaughter's car is entering its death throes. She needs to replace it. We're thinking late-teens Honda or Toyota. Is CarMax a non-starter? What about dealerships? I suppose we could look for a private sale and have it looked over by a good mechanic. Our other daughter bought a 2015 Toyota off a lot in south Austin and it has been a gem, but maybe she just got lucky. Recommendations? What type of 2015 Toyota did you buy for her?
May 20May 20 Author 3 minutes ago, gsoda3 said: What type of 2015 Toyota did you buy for her? Toyota RAV4 XLE
May 20May 20 I think car gurus is a solid rec. I looked at both buying and selling on that platform and might have done so but for the time considerations making a dealer transaction more suitable to my needs.
May 20May 20 31 minutes ago, Jerry Callo said: Searching CarGurus is probably the easiest way to check for used cars across the city. You can tighten the perimeters to fit your needs. Autotempest.com, aggregates all for sale car sites into one, even gets eBay listings.
May 20May 20 Stay away from mid/late teens Nissan cvt transmissions, even if have been replace or rebuilt. Prepare for higher prices than expected in this market/climate.
May 20May 20 1 hour ago, Al Czervik said: Stay away from mid/late teens Nissan cvt transmissions, even if have been replace or rebuilt. Prepare for higher prices than expected in this market/climate. This man knows of what he speaks.
May 20May 20 Take a look at Facebook marketplace as well to gauge prices. Also for those that do not want to deal/sell with dealerships. Gives you an opportunity for a gem out there maybe. Still buyer beware, ask a ton of questions.
May 24May 24 carguru is helpful in determining the market and eventual purchase. Especially helpful if you really want to nail down a certain spec.
May 24May 24 I also strongly recommend getting a mechanic's assessment of the car before you buy. 99% of the time, they find nothing, but it's that 1% that matters. It's Amazing that a 10 year old RAV is going for around $15k-$17k. I would have guessed around $10k.
May 24May 24 On 5/20/2025 at 12:44 PM, Al Czervik said: Stay away from mid/late teens Nissan cvt transmissions, even if have been replace or rebuilt. Prepare for higher prices than expected in this market/climate. I have heard nothing good about them.
May 24May 24 Author 1 hour ago, boilerhorn said: I also strongly recommend getting a mechanic's assessment of the car before you buy. 99% of the time, they find nothing, but it's that 1% that matters. Yes, one of my closest friends is a very experienced mechanic. He'll look a car over for a case of beer. Quote It's Amazing that a 10 year old RAV is going for around $15k-$17k. I would have guessed around $10k. . . . to the point that I'm considering a new car.
May 24May 24 Carmax is pretty much a no BS experience, and the prices aren't bad. Might not be rock-bottom, but usually a good deal and they do at least the rudimentary stuff as far as making sure the car is in ok shape. Tires, brakes, oil, cooling etc.
May 24May 24 On 5/20/2025 at 10:39 AM, jimmyjazz said: My stepdaughter's car is entering its death throes. She needs to replace it. We're thinking late-teens Honda or Toyota. Is CarMax a non-starter? What about dealerships? I suppose we could look for a private sale and have it looked over by a good mechanic. Our other daughter bought a 2015 Toyota off a lot in south Austin and it has been a gem, but maybe she just got lucky. Recommendations? Don’t know if you’ve bought a car yet or what your budget is, but I sold my 2015 Lexus IS 250 to my long time friend who runs a wholesale car business here in Austin. But I think with this car he’s just selling it to the public from his lot in South Austin, rather than to a dealer. It’s a great car. It only has 54000 miles on it. High quality tires only a year old. Recently replaced battery. I don’t know the price but I’m guessing around $21-22k.
