You may wish to consider a 2 to 4 yr old Saturn Wagon. My wife bought a '97 new with automatic and medium level of equipment. Cost ran about $17,000. She has over 80,000 miles on it with no major repair. Over the usual maintence items of brakes, tires, and exhaust system, we've replaced the water temp sensor and a downstream oxygen sensor that failed early. For the latest repair, I replaced the gasket set for the valve cover. It began leaking around one spark plug hole. What I discovered was that the valve cover was a reinforced plastic molding and had shrank. It tightned up the oil cap hole and caused difficulty in removing the oil cap. Both problems were fixed by me. This shrinking valve cover is the only major problem that it has had in over 80,000 miles. Look for the dual cam shaft model (with 4 valves per cylinder). The dual cam engine has much better performance over the lower powered engine and without a big penality in gasoline mileage. The lesser powered engine is not enough in my opinion. The engine does not have a timing belt; It has a timing chain instead, although it is single row roller chain not much larger than a bicycle chain. It did not appear adequate to me when i saw a cut-away view of the engine on the show room floor, but that was back in 1997 when my wife bought the wagon, and the chain has held. You should be able to find a 4 yr old Saturn within your budget. Neon: I can not recommend the Neon mainly because it is a maintence nightmare under the hood. It's really tight in there. Look at one and imagine the steps needed to change an alternator. Stratus: For almost the same price of a Neon, you can get a Status, but again, I'm not recommending this model (and I have one). It has always started, runs good, gets good fuel mileage, but has other negatives. The slope back of the windshield makes entering and exiting a chore. The design of the headlamp assembly is poor in regard to light pattern. High beam is ok, but at low beam, you may hit a pedestrain along side the road because he won't be seen until too late. And this is not an adjustment issue - its the shape of the light beam. Also, these headlamp assemblies tends to dull over after 4 years and should be replaced. There is a vague feeling that the driver doesn't know where the right rear of the car is. It's a little tough to parallel park, and on the freeway, one has to watch that blind spot to insure that you don't move over into another vehicle. Although, the Stratus is a much improved car over the Neon, I can not recommend it due to the negatives I've mentioned. If you can live with these negatives, then put it on your list. Mechanically, the car has been reliable. I have 80,000 miles on mile. In the not too distant future, it will need a new timing belt. My wife an I have taken several long road trips with without incident.

Did you decide yet, jewels? I think there are many good cars out there, and you probably will be happy with whatever you get. I'm driving a new CRV and am happy with it. The back up camera, lane assist warning, right turn camera and other safety features are great. We've driven Hondas for decades. DH has a pilot, others in the family have the Odyssey and an Accord. I considered the Accord, but the CRV is a little smaller and fit in the garage better, also in parking spaces better. My other car was 12 years old and still had a lot of life left in it, but I'm very happy to be driving something newer.

I don't think my car is ugly... not really either. It'd be on the ugly side for most people. but I don't have much of a problem finding it in a parking lot (except when I do - and think someone stole it - lol!). I realize this past week that it is now 22 yrs old. I think I've had it 10 yrs. or so now. maybe more. My sister thinks it's ugly and refuses to ride in it. I always tell her that if I see her broken down along the road, I'll wave... It's a Buick wagon and was on a curve down the road when my boyfriend took me out to find a different car. He'd given me a Volvo and that was nice (heated seats - don't use often in AZ) but the key got stuck in the ignition and i couldn't go anywhere (except my sister's house) and not worry about it being stolen. He couldn't find the 2nd key to it. I didn't worry about the car being stolen really, but it was around Christmas and I couldn't even Christmas shop and be sure I'd get home with what I bought. Anyway, we stopped down the road and this car worked and was cheap so I said 'this one is fine'. Plenty of room to haul the dogs and stuff. I'm planning to replace it with a Honda CRV (used) soon. I've asked my mechanic to put the old Buick front end on a CRV for me. I'm sure he's working hard on plans for that! The way people drive out here, I'm just not gonna feel safe going back to a smaller car. I drove a Buick wagon from '78 to '88 and loved it. Then bought a Corolla and then a used Cressida (liked both of those cars) after a PU hit the front end of the Corolla.. I love that I don't worry about someone opening their car door into mine, or what the sun and desert dust storms do to it. or my dogs, or a plant toppling over in it, or pay high insurance or $s for the tags, or someone actually stealing it for the car. My mechanic told me years back that I only drive about 2,000 miles a year - and probably even less in the last 5yrs. It usually gets me where I want to go and home again. It's seldom that I drive more than about 13 miles from home. Sometimes it stretches to 20 mi (that'd be a doctor located out of my comfort zone). I really don't like the idea of a newer car either.

I wanted to come back and give an update on my Honda CRV 2018. My Collision Mitigation System (CMS) suddenly and without warning activated. I was driving on the interstate at about 65 mph in the left lane when the brakes went to the floor and we decelerated to 30 mph in seconds before the brakes released. I was terrified and truly lucky the cars behind me were able to slow or get out of the way. Honda's only answer was, "this has happened with a few cars, and we don't see anything in your computer, but we could disconnect your CMS." This is not an answer. I am waiting now for an answer from Honda of North America. I did not pay for the more expensive model with (CMS) just to turn it off and I don't want to be killed or cause anyone else to be injured or killed. Just a warning about Honda's. I will post a separate thread with the resolution of this issue. Hopefully Honda will fix the issue and do the safe and correct thing.