5 Used Cars You Should Buy

Rev up your engines, today I'm gonna talk about the five best used cars that you can buy, now I know there's lots of people out there talking about what's good and what's bad, but really if you want to learn about what used cars to buy, ask a mechanic like me, because just out of curiosity I googled some of that advice on the internet, stay away from it, I even saw some that had three of the top five being Chrysler products, which every mechanic knows are some of the worst made vehicles out there, so to say they're good to buy used, you don't want to listen to people's advice and talk about what they're talking about, I hate it when I buy something that doesn't hold up over time and over the last 51 years I hate it when my customers buy cars that don't hold up over time, hey I like my customers, I want them to tell their friends about me, to say hey he's a good mechanic he knows how to fix your car, and it isn't always breaking down on the time and he's making up stuff just to make money, so of course don't listen to used car advice from somebody say who only works on Jaguars, he's gonna tell you to buy a Jaguar, you know I work on all kinds of different cars, I don't care what people drive, but if they want a good car I'll give them advice and here's my advice on the five used cars to buy, and number five is a 2012 Honda Accord, and I know some people are gonna say, hey Scotty you warned us about Hondas with weak automatic transmissions, and that is true, the 2005 to 2010 Honda Accords with automatic transmissions have a recall for their automatic transmission because it had a design flaw, but not the 2012, I've got customers with 2012 Honda Accords and they love the cars, from my experience of my customers cars, the four-cylinder ones seem to last absolute longest, some guys want the v6s because they want more power and stuff, but they do have a tendency of wearing out a little bit faster, and the fours have plenty of power and get quite a bit better gas mileage, and a lot of family guys love these Accords because they're zippy sporty cars, you get a four-door yeah you can fit a whole family in there, but it's not like you're driving around in a minivan, and here you want to realize another thing about buying a used car, don't always go for the cheapest price, because a lot of reason cars are cheap is because they aren't very good cars, you're gonna pay a reasonable amount of money for a 2012 Honda Accord that's in good shape, but hey I've seen them with three four hundred thousand miles on them, so you're gonna get a lot of mileage out of the things as long as they don't already have three or four hundred thousand miles on them, now number four on the list is the 2012 Ford Fusion, used or often seen as an inexpensive family salon, one of the reasons is those were made when Volvo and Ford were having to get together partway, the first time I ever had one I rented it when I was on vacation at an airport and I was totally impressed by how it rode, I was never really a fan of the Ford Taurus myself, but when I rented this Fusion I was impressed, they proved to be very reliable cars too, and they didn't have the transmission problems that a lot of the Tauruses had, it was a pretty good move, now I mean Ford's not making cars anymore they said, they're only gonna be make one the Mustang and then SUVs and trucks, but the Ford Fusion is a really solid built car, and since Ford isn't gonna be making cars anymore, you can generally pick up a used car cheaper because when a company stops making cars, the value of the old one goes down, if they're still well made, Ford's still gonna make parts for them, hey you might get a really good price on a used Fusion, now number three on the list is a 2013 Honda Civic, those things were reliable solid little cars, Honda sure went a long way from their first Honda that they sold in the United States to this Honda Civic, you think they came from different planets if you look at both cars, a lot of young people like the Civics because they're zippy, a lot of horsepower in their Honda engines they can take it, but at the same time they're very dependable transportation, I have many middle-aged and older people that bought Civics and they loved them because they'd say it always starts, it never breaks down, and it hardly uses any gas, and sure they hold their value, which is the reason I say don't go too cheap when you're buying a used car, think about expense over time, that's one reason my son who I was gonna get him a used Tacoma pickup truck, ended up buying a new one, cuz he said dad I'll probably keep this thing for 30 years, it's gonna cost me hardly any money per month if I keep this thing for 30 years, so I'll just buy a brand new one, but if you're buying a used car and you want to save a lot of money, hey that Civic is a great pick, yeah you're gonna pay more for it certainly than a used Chrysler or a used GM smaller car, but it's gonna outlast them sometimes two, three, four times as long with probably maybe 20% of the repair bills that you're gonna spend on those cars that aren't as well made, and of course realize if you're buying used like that, your insurance rates, because let's face it, you buy a brand new car, say it gets wrecked or stolen flooded whatever, the insurance company is to buy you a new car, that's a lot of money, well the used cars they have less value, so the insurance is less on them too, and with the smaller four-cylinder engine, the insurance is less on that, because it doesn't have the big power of a v6 or a v8, you're saving all kinds of way if you get a used Civic, now number