So I am doing some research and have narrowed my search down to an accord ,candy or a Taurus. The Taurus pros are cheap comfortable and cheap to maintain. Cons fuel mileage and transmissions! Camry pros reliable nice interior cons sludge

And the Honda. Honda has an amazing record of always being great. So Ivan asking you what are hondas pros and cons. I am downing about 4500 dollars. Thank you all very much. Glad to be here.

 

Are you looking at 2013 models?

 

No I am spending about 4500 dollars . I wish I could buy a new one though

 

So what years are you looking for? The 90-97 are pretty bullet proof. The 98-02 manual transmissioned cars are equally as reliable but the 98-02 automatics had some issues and I personally would avoid them.

 

^Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that only the 6 cylinder tranny's had problems.

 

6 cylinders had it worse for sure. But the 4 cylinders didn't seem to be exempt. Of course plenty of people have owned both and put hundreds of thousands of miles on without ever having an issue. But I personally would never buy either one.

 

well to be fair it seems like toyota has sludge issues ford taurus has BAD transmissions problems and a few other smaller things. and the Hondas have transmission problems to, and if i buy a GM and i wont i have the intake and head gaskets to contend with. so pretty much every car seems to have some known issues. i damned if you do damned if you don't my guess is though given any issues all the cars are known for a honda is probably the most reliable still followed by toyota.

 

The 94-97 don't have too many common problems. Especially if you live in the south so rust isnt an issue. Only common problems that come to mind are slow window motors and the solder on the odometer breaking.

 

My advice is stay away from a Ford if you plan on driving it past 85,000 miles. They kind of start recycling themselves at 100,000 miles. The F150s are good I'm sure, but I wouldn't trust the cars.

 

It really comes down to personal choice and your experience behind the wheel. You can find a 96-97 Accord that will be pretty reliable and have a little of that $4500 left over, and if you can find an EX, you'll also get ABS, which is a plus in bad weather. You'll also find a Camry from the same vintage for about that amount of money.

You can find a newer Taurus for the same amount of money, but I'll echo what MysticBlue said.

You also might want to consider a mid-to-late-90's Nissan Maxima as well.

With any car from this vintage, I'd budget $500-$1000 to fix any lingering problems that the previous owner either didn't notice or didn't attend to. Just factor it into the total cost, and if it ends up not needing the work, you'll have some extra money in your pocket.