Yes, but will you get 355,000 miles out of a pontiac with basic maintenance? A person who bought a new Pontiac in 1997 is probably on their 2nd or 3rd Pontiac by now.
Yeah. I didnt go there looking for a leather V6. My price point was $10,000 max. But everywhere I went, i’d say to the guy “im looking at 10K or under” and you’d watch their face fall. lol
And those cars are there. But as I said earlier, they are in the 150K+ miles range. Conventional wisdom is that the crap economy the past few years has caused used cars to sell at a high price. It sure seems so.
I’m not a car person at all but I daresay you getting 355k miles out of one car is quite unusual. You’ve probably been scrupulous about car care and also damn lucky.
Correct me if I’m wrong (seriously). I’ve heard of a random Nissan or two hitting over 300k but this doesn’t seem to be the norm – at least, not without getting a new transmission (which, to me, if you have to get a new transmission, you may as well get another car).
It just occured to me. If you keep your old clunker you NEED to fix that fan. Not so much for your comfort but for the car. You keep pushing that old engine heat wise and starting and stopping it all the time AND its now going from summer hot to damn summer hot its going to blow. I don’t care if the temp gauge isn’t red lining. That extra heat is just asking for trouble. Or you are going to find yourself somewhere on a REALLY hot day and you can’t stop as much as you like and its all gonna be over.
So, IMO you need to either fix that fan or get a new/newer car post haste.
kinda my thinking too. you could buy a junk yard part for little money and mount it yourself. It’s about as complicated as changing the oil.
Maybe. I’ve done general upkeep in a timely manner. Oil change, air filter, plugs, replace timing belt/ water pump. But I haven’t been exceptionally fastidious about it.
But the vast majority of my mileage is cruising 70 on the interstate. There’s not a whole lot of stress on a car driving at a moderate speed in 5th gear.
We just bought cars for 2 of my kids this year: both honda civic’s, 110,000 to 120,000 miles for $4000 to $5000 - avoid dealerships, minimal owners, check them out with mechanic, etc.
Take a look at KIAs and hyundai, with good interest rates you might get in the same ball park payment wise and get a new one. I pay 264 a month for a new Tiburon from last year.
Actually, my nephew is learning to drive on my old 97 Pontiac I got as a high school graduation gift. It sucks balls that they don’t make them any more, because my car now is an '04 Grand Prix that’s way undervalued just because they quit the brand, so the trade-in is worthless and I’ll have to do what I ought to do anyway and drive the wheels off. But it’s a great car and I’ll miss the hell out of it eventually.
I think it sounds like you can afford that car, but I would agree with others that this particular car probably isn’t the best option out there. This vintage Accord also had some pretty nasty problems with the automatic transmissions. To be perfectly honest, if you want a mid-size car, an Impala or Taurus isn’t going to be any worse in this age range and I’ll bet you can get one for a heck of a lot cheaper or lower mileage.
I would agree with the others that you should test drive some newer cars before you plunk down a big chunk of change on a relatively old car. My favorite recent compact car I’ve had as a rental is the Ford Fiesta, which has gotten great reviews and I think starts right at $13k.