Ford: Focus as a newer, used car

dmtaurus wrote:
 

Rental cars. Stay away.
 

You won't find a good car under 5 years old these days, as that's
the term of a typical first owner loan(unless you happen to be
talking TO that first owner). Everything else is most likely rental
garbage and has been abused. That means looking in the papers/ads
for a private party first-owner sale.

OTOH, you can price your offer accordingly.

As for vehicles, Also look at the Sentra and second generation Neon.

Joseph Oberlander <net> wrote:
 

Yup. Shopping for a car a year ago, I got the impression that most used
cars at dealer lots were rental or lease return vehicles, near or just
out of warranty, with more than 25k miles on them in the space of two
years or less. (The rest were mostly trade-ins with over 50k miles --
that showed every mile.)

IMHO, the price difference between these cars and the new models wasn't
enough to compensate for the risk the buyer would assume in owning a
vehicle with no warranty and an unknown history of use (or abuse) and
maintenance. The prices were roughly what you'd expect from applying
straight-line depreciation to a new model based on an asset life of 100k
miles.

I concluded that finding a used car that's really worth the money takes
a lot of searching -- best done in places other than dealer lots.

I had a 2000 ZX3 with 33K. Tires still had plenty of meat on them. Another
10-15K left, I would estimate.
John

"dmtaurus" <net> wrote in message
news:net... 

"Neill Massello" <net> wrote in message
news:1g1yixm.161nfdo972m1iN%net... 
that 
tranny, 
and 

Actually, the remainder of the factory warranty is still valid.
 

I agree. Deales buy them someplace, either car owners or auctions, usually.
And they do increase the price (that's what they are in business for).

Jeff

Jeff

"dmtaurus" <net> wrote in message
news:net... 

I have a Contour. The tires that came with the car (it was a demo, bought it
with only 4k on it at a good discount) were not very good. They last only
about 40 K (vs. about 55K for Goodyear Eagle GT II's). I suspect that the
car makers often put low-cost, low-quality tires on the cars, rather better
tires that will last a longer time.

Jeff

On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 22:03:04 -0400, Jeff <com> wrote: 

You are partially right. From my experiences working at a Ford dealership
(sales) I noticed that the "economy class" vehicles, and the base models of
the mid-class vehicles all had the cheap cheap tires, however when you step
up to vehicles like Mustang GTs, Crown Vic's and some of the "money makers"
they had better tires on those.

Chuck

It's the old story you get what you pay for. People today are
spoiled, in the old day if you got more than 15K from a set
of tires you were happy.


mike hunt



Zex0s wrote: 

In article <net>,
dmtaurus <net> wrote: 

If it is only the front tires that are worn out or brand new, while the
rear tires are original tires in good condition, then it is likely to
be a sign of not rotating the tires (on a FWD car, the front tires will
wear out much faster than the rear tires if they are not swapped between
the front and rear every several thousand miles). If rotating the tires
is part of the maintenance schedule and it was not done, that could be
a sign of sloppy other maintenance habits.

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