Since like 2017 I’ve been driving my dads old 2010 Honda civic. It just needs a ton of work at this point, the whole underside is like falling apart, so I’m looking to purchase a used car.
I just have no idea what I’m looking at really so was wondering if anyone had any advice. I love that old civic and I occasionally see like other old cars for sale, from like 2013, 2015. Would these cars be a mistake to buy and in like a year I’d get told the same thing, oh your whole underside is rotting away?
Also how much attention should I pay to mileage? And if I do look at an old car, is a low mileage actually worse since it means it wasn’t driven around a lot?
And yeah any advice you can give. Are there any makes/models I should avoid? Any features or specifications I should look for/avoid? Etc. thanks
Japanese, don’t buy a car parked on grass, don’t accept a check engine light, stretch your budget to get better safety features. Sedans are under rated, check consumer reports.
Whatever you look at, before the money comes out you should put it on a lift and have someone poke the structural members underneath with a screwdriver. No better method exists for determining whether a car is rusted as shit.
That’s actually something I was wondering. Am I allowed to bring it my local mechanic before buying? Or will they not allow it to leave the lot before purchase?
In the US, most dealers should allow you to bring it to a mechanic; some may try and assert that their in house shop is perfectly fine, but most won’t prevent you from taking it to a different mechanic to be inspected
You can also test drive it, though in some cases a salesman may insist on riding along
If it’s a dealership, yeah. They’re almost always going to allow you to do that. If not, that’s a pretty huge red flag especially for cheaper cars. I might feel comfortable using the in house shop to buy a 2 year old CPO luxury car or something, but if I’m buying a 10 year old Honda I would run like hell from any dealership that won’t let me take it to my own mechanic.
If it’s a person to person sale off of Craigslist or something, then they might either want to come with or otherwise be uncomfortable with it.
Lots of great advice in here. I find that many people aim for very old vehicles because the cost is attractive.
A 2013 model year car is over 14 years old. You’re just inviting serious issues at that point and shop labor is not cheap. Not to mention the safety improvements that are made year after year.
The sweet spot for value is quite young, around 2-5 years so you have plenty of lifespan left but the depreciation hit is done.
Try to keep in mind cost of ownership. A/C compressor goes, $2.5k down the drain. Brake rebuild, there goes $800. Tire condition, another $1k for a full set. Power train issues, you’re fucked lol. Electrical, good luck.
The used car market is kind of garbage right now. Just remember, those Hyundais are cheap for a reason. Stick to Japanese.
Go on facebook marketplace and lowball someone
For used, try to go for 175k mi or less. Not sure what your price range is but all used cars are inflated and you can expect upwards of $6k-$8k for a used car from 2010 to about 2014 or 2015. Then $10k+ for newer. Like others have said, anything older will have typical problems from age.
Toyota and Honda (Lexus and Acura) are going to be the good longevity makes. But each one has bad models and bad runs. If you want another Civic, you are not the only one so expect scarcity. The days of the $800 beater that will get you 50k+ miles is long over. They’re asking $6k for 00s Civics with 200k+ miles on them.
During/after covid a bunch of car dealers were minted due to ease of borrowing and tech getting into car reselling. Expect lots to go beyond the old used car salesman stereotype. Private sellers are probably better but all have an inflated sense of value.
Toyotas tend to have more reliable automatic transmissions. Honda had a bad run with some of their CVTs, and they require a lot of care. If you find a Honda with a CVT and don’t have maintenance records, avoid it. The transmissions need to be drained and refilled a certain way, using only Honda’s own fluid. If someone took it to a non-dealer shop and had the transmission serviced, they probably didn’t do it correctly. You can also cover up a CVT on its way out by changing the fluid and adding anti-slip to it.
Watch out for cars from the North. You should always test drive but a lot of things can be covered up. Check fluids after you test drive, since they wash away old fluid leaks. Most cars are too low to visually inspect the underside. Dealers and private sellers probably won’t consent to you taking it a garage before sale. Unfortunately, it’s just a risk. See if your state has lemon laws and if they do, make sure to comply on your end so you are protected. My state doesn’t so it’s basically just gambling. Carfaxes are expensive but knowing the history can be super helpful.
A lot of people in this thread saying a dealership will likely allow me to take it to a mechanic. But you don’t think a dealership will allow that?
Also what do you mean by watch out for cars from the north?
