So I am officially starting to look for a car.

[Hobgoblin]

Yep, you heard right. Between my tax refunds and the overtime I've been working, I have a little over 6 grand to potentially use in the purchase of a vehicle. I'm estimating spending perhaps 3g - 4g on the car itself and having the remainder available to pay for repairs, insurance, fees, personal property taxes, etc. While I may still change this plan depending on whether I wind up moving at the end of June or not, it seems far more likely that I will be making this purchase.

With the money available, the question of what to buy is now looming. Any suggestions on a solid make/model to look for when considering used vehicles? (note: do not say monster trucks or aircraft carriers or I will run you over and then my fighter jets will bomb you from the seas)

[Lykaios]

Are you looking for any kind of car? SUV? Compact? Automatic? Stick?

[Xavier Synik]

yeah really depends on what your looking for.

Need to think about whether you care about mileage. You can get a newer car years wise, but with a lot of miles on it for less then the same car with less miles (obviously). Also how long you plan on having it before you might think about a new one.

Lastly, where you live will have a lot to do with things. For example here in Canada, the exact same car would cost more on the west caost in BC then it would in Ontario and that's primarily due to the weather conditions the car sees, and the fact that because of the winters in Ontario we use salt on the roads and it helps the whole rust development.

So yeah couple things to keep in mind.

[Zem Vymes]

Paying all in full or making a down payment and doing financing? I hope the latter so you can swing something cool.

I'm supremely partial to the newer year Ford Fusions. I freakin love mine and it's generally held in well regard by car people.

[Morgan Evanar]

3-4k is the utter crapshoot range.

If you have 6k to spend, use 4k as a down on a $10k good used car.

[Shadow Storm]

I've been driving an '06 Chevy Silverado single cab since Summer of '05 and don't have anything to complain about yet. Overall price tag was about 12.5k, but it was a very basic model meant more for company than personal use, with the only "luxuries" being am/fm radio and A/C.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

My car is paid off :D