Car under $25,000 (and request for general new car buying advice)

[holland3r]

I'd recommend the Mazdaspeed 3, assuming you want a quick car and like driving stick. If your budget were a little higher I'd tell you to go with the Mazdaspeed 6, both are great cars.

If you don't care about performance and just want a quality car, either of the aforementioned Mazdas in standard trim are fine, and you can't go wrong with a Civic sedan or a Camry -- I'd just shop around and go with the best deal.

[Liptimus]

You might want to check out Fool.com. They have a lot of good advice for buying cars, and any other financial questions. There boards are very informative.
My family owns 3 civics. ( A 98 hatchback 250,000 miles, a 2001 Si 135,000 miles and a 2006 Ex coupe 15,000 miles). With regular maint. they will run forever.
Just my .02

Jay

[ikestoys]

ummm for all those who say honda for reliability and [censored]...

mazda is actually much better

[Poker is Rigged]

actually its not even close

[UbinTook]

[ QUOTE ]
Don't buy a new car.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT

[Mr. T]

Jared,

Check out a Scion Tc. It's one of Consumer Reports "recommended" cars because of its reliability and high resale value. The cargo area is pretty sweet, you can fit a ton of stuff in there because the rear seats fold flat(well close enough to flat) and it's hatchback design is nice. When you open the hatchback, the floor of the trunk is the same height as the bumper so you can slide things right in without having to lift them up and over a rear pillar or frame or whatever it's called. Some other things that are nice; the back seat has alot of leg room which is surprising because the car looks fairly compact, the radio controlls on the steering wheel are nice. I've only had mine for about two months but so far I'm really happy with it.

Scion has this no haggle policy so whatever the price is on there website, thats the price you will pay, I think $17900 is the base price. They also have a SPEC model which is the stripped down version for ~$16000. The dealership will try to add overpriced accessories to jack the price up so watch out for that. Otherwise I kind of liked the no haggle pricing it was pretty stress free, I also lined up financing ahead of time so I was in and out of the dealership in about one hour.

-Pete

[Oranzith]

I'm not sure if this really applies, but my mom just got a 2004 BMW X5 w/ 40k miles for 24k

25k is about enough to get pretty much any used car you want that is less than 5 years old. Buying new is retarded

[bravos1]

The mini is an awesome car and I do love my Audi A4. My wife drives a Honda Pilot and the car has been great.

When you walk in, just ask to see their fleet invoice for the car and it will show you exactly what the dealership paid for it. Offer them what you feel is fair and you'll be good to go. We got my wife's car for $1000 over invoice. The amount over just really depends on the type of car and the demand.

Mini's in the NoCal area are very hot and the demand is so strong that people are basically paying MSRP AND waiting 2-4 months to get their car.

[Rhone]

I drive Civics, Mazda 3s, and Minis quite often (Zipcar), and I think the Mazda far and away handles and drives better than the others.

[guids]

I suggest not buying a new car, a car with 20k miles that is 6 months old is goining to be WAY less than the same car new, and there is no difference usually between the two except that the odometer reads different (frmo most peoples pov)