two on the list of best five used cars to buy is a 2012 Toyota Corolla, Corollas can run virtually forever if you take care of them, I remember years ago a mechanic friend of mine he was having a party and they said, let's see if we can blow up a Toyota Corolla engine, so he emptied out most of the engine oil, and then put a brick on the accelerator, and it was just sitting there revving, and it ran for quite some time and then finally one of the cylinders blew and went bang and the cylinder broke, but then it was still running a while on only three cylinders, I mean the things are really strongly designed, that Toyota used the Corolla design on a lot of cars, that's an 07 matrix, it's really a Toyota Corolla, my Celica, it's a 94 Celica, it's really a Toyota Corolla too, it has the same engine transmission, just a different body style, a little bit different suspension is all, I get a laugh these days when I get some customers say, I just have to get an SUV for my family, and I say, my kids, two sons, me, my wife, we rode around for years in an 81 Toyota Corolla four-door, they fitted that Corolla, we went all over the country in that thing, and did it ever leave us stranded, no it didn't, and one big advantage of buying a car like a 2012 Toyota Corolla is, they made tons of them, they sold tons of them, so there are always going to be a reasonable amount of them out there for sale, if a company makes a really good car but they don't sell all that many of them, there are gonna be that many used ones for sale, they're gonna be hard to find, but there are Corollas all over the place in all kinds of different shapes, maybe you're a fixer-upper, so you're gonna buy one that maybe has 300,000 miles, you get it cheap, fix it up and drive it around, or maybe you don't really care that much about body style, so if they didn't take care of the paint and had a few dents on it, you just drive it around, that weighs a beater car you don't care to put any money into it, because since they made so many of them there is an insane aftermarket for those things, let's say you go and you need to get a fender, well you go to the Toyota dealer and they have a fender who knows what they want, maybe five six hundred bucks, you can get one made in Taiwan for like $50, sheet steel stamped on, who cares, you're just gonna have it bolted on and painted, so you can get parts that work perfectly fine, they're cheap for those things, so take advantage of mass production, if you want a really good car for getting you around, hey get a used Corolla, now number one on the list is the 2011 Toyota Camry, which is no surprise to most people, and I know some people are gonna say, oh Scotty what a boring pick, 2011 Toyota Camry, well yeah that's exactly why I pick it, it's a good used car to buy, it's boring, you buy it, it's not gonna break, it's gonna start every time, and they're still fun to drive, they got more zip than a Corolla does, but they're totally dependable, here again though I say, I advise people buy the four-cylinder version, it's got plenty enough horsepower to get you around, the sixes, hey they're gonna get worse gas mileage, and they will wear out faster, I mean yeah, okay so it might wear out at 300,000 miles instead of 500,000 miles, but still it's gonna wear out fast, and as an interesting fact, generally the cheaper models of manufacturers sell more cars than the expensive ones, but in 2011 Toyota in the United States sold more Camrys than they did Corollas, normally it's cheaper models that sell more, but Camrys were so well made that they actually sold more Camrys than they did Corollas in the United States in 2011, you can easily fit a whole family in a Camry, they got tons of room inside, I've had customers that are real tall like 6'6", 6'7", they'd always say, I can't get a Toyota, I'm too big, I don't fit in, I said, get in a Camry and sit in it and see what you think, and they did and they said, whoa hey comfy car, enough room for me, you're gonna pay a reasonable price for one of these cars, they hold their value because they're so well made, but don't do like one of my customers did, it was looking at a used Camry and then they said, oh look I can get this Chrysler at half the price and it's got a v6 engine and leather seats and all this, and then a couple years later they came in and they said, we got to get rid of that Chrysler, what a pile of junk, and what did they do, then they went out and bought a used Camry, so my advice on that one is, learn from other people's mistakes, if you don't have to make the mistake yourself, hey learn from somebody else's mistake, make sure you get a decent used car, because there's the old saying, oh I never buy a used car because you're buying somebody else's problems, well if you're gonna buy a Camry, if it was taken care of, it's not gonna be anybody's problem, and of course as I always tell people when they're buying a used car, have a mechanic check it out before you buy it, because you can't trust anybody when it comes to buying used anything, cars can be wrecked, flooded, stolen, started on fire, there's all kinds of things that can happen, so you want a mechanic to check it out, and with this modern technology on all these late model cars, hey when we mechanics plug our machines in, we get more history, make your head spin, and within an hour any mechanic can tell you, yeah that's a really good car or no, stay away from that one, but now you know the five best cars that you can buy used, if you want peace of mind, and have a nice solid reliable vehicle to drive around in, so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell!