Please help me buy my first car! Snowflakey details inside.

How often will you be doing these travels? How long is each individual trip? Would it at all make sense to limit yourself to rental cars when you need them? You'd be much more likely to end up with a newish, reliable car, and you wouldn't have to worry about long term costs like insurance, parking and maintenance.

For anyone reading this thread who is as clueless as I was/am about cars and is in a similar position as I was, I thought it might be helpful to update a bit more fully with my method and some reflections: My method: - As was suggested above, I found Craigslist to be more helpful than Ebay, because I wanted something very local so a mechanic of my choosing could check out the car before I purchased it. - On the advice of my mechanic, I decided to try to buy from a private seller rather than a dealer (the brand-name certified pre-owned vehicle dealers were pretty expensive, and many of the other dealers seemed not to be all that forward about what exactly they were selling and why). I wanted to buy from an individual who had owned the car for some years, had maintenance records, and had a good reason for selling it (so they weren't just passing a lemon on to me). - When I sent an initial email to potential sellers, I asked for the VIN number and whether they had maintenance records. To me, a seller keeping maintenance records was a likely sign of a reasonable degree of care for the car and money spent to upkeep the car. Only a few of the people I contacted on Craigslist actually responded affirmatively to my request for maintenance records, and I crossed off any who didn't. How forthcoming a seller was with the VIN number was also important to me: I immediately checked out any VIN numbers I got out on Carfax and Autocheck, and (on the advice above!) I considered major accidents a red flag and a car having been totaled a deal-breaker. If a seller didn't respond with the VIN and say that he/she had maintenance records, I ruled it out, and if the VIN pulled up major red flags I also ruled out those cars. - I was left with one option at this point (which I eventually bought). All of the above only took a day or two, so I could have waited for more possibilities, but I wanted to move forward with the option I found as it seemed promising. I had decided that a deal-breaker for me would be that I wanted a seller to be willing to take the car to a mechanic of my choosing, so that he could look over the car before I bought it and give me a thumbs up or down. My seller agreed to do this, and my mechanic gave it a thumbs up, aside from about $800 of non-routine-maintenance work. The seller was willing to knock down the price a bit to cover this (he hadn't known that such an expensive job was needed), and we agreed on a fair price based on the Kelley Blue Book estimate minus a bit of the cost of the repair work (i.e. he kicked in 1/4 of the cost of the non-routine-maintenance repair work by lowering his initial price for the car). - I looked online at my state's website to see what the seller and I needed to complete the transaction, and I gathered the necessary items (documentation that I have car insurance, permit or driver's license number, possibly an ID, lots of cash, etc.). He brought his necessary items (I think the title to the car, etc.). We went to an Auto Tag place, and they had forms for us to fill out. We did a title transfer form, and they also gave me a license plate since I am a first-time car owner. They notarized everything, including a documentation form of the sale and the cash that I paid. The whole transfer cost me approximately $150 to the tag place (for the title transfer, new plate, notary, etc. - this probably varies by state, and slightly by which Auto Tag place you choose), and then my state tax on the sale price of the car (which I also paid to the Auto Tag place and I guess they submit it to the state). The seller took his license plate off the car and handed over the keys. I now owned the car - yay me! Some reflections: - I'm pleased I went with a private seller rather than a dealer. It instilled more trust in me to know exactly why he was selling the car, and for him to be able to tell me the car's history for the latter half of its life. If I had had more money to spend, I might have wanted to go to a real Toyota dealer and get a Certified Pre-Owned Vehicle with a warranty, but that was outside my price bracket. In my price bracket (sub $5000), I think a private seller was the way to go. - The process on Craigslist was very rapid: while the less desirable deals lingered for days/weeks, the best cars appeared to be sold within a day of being posted (and often within an afternoon). A week is a *really* long time in terms of Craigslist car sales. This was nice because it meant that even if I knew I needed to buy a car within a week, that still gave me lot of new and different options each day; but it also meant that I had to be prepared to jump immediately if I found something good. - It seemed to be a seller's market for the most desirable deals: if they could sell to someone who would buy it immediately, they would prefer to do that rather than drive it to my mechanic who might give it a thumbs down. I still stood my ground, since I didn't want to spend $2000+ on something before I could have an expert assess its quality - I really didn't want to spend thousands of dollars buying a pig in a poke. But it did mean that I was limited in selection to sellers in my immediate area, and also sellers who were willing to work with me on the mechanic thing. - I'm really pleased I was so discriminating, and insisted on maintenance records, the VIN number, splurged on both Carfax and Autocheck, and had my mechanic check out a potential purchase. In a way, it's like online dating: the goal isn't to get the most number of possibilities (regardless of how far-flung and improbable), but to winnow the playing field down to a manageable number of really promising matches. I ended up with one possibility that worked out fabulously, which was really the perfect scenario. - I'm also pleased I focused on the car's mechanical condition and less on cosmetics/aesthetics. For a cheap used car, you probably can have only one or the other (or neither!), and having it run well is the most important thing. - Pro tip: my seller (who just finished his PhD) said that he picked me out of the other people who wrote in with interest because I was polite, wrote in complete sentences, and used actual English words (rather than text-speak). This may be the only time in my life that my humanities background has remotely assisted me in getting something tangible, but it can't hurt!

Cut your shortlist back to small and Japanese in the $2500-$3500 price range. Don't put anything on your short-short list unless it has a documented maintenance history (people who care about their cars keep that stuff). Get anything on your short-short list inspected by a mechanic. Rust and gross body damage are really the only dealbreakers in small Japanese cars; anything else is properly fixable for under $2000, which is why it's not ever worth spending more than $5000 on a used car. If you're buying at the $2500 end of the spectrum, expect to put about another $1500 into the machine to get reliability. If at the $3500 end, about $500 will probably cover it.

Reposting my last paragraph with links that won't break within weeks: Something like http://i.imgur.com/47ELyNQ.jpg would likely be a good buy. One thing to avoid is freshly painted wheels or hubcaps like http://i.imgur.com/NqellI4; car flippers seem to do that a lot.

Thank you so much, all! AskMe always has good advice, but you all have really outdone yourself here. I've marked a few of the more detailed answers that I found particularly helpful, but all of you really helped me out. I've taken your advice to heart, and am currently following it: I'm looking for a Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic (or possibly other models of those manufacturers) in good condition, with no rust or gross body damage, sold by a private person/family, with reasonably good maintenance records or at least an oral history of what they've done with it, focusing as much on how they've treated it as the number of the odometer. I'll be getting the Carfax and having my parents' mechanic inspect it before I hand over any cash. I'll update with the result once I make a purchase - hopefully within the next few days if all goes well.

Here are a couple of ask.me answers that deal specifically with the mechanic's inspection: http://ask.metafilter.com/240077/Negotiating-a-used-car-directly-with-owner#3482270 http://ask.metafilter.com/244668/Some-questions-on-purchasing-a-used-car#3553613 And some more general car buying advice: http://ask.metafilter.com/220963/Baby-you-can-drive-my-car-but-I-have-to-find-one-first#3193490 http://ask.metafilter.com/214950/Purchasing-a-midlife-crisis#3102440 http://ask.metafilter.com/210560/Buying-a-user-car#3037336 A lot of that is geared towards buying from a dealership but applies just as well to buying from a private party. 1. What kind of car should I get? http://www.edmunds.com/honda/civic/?sub=sedan&ps=used is a primer on the various generations of Honda Civic. I'd probably look for a 2005 model in the "DX" or "LX" trim. Use that site to check out some of the other suggestions. One thing to consider is that a slightly larger car will be more comfortable as you start to rack up the highway miles. Something like a 2005 Toyota Camry should have a smoother ride and be quieter inside without costing that much more in either the initial cost or in gas mileage and might be cheaper on insurance. If you end up driving 20,000 miles, the difference between averaging 28mpg (the Civic) and 25mpg (the Camry) is only $300 and might leave you less exhausted from driving. I think it would be worth a test drive (especially if you can do the Civic and Camry back-to-back), then try to imagine how much of a difference the larger car would make after a 5-hour drive. 2. What price bracket should I be looking in for a reliable used car? I think $5,000-$6,000 will be the sweet spot but I wouldn't be too rigid about it. As I said before, mileage is just one part of the story. With the price range that you're looking at, you'll should end up looking at private party sales and trade-ins where you'll be able to get some or all of the story behind it. Low mileage is good so long as it wasn't a ton of short trips and/or stop-and-go-traffic and city driving. An '05 with 50,000 miles like that would be in rough shape but if it only had 50,000 miles because the previous owner worked from home and only drove it on an hour long highway trip twice a week or something, it might be nearly new. Same deal with much higher than average miles. Lots of highway trips cause very little wear on a car so high mileage that is almost all highway is not a big deal. I wouldn't be too concerned with a high-mileage car (150,000 or more miles), just make sure that all the maintenance has been done. A lot of car's maintenance schedules call for some pretty major work at the 100,000 or 120,000 mile mark. They might need a new timing belt (though a lot of engines use timing chains that last forever), new spark plugs, or even more major stuff like an engine rebuild that involves replacing compression rings and various gaskets and bearings. You might be able to find the maintenance schedules online so you can figure out what work that model should have had done and when so you'll be able to ask when you to look at the car. 3. Where do I get a used car? Craigslist is great, eBay probably won't work all that well. There are often local/regional websites that let people post car ads (for a small fee) that you can use for free. Here in Minneapolis, lots of people use http://www.carsoup.com/. They are nation-wide but I don't know how many listings will be in your area. http://www.autotrader.com/ and http://www.cars.com/ are both similar sites. And, of course, you can look at dealerships and their websites. Lots of dealers are owned by the same company (the http://lutherauto.com/default.aspx is the largest in Minnesota) and they'll have one website that will let you search through the used car inventory of all of their dealerships or just the ones within a specified mileage of your zip code. I wouldn't be afraid to buy from a dealer. 4. What should I consider deal-breakers when I look for a used car to buy? Salvage titles would be a deal-breaker for me if I were in your shoes (but can be a good deal for someone who really knows where they are doing). Maintenance records are good but not having them wouldn't be a deal breaker for me. Though it would be nice to get some of the story behind the maintenance. They might be able to describe for you how they maintained it or they might really know their way around cars and do a lot of the maintenance work themselves. I don't have records of oil changes in my cars because I change the oil myself but I didn't save that stuff even when I had professionals do it for me. But, I can still tell you that I put full-synthetic oil in both of my cars every 6-months or 5,000 miles, whichever comes first. Anything else is just going to be looking at the car and comparing it's condition to the other cars you've looked at and listening to what is known about the car's history. 5. What are the logistics of actually buying a used car? http://www.kbb.com/ and http://www.edmunds.com/ are good starting points for figuring out what a car should be worth. You'll also be looking a lot of similar cars and you'll start to see a pattern in how they're priced. If all else fails, you could look at the kbb.com private party value for a specific year/make/model in "fair" condition, maybe subtract a few hundred dollars depending on the condition of the specific car you're looking at, and use that as the basis of an opening offer. The worst anyone can do is say, "No." If the say in the ad that the price is "firm" or "non-negotiable" or something like that, then they probably won't come down on the price. Though you'd be surprised what can happen if you tell someone that if they sell it for $X you'll buy it right now. Otherwise, it's safe to assume that the price is negotiable. You probably need to have insurance on the car before you drive it so you'll want to contact an agent before hand and ask them how you need to go about doing that. You might find out that you can get the insurance later or something too. If you buy from a dealer, they'll take care of the paperwork and you'll drive the car home. Otherwise, it is probably a matter of the previous owner filling out some stuff on the title and giving you some sort of bill of sale. Then you take that (sometime in the next 30-days) to the DMV (for the state where you live no matter where you bought the car) where you'll pay sales-tax on it and some other fees and fill out some other paperwork. A few weeks later, you'll get the new title and that will be it. Feel free to ask any follow-up questions but this should be enough info to get you started.

