What now?

[disneysteve]

One word of advice from experience - make sure the insurance settlement is correct. After my wife's van was totaled, I carefully reviewed the settlement and found a couple of errors. The model and features they listed weren't accurate. We had options that they hadn't included. I spoke to them and got an extra couple thousand dollars in the deal. Also, don't forget that your auto insurance covers the vehicle but your home insurance covers the contents. If any personal belongings were damaged (CDs, GPS, sunglasses, tools, etc.), you can file a home owner's claim to get reimbursed for that stuff.

[cypher1]

Buying a 12 year old car with 150,000 miles on it is a bit extreme, and would make me nervous as well, but I'm sure you can find something gently used. Say 3 to 5 years old with 30,000 miles on it. I agree with Steve on buying from the dealership if you go the used route. Mainly because you can get the extended warranty so that in 18 to 24 months you aren't stranded without a car.

That is also true for exceptions, and finding owners to really took care of their vehicles for that age.

[riverwed070707]

I can imagine others getting sick of me bringing this up, but I'm a huge advocate of Honda Civics (esp 96-00 6th gen) for compact class. Very fuel efficient (my 97 hatch 36-37mpg with 170k), cheap maintenance/easy repairs, with wide range of parts available. As with DS Camry, and Corolla's for the money, you really can't go wrong. Those are my top 3 for reliability in a used market. I'm not saying a used 3k car is equivalant or better than a 10k car, but as commuter they get the job done.

We've been an all Honda family for a while now. It's hard for us to even consider anything else. Reliability aside, its the brand we know so we know what to look for, what mileage range is reasonable for them, what prices are good and what's not, etc. The car we lost was an 01 Civic. I drive an 06 CRV (paid off! whoo hoo). If DH had his way we'd be going to an Accord because he was feeling a little clausterphobic with the compact but we've been looking at both and some outside the Honda family as well.

One word of advice from experience - make sure the insurance settlement is correct. After my wife's van was totaled, I carefully reviewed the settlement and found a couple of errors. The model and features they listed weren't accurate. We had options that they hadn't included. I spoke to them and got an extra couple thousand dollars in the deal. Also, don't forget that your auto insurance covers the vehicle but your home insurance covers the contents. If any personal belongings were damaged (CDs, GPS, sunglasses, tools, etc.), you can file a home owner's claim to get reimbursed for that stuff.

Thanks this is good to know. Does anyone know if insurance is supposed to cover the replacement cost of our car seat since it can't be used anymore?

[MonkeyMama]

The thing is, if you drop the love of Toyota and Honda, you will easily find very nice cars in the $5k range (with very low miles).

If you are going to buy a beater beater - I would only buy from friends or relatives. Start asking around. I have owned two cars I paid $1000-ish for and were EXCELLENT - but those were bought from family members. (They had a bajillion miles - but they drove easily for years with no issues).

I won't knock dealers - you will pay more, but you will get a little more recourse in the process (less scam factor). But, you aren't going to get a great deal on a car, and car dealers can be pretty scammy.

Private party - there are tons of cars out there in the $5k range that are in the "older but barely driven" variety. My experience if a car is in pristine condition, it's been kept up pretty good. & these are the cars that are a great deal.

If your budget is $11,000, you can buy a practically new car (barely used, one year old) from dealer on a variety of warrantied vehicles (non-Japanese).

I've bought cars in all of the above manners. Well, my husband's car was one-year-old Ford, GREAT car, the sales price was literally $7888. 10 years later, it holds its own with any Japanese car. We bought it because the model regulary lasts 200k miles no problem. These are cars people don't look at because they aren't warrantied, brand name or cool. We don't spend a lot of money on cars. Just trying to help.

[riverwed070707]

I know I'm defending a topic that will never have a real right an wrong, but you just can't top personal experience. DH and I have driven cars all over the board and the only ones we've not gone wrong with is Honda. Maybe that's luck or coincience, but how do you overlook it? In the 7 years we've been together, we've owned a 91 chevy lumina, a 97 Acclaim, a 97 Saturn SL1 (shortest life of them all at 5 months! oh and it was purchased from a reputalbe dealer), an 02 Ford Taurus, an 05 Chevy Impala, and the hondas. That's a lot of cars to burn through in 7 years and I've had my CR-V for 3 years!

The $150/mo we'd be putting in savings from a car payment isn't going to add up very quickly if big repairs do need to be made on a car right away.

I'm not disputing that there are certainly options for $11k -- and I think this is a great option for us right now!

[disneysteve]

Thanks this is good to know. Does anyone know if insurance is supposed to cover the replacement cost of our car seat since it can't be used anymore?

Absolutely. Any personal property that was damaged in the accident is covered by your home owners insurance.

[riverwed070707]

Random update but I was balancing the budget today and I'm really proud of how we're coming out of this situation. Our second jobs have brought in about $300/mo more than I initially estimated, plus we went into emergency budget mode (stripped out all unnecessary spending). As a result, all car expenses were taken care of (ended up not being totaled, just took 3 weeks to repair - phew!), DHs school is paid for this semester, I have $500 left on the CC before we become debt free (less a few small SLs and mortgage) which is ahead of schedule AND I already have DD's tuition saved up. We'll kind of be starting from scratch in January with rebuilding the efund but for a while I was feeling really down with where we were at. Ended up working out fine as things usually seem to do.

Also, for anyone curious, car insurance does cover the cost of a replacement car seat in the case of an accident -- no homeowners claim necessary. All I did was call and tell them what I had, send them a link to the current market value of the exact same seat and they sent me a check that same week, no questions asked! My insurance company was positively wonderful with this whole incident.