May 24May 24 1 hour ago, shakahorn said: Carmax is pretty much a no BS experience, and the prices aren't bad. Might not be rock-bottom, but usually a good deal and they do at least the rudimentary stuff as far as making sure the car is in ok shape. Tires, brakes, oil, cooling etc. Their trade-in offers are pretty good too. I was planning to offload a car last summer and figured I would try to sell it privately since I had some time on my hands. But on a whim, I went to their website and got an offer from them that was about $500 less than what I figured I would get if I tried to sell it myself. I brought it over to Carmax the next day and I figured they would try and lower the offer once they looked at the car. But, nope, they gave me the full offer and I was out of there in about an hour. Nice and easy.
May 26May 26 My younger son's 2004 Honda Accord EX is the most reliable, easy to drive, fun to borrow car in our stable. 160,000 and we are the second owner. Facebook Marketplace. $4k. It's a unicorn, but they are out there.
May 26May 26 On 5/24/2025 at 7:46 AM, boilerhorn said: I also strongly recommend getting a mechanic's assessment of the car before you buy. 99% of the time, they find nothing, but it's that 1% that matters. It's Amazing that a 10 year old RAV is going for around $15k-$17k. I would have guessed around $10k. Super high demand for them. My trade in value is 9-12k with 130k+ miles on it.
May 26May 26 Check with your insurance carrier, they may steer you as to which brands to avoid. As we all know some models are easy to steal and higher to insure because of it.
May 27May 27 I'll 2nd CarMax as a place to sell your car hassle free for a fair price. I sold my 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee last week to them. I got on-line offers based on the VIN# and CarMax beat Carvana, AutoNation, Southpoint, and a couple of others by several thousand dollars. And like Hornonthebayou said above, they wrote me a check for the full amount within 30 minutes of taking it to their lot. They are the Easy Button for sure.
May 27May 27 Carmax was a PIA for us about 12 months ago when we sold wife's Yukon. Had perfect experience with Carvana, even let us have "within 1000 miles" to drive it until they came and picked it up at house. They offered about $3500 more on a 32 offer sell price (29 vs 32.5) Wonder if we just caught Carmax on a bad day. Only sell cars once or twice a decade so wont figure it out I reckon.
June 6Jun 6 On 5/24/2025 at 3:17 PM, shakahorn said: Carmax is pretty much a no BS experience, and the prices aren't bad. Might not be rock-bottom, but usually a good deal and they do at least the rudimentary stuff as far as making sure the car is in ok shape. Tires, brakes, oil, cooling etc. You can find cars for less $ than carmax but in my experience you’ll generally get a quality vehicle there based on the $$ they put into it for resale. And they usually have a default short term warranty included I think? I sold my kid’s Passat to them a couple years ago and got 2 grand above what others were offering. The wheels were beat up (black wheels with bad road rash) and when it showed up on their website a few weeks later it had brand new wheels and tires. Edited June 6Jun 6 by HiggyBaby
June 6Jun 6 As far as looking for cars, take a look at Carfax. A lot of smaller dealers pay into the service, but don’t pay extra to list their cars on the other websites for sale and you’ll see a used car section in there. We found our Jeep Wrangler a couple years ago there from a small dealer up in DC. When I called him from out of state he was wondering how I found him since he doesn’t list his cars outside of his website. Edited June 6Jun 6 by HiggyBaby
June 6Jun 6 As others have said carmax/carvana are a little more but they do make sure they are maintained before they sell. I think they will sell an extended warranty on most cars that helped me once. But I’ve only bought one car through carmax and it was pretty much a brand new car then. Super easy transaction and they gave me way more on my trade in than I expected I recently bought a 2 year old car from a dealer which they put new tires on before I went to pick it up. There must be a liability thing with tires since I don’t think anyone sells cars with used tires
June 7Jun 7 On 5/24/2025 at 12:17 PM, shakahorn said: Carmax is pretty much a no BS experience, and the prices aren't bad. Might not be rock-bottom, but usually a good deal and they do at least the rudimentary stuff as far as making sure the car is in ok shape. Tires, brakes, oil, cooling etc. Edited June 7Jun 7 by Gil Bang
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