e3geek

I am looking at a Nissan Sentra 2002 which is for sale by an owner in my neighborhood. The car is just over a 100K miles driven and is 2002 model. Mind you its in IL. He is asking for 3K for the car. What do I need to know as an outsider to buy a car here and how much would you pay for this car?

Noorah101

Kelley Blue Book is a useful tool when buying a used car:

http://www.kbb.com/

Rene

Bluegrass Lass

So is www.edmunds.com.

Also, if you really want it checked out, you could ask the owner if he could take it to a mechanic of your choice for an inspection (which you pay for and you are in attendance during the inspection). And you might also want to pay for a CarFax subscription, and get the VIN from the owner to check the history of the car (a Carfax report should tell you if the car has been in any accidents, how many previous owners, & a few other things).

e3geek

The owner has told me that their has been 6 previous owners and he has it for 1.5 years basically. He says he did a carfax when he bought it and didn't find anything suspicious. He does not have the report with him now and he can't login into carfax anymore either.

Noorah101

In that case, I wouldn't take his word for it. Go look at carfax yourself.

Rene

markonline1

Another vote her for Edmunds. It's basically the same sort of thing as Parker's back home. It'll tell you what to expect to pay, known problems for the Moreland year and has plenty of reviews.

mmhendrie

personally, a 12yr old car with more than 100k, 6 different owners - and a Sentra, i think that's the bottom run on the ladder - i could be wrong, but I don't it has a long time ahead of it. If it was a good car, it likely wouldn't have been sold 6-7 times before....

Bluegrass Lass

I think you'll find that having a 12y/o car with around 100k is actually very abnormal. Esp considering that, on average, people drive around 15k miles/year in the US. I would have expected a 12y/o car to have closer to 200k miles on it. In 2012, we bought a 10y/o Honda CRV with around 160k miles for about $7k, and that was a very good deal.

You'll also find that most all Japanese makes hold their value, and don't depreciate as much as you'd think.

Obviously, this particular car should be evaluated by a mechanic to understand what condition it's in, but I wouldn't rule it out based on age and mileage alone.

Pulaski

I agree. Also I have driven a much newer Sentra than that one, perhaps around a 2009 or 2010 and it wasn't very sophisticated, it was noisy and not pleasant to drive. If you need something just to get around then you might not be too picky, but I wouldn't be looking at a Sentra if there was an alternative.

mmhendrie

I wasn't - i was going on age/mileage/# of owners, and quality of car when new.

I have 2x PT Cruisers, one 11yrs, one 10yrs - both bought new, both fairly bottom of the ladder cars in terms of quality - I'd put them a bit above a Sentra though. I can attest that both have been looked after as I'm the only owner, but I think I'm going to be lucky to get another 1-2yrs out of both of them.

A new 2014 Sentra costs about $14k, it's about as low as a new car costs, and there's a reason for that. A 12yr old one, with 6 owners prior, personally, I wouldn't look twice at it. If your buying something that old, and its needs a new transmission, well, you're going to put 50% of your purchase price right back into it. How many low cost years do you really think you'd get out of it? What is it actually going to cost to keep the thing road worthy? I'm no fan of leases - but there are good deals out there for those who are tight on cash - I'd rather spot $150 a month on a small car lease, 2yrs, that's $3600, and pay virtually no maintainence, and know i'm driving a safe car that isn't about to sh*t the bed.

Pulaski

I agree almost entirely. A small car of that age is merely a collection of bills waiting to fall due.

Bob

Mileage, that's pretty good.

Still, in a cold climate area, I wouldn't touch a 12 year old car. It's probably a shit heap of rust with a shagged up tranny, radiator, ball joints, exhaust and struts.

If you can get the car for a grand, then you've got something to keep you going for a year but that's really about it. Repair costs could be massive, especially if it fails inspection, though don't know how tough they are out that way, or what kind of lemon laws there might be.

Thing is, $3K would be a mint condition, like brand new car and unless it's sat in a garage half it's life, it won't be anywhere near that, it would be lucky to be even resembling good condition.

Also, it's a cheap, budget car, so you've got to take that in mind when comparing reviews of it amongst it's peers. It stacks up pretty well against other shit, low end cars, but that doesn't mean it's all that great to begin with.

Giantaxe

I think I'd pass on just about any modern car that had had six owners. For this car it's an average of only 17k or so per owner!