I don’t think many would because if you ask, then you will likely find out they are selling junk. Maybe the bigger dealers with a reputation.
Cars from the northern US get salt all over the undercarriage during winter. The salt accelerates rust. Cars that spend a significant time in the north tend to be rust buckets. If you absolutely must buy something from there, you need a good inspection of the frame and underside.
Assuming they’re talking about the USA or anyplace that salts the roads in winter, that road salt corrodes anything metal it touches.
Here is a video on just that, from a funny Australian man, for 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW0LA0OVS8E
Its definitely aimed at the shitbox crowd (hi thats me) but its solid advice.
Look for daily drivers. Engines dont like sitting still for long periods.
Dont go for diesels unless you know you want diesel and can justify it to yourself. A lot of em have higher compression, and once you take apart the engine once it never really gets back into tolerance again. Also theyre stinky loud and constantly feel like theyre on the verge of dying.
Look for regular maintenance. Do not trust “I did it myself maintenance”. Like, yeah, sure buddy, I totally believe you that you did the head gasket and valves yourself, and replaced the pistons. Youre not a mechanic, you have no certs, I’m not trusting you. Look for receipts. Then read the receipts. They’ll tell you how the car was treated. If you read “snapped timing belt, replaced engine” thats a fucking sign of how it was treated.
Look in the engine bay. You do not want a sparkly clean engine bay. It means they cleaned it, which means its leaking something and you won’t know until a fair few miles after the purchase. You want the engine bay to be free from obvious leaks, no oil spots etc., but you dont want it pressure washed.
Look for milkshake in on the oil.cap and dipstick. Look for oil that is clearly not new but isnt pitch black old as fuck. Brand new oil means it has oil problems, and theyre trying to cover it up. Milkshake means that probably the head gasket is blown. Or some other oil-coolant mixing is happening.
The interior should be clean enough. Not filthy. You want a car someone takes care of.
Need I say it? Clean title only. No rebuild or salvage or any of that shit.
Listen when youre driving the car. Hit bumps and potholes. Listen to the axles. Listen to the wheel bearings.
Try slamming the gas (in a safe location). You dont want undue jumping/jittering. Older cars will probably have tired engine and transmission mounts. Which is fine and normal and causes some shake under load. But theres a little and then theres a lot.
Idk theres probably more. If youre buying a standard then I trust you can tell a tight clutch from a sloppy one, a busted shifter from a decent one.
Find a friend who loves cars and listen to them. Bring them with you if you can.
Oh! Also check on the engine type. Read up on the model before hand. Fine the owners manual online and familiarize yourself with where all the dipsticks and deedlybops are in the engine bay. Even if its just to drop some lingo so the person thinks you know more than you do, learn about the engine and drivetrain. Play your cards against your chest. And it helps to know general stuff about the car, e.g. the Subaru boxer engines are fun and all but require dropping the engine to do some pretty normal stuff like the head gasket. Ford had some electrical problems in the.90s (iirc the rangers were not great).
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
If it’s from a dealer try to see if you can get a record of maintenance on it like oil changes etc. We got a used truck and no real work had been done to maintain it so it was a pain. Also look up the mileage and how long the transitors last on them, we got ours at 17k around the time the transistor craps out so pay attention to that too or at least pay attention to whatever warranty you buy to get it fixed before it expires.
transistor craps out
Do you mean transmission?
That too transmission repairs are no joke
I’m confused I’ve just never heard of transistors failing in a car.
Transistor failure can happen, it just kinda doesn’t anymore. It’s mostly a thing people worry about with classic cars, because even bad old transistors have about a 20-30 year lifespan.
After CAN bus was introduced and standardized in the early 90s, usually the actual problem associated with “electrical gremlins” were either model-specific poor CAN implementations and then the capacitor plague which affected mostly cars from MY 1999-2008. Overall, cars made after about 2009 typically have fairly reliable solid state electronics.
I’m confident Wmill did mean the transmission because 17,000 mi or km seems very low but possible for an abused or poorly manufactured transmission to fail, even though that’s typically a fluke rather than universal to any model of vehicle. A truck or car transmission should ideally last about 20x that long, and they usually have a 60,000-100,000 mile warranty.
It’s that plane meme with the bullet holes in it, biases getting in the way
What make, model, and year of truck did you have major electrical issues with? What had issues, the ECU?