http://i.4cdn.org/o/1400987322990.jpg graphic (from http://www.reddit.com/r/whatcarshouldibuy, originally from 4chan) has a great breakdown of cars available for under $5K and the pros and cons of each.

Fantastic! Well done you. Now, to keep the car running well, do not skimp on the servicing and do keep an eye on the oil level especially and the other fluid levels as well. Get in the habit of eyeballing those every time you put fuel in the car. If you've not owned a car before, you'll be dismayed at how much it costs to keep one running. Grin and bear it: as long as you're working with a good mechanic who's not out to rip you blind, just let it be expensive, and keep reminding yourself that compared to the guy whose $25,000 new car still has four years of warranty to run, you're still way ahead. When the mechanic says something looks like it will need replacing soon, erring on the side of sooner rather than later will keep your transport reliable. I can recommend the same rule for budget-constrained PhD students as I used with Rufus the Wonky Bus as a budget-constrained traveler: every time you pay for fuel, get out as much cash as you've just paid for the fuel, stick that in a tin or an envelope that you put away somewhere secure, and forget you've done that until it's time to pay for servicing or registration or oil or replacement parts. Doubling the price you pay for fuel will do several things: it will remind you how glad you are to be running a little Corolla instead of some hideous guzzler; it will encourage you to learn to drive economically, which will in turn reduce wear on your car; and it will almost certainly cover all the non-fuel costs associated with owning the car and might even give you a thou or two left over once you're done with it. Basically, you'll be choosing to endure the financial equivalent of a series of annoying but non-damaging slaps in the face in order to avoid a periodic kick in the guts.

On the cost of repairs: lots and lots of people will spend $10000 on a used car solely for fear of needing to spend $2000 to fix a $3000 car. In my experience, the latter is the better bargain, in small Japanese cars (I'd add Daihatsu to the big lizard's list of reliable brands, having been the happy owner of two of them). I've only owned three cars. All of them have been used cars bought for around $3500. All of them have been fine reliable machines; the last two, being Japanese, more so than the original Leyland Mini. Keeping them that way has indeed cost a little more than would be necessary for a $10,000+ car, but I'm still way in front. And the only reason I have owned three is because other people crashed the first two.