Bought a minivan for $3000 last year. As of today, I spent over $7,500 on repairs, and it has only been 1.5 years. Go to a place with a mechanic who will actually check out the cars they get. Also, I ran into the man who bought my older car. I traded it in for $650. He sold it for $2500. I asked him if anyone bought it since it was not on his website. To this day, there has been no response. The woman who bought it gave it to her ex-boyfriend, who made repairs on it--including a new transmission. Also, I traded it in at 244,000 miles. When I saw the speedometer, it was at 225,000. Figure it out.