I am about to buy a used car. I have up to about 7 g’s to spend, and am looking for something that is clean, relatively new (1995 and up), manual transmission, 4 door, and something safe for a teenager to drive. Any ideas, or suggestions what anyone has done?
Wouldn’t an automatic be safer? Or maybe it depends on where the car will be used. A Volvo would be very safe, IMHO.
A manual is dangerous?
If I was looking to drop 7 large on a used car right now, I’d be looking at late 90’s Subaru’s, Mazda’s or VW’s. I’m pretty brand loyal to those manufacturers. They have all done me well in the past. If you are looking at manuals, you have to go with a smallish car or a sports car (for the most part). You don’t want a sports car, so I’d look at:
Honda Civic or Accord
Mazda Protégé or 626
Subaru Most Models would fit your needs
Toyota Corolla (how many Camry’s get sold with a manual?)
VW Golf (what I drive) or Jetta
Ford Focus (I’m not sure if you can get one for under 7000$ though)
Manuals are fairly rare on the bigger cars (Accord, 626, Camry) and not exactly commonplace on the small cars so good luck with that. I’d highly suggest you look at a Subaru especially if you live in a climate that has 4 seasons in it.
Some site for your viewing pleasure.
Kelly’s Blue Book
Car and Driver
Samarins
NHTSA saftey ratins
dead0man
For reliability check consumerreports.com
For safety check crashtest.com
For prices check autotrader.com
Edmunds.com is a great site to review anything automotive.
But I will give you my higest personal recomedation on Subarus.
You’ll never go wrong with a Honda Civic or Accord. Period.
Sorry for the double post, but another note:
Since you’re buying used, you’ll definitely want to have the car checked out by a professional mechanic. There are a lot of folks who like to play the “Roll the Odometer” and “Seriously, This Car Has Never Been Crashed” games; purchasing the vehicle at one of the larger used car venues (CarMax, AutoNation, etc.) is no guarantee.
A few years back I test drove an Accord that appeared to be in fine condition, and took it to an out-of-town Honda dealership to have it checked out . . . turns out that the car had been nearly totalled in the past. The mechanic told me he wouldn’t even pay half of what they were asking.
Good luck!
When Little Honey starts driving in a few years (goddess help us all). I plan on buying the biggest boat of a car I can find which is actually still made out of metal. The newer cars are mostly plastic and tend to crumple up in an accident.
I’m think a mid-seventies LTD or Caddy. I want a lot of hood between her and other objects. 
Sorry about the hijack, by the way.
Um, Honey? If you hit something really fast, you WANT the stuff in front of you to crumple. As an experiment:
- Take 1 egg, tape it to the top of a tin can and drop the can onto a hard surface (can should probably be full to make sure it lands can-first). The can will likely have a little dent, the egg will likely be cracked.
- Repeat with something “crumply”…wrap egg in paper towels or some such. You can drop the egg from a farther height without it cracking.
-lv
For 7G you can buy a classic in good condition: I highly recommend a 63-65 Ford Falcon, 64-65 Mustang, or late 60s-early 70s Dodge Valiant. Reason? Easy to fix, parts are cheap, sturdy and reliable.
However, for a late model car, I’ve owned two Dodge Neons (a 97 and a 99) and they were pretty impressive as far as reliability and being fun to drive.