I’ve literally never heard of a low-miles vehicle having this sort of issue unless it was a weird lemon, had rodents eat the wiring, or a Jeep.
Parents got a Ford F-150 but as for major issues I do remember their previous jeep had computer issues causing issues between lights. The Jeep stopped being an issue at least when it got totaled in a crash, insurance found the other driver responsible for being a reckless asshole so got out of that one at least
F-150
Jeep
F-150s have infamous electrical problems for MY 04-08, 13-18, and 21+.
Jeep’s entire lineup were among the least reliable vehicles on the market every year from 1995 when they discontinued the YJ up until 2014 when Tesla entered the market with the only vehicles less reliable than Jeeps. You want to love 'em but it’s so hard.
I’m sure he meant transmission, but there are some odd control module board failures starting to happen in early 2000s Buicks. AC Delco discontinued the parts, and apparently the only way to fix the issue is to either hope that a junkyard pull isn’t affected by the same component failures (which, again, mostly going to be aging electrolytic capacitors and not transistors or ICs) or flat-out refurbish the board to bring it back to factory spec. Which is a damn shame, because the 2000-2004 Le Sabre is the most reliable thing that GM ever built, and is otherwise incredibly cheap to maintain once you address a couple of design flaws inherent to the *Series III 3800 V6 in those cars (mainly shitty plastic coolant line elbows that tend to crack and leak, and if it’s time to do intake gaskets, IT IS TIME TO DO INTAKE GASKETS, NOW).
Of course, GM can’t abide anything that isn’t a disposable shitbox that falls apart ten seconds after its powertrain warranty expires, so they had to kill these models (and engines) off around '06ish. I think there were two years around there of the Lucerne that were nearly the same build but with updated electronics.
I’m in the same boat and I’m finding out two big things as I look for something economical, but sturdy
The first, a lot of cars with “gas-saving” modes are bullshit. They tend to basically pull all sorts of tricks to try and extend gas mileage and most of those tricks are gonna fuck up the engine real good. Stick with a smaller, lighter car if you don’t need the extra power or space (most people don’t) instead.
The second, a car’s service record tells you a lot more about a car than you’d think. Found a pretty decent car last week, but when I looked at the service record, I saw that it went into the shop 13 times over the past four years. Means it’s got a lot of problems. But also, if they never had it serviced, that doesn’t mean it’s reliable, it just means they never took it in, which can mean problems caused by neglect instead. Basically, if it has more than 1 or 2 service visits per year, look more into it and see if that model is known for specific issues. If it doesn’t have a lot of service visits at all, have someone take a good look at it.
See if you can get a Bolt EV. Ours had like 35k miles on the clock, a brand new battery, and was around 10k USD with transportation from NM, USA and delivery to our door in ON, CAN. Virtually the entire car is aluminium so there’s not gonna be rust issues.
These are not desirable cars at all but they’re extremely reliable after the recall.
Thanks for the tip!
I’ll bring this up to my partner, since we’re going in on this one together
Lower mileage is better since it’s less wear and tear on the car. An older car will always have more maintenance requirements than a newer car, regardless of mileage because rubber gaskets and components will wear out due to age even if it hasn’t been driven much.
If it’s in your budget, I would recommend looking for something less than 5 years old and less than 80k miles. That should give good remaining life at a reasonable price. Lots of these are out there from people who like to buy new cars or from leases etc.
I would say low mileage is generally a good thing. Manufacturer warranties are usually 100,000 miles so after that you can expect problems. Order a vehicle history report on it if you can and/or take it to a mechanic for an inspection before you buy. And don’t be in a hurry to buy something, if you have that luxury.
All I can say is it might be dependent on where you live and what the climate is like. I live in Pittsburgh and they call it the rust belt for a reason. If you peruse junkyards you’ll see rusted out garbage Hyundais, chevys, fords, Mazdas with tons of engine problems, BUT also the good brands like Toyota and Honda with pristine engines that have 200k miles that their suspensions and body are shot and rusted to fuck. Snow, salt, slush, etc can have a disastrous effect on car bodies
Short answer: Toyota Corolla Hybrid or pre-2018 V6 Camry/Avalon (or really damn near anything with a 2GR-FE from after 2012).
Long answer:
Toyota-specific car shopping research infodump from when I went through this last year
This is mostly for sedans and crossovers; if you want something smaller, I guess there’s always the Yaris. For larger, it’s hard to go wrong with the Tacoma or 4Runner if you can find one of the “good” model years – I have not done that research, unfortunately. Same goes for the minivans. (I do know the 2016 Tacoma had some oil leaks reported because of QA issues with the 2GR-FKS engine, though.)
This list is specifically Toyota because as long as maintenance is kept up, they are the most reliable cars on the road, even beating out Honda. There are some exceptions, which I will note below.
Recommended Models, 2012+ (no particular order)
- 2023+ Corolla hybrid
- Uses the 5th gen hybrid system; basically a cheaper, less “weird” 4th gen Prius now
- Retains the older 2ZR-XFE engine (instead of the M20A); old tech with most of the reliability kinks/quirks worked out
- 2013-2018 Avalon, including hybrid
- 2013-2014 had some QC issues early on, esp. 2013. 2014 had the sudden acceleration issue.
- 2018+ V6 model has the 8-speed automatic; some people have reported issues with it that are primarily software-based.
- These issues were resolved by 2019 model year.
- A 2018 that has had the software update TSB and re-learn performed on it should be OK, but maybe avoid them anyway.
- The 2019+ model years also come with the 2GR-FKS engine instead of the 2GR-FE – this has more complicated internals, some plastic parts that are failure-prone, but also a bit more power.
- Oil leaks have been reported on some examples of the -FKS engines.
- Bottom line, stick to pre-2019 if you can. A suspiciously cheap 2019+ (non-hybrid) Avalon is likely in need of engine work, or about to be.
- 2015-2017 Camry, including hybrid
- NOTE: For 4 cylinder models, get a CarFax report to check the oil change history. The manufacturer recommended 10k mile oil change intervals, which severely reduces the lifespan of those engines.
- This only applies to the 4 cylinder models. The 2GR-FE V6 is a beast and can actually handle the 10k interval, depending on driving conditions.
- Oil consumption is not uncommon on these years (again, specific to the 4-cylinder) due to the 10k OCI
- 2012-2014 models with the 4 cylinder had issues with torque converter shudder
- NOTE: For 4 cylinder models, get a CarFax report to check the oil change history. The manufacturer recommended 10k mile oil change intervals, which severely reduces the lifespan of those engines.
- 2016-2022 Prius
- 4th gen seems to have resolved practically all of the reliability issues, and even the batteries are aging well after 8-10 years
- 2013-2018 RAV4, esp. 2016-18, both gas and hybrids
- 2015-2016 Highlander V6, non-hybrid
- 2013-2015 Venza V6
Avoid Like the Plague
- 1998-2002 Corolla
- Poor rustproofing
- Problematic and leaky engine; oil burner regardless of maintenance
- Suspension, brakes, and exhaust would disintegrate
- 2002-2004 Camry 4 Cyl (2AZ-FE)
- Overheating = trashed engine. Head bolt threads would fail and gasket would leak catastrophically.
- The V6 model is not affected by this issue.
- 2007-2009 Camry 4 Cyl (inc. hybrid)
- 2AZ-FE rev. 2; early experiments with low-tension piston rings
- OK if it had the voluntary recall done on it; if the seller claims it was done, then GET PROOF. Otherwise, these burn oil at an alarming rate.
- 2006-2008 RAV4 4 Cyl
- 2AZ-FE rev. 2; same issue as the Camry as mentioned above
- 2009-2013 Corolla and Matrix with 2.4L 2AZ-FE
- Oil burner, same problem as above.
- The version with the 1.8L engine is not affected by this issue.
- The 2009 model year Corolla has horrible interior and suspension issues regardless of the engine.
- 2002-2004 RAV4
- Engine computer recall; transmission would have problems with hard shifts
- 2010-2014 Prius, esp. 2010-2011
- Low tension piston rings (similar to above)
- EGR cooler issues
- Prone to catastrophic engine failure
- 2009-2010 Pontiac Vibe (yep, you read that right)
- This is a rebadged 2009 Matrix, and is prone to the same problems.
Sources:
- Car Care Nut (2021). Best and Worst Used Toyota’s to buy and Toyota Buying Advice. [YouTube]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V612Ow3hJAs
- Car Care Nut (2025). Toyota V6 Engine New Problem Trends! I Find a Worrying Surprise Inside! [YouTube]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFvZ3cICdLs
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
- 2023+ Corolla hybrid
