Advice on purchase of an older car for work

First time poster here... please bear with me. I own a nice car, but I work in a job in which I will drive around town a lot - in bad parts of town... maybe 80-100 miles a day some days. I don't want to use my baby to do this. I'm unsure yet whether I'll be toting people around a lot, so I'm unsure whether I will wind up getting a 2 dr or a 4dr.

I'm looking at spending $2000 to $3500 on an older used car that will get me good gas mileage & be reliable. I'd love a manual because I assume their mpg will be slightly higher, but I'll take an auto. On Craigslist, I'm finding a lot of Saturns, Chevy Cavaliers and Dodge/Plymouth Neons ranging from 2001 to 2004. Miles are everything from about 100,000 to 175,000.

Would you guys give me some pointers? Really anything you can tell me would be helpful: suggested makes; red-flags to avoid; ways to have the car checked by an expert; advice on my search method.

I have in my mind that I'd love to buy an ugly duckling cheap and be able to put 50k miles on it over the next 2-3 years without a lot of down time & without having to put a lot more money into it.

Thanks for your help.

You might find this story from Edmunds.com useful. They set out to find a car for less than $3,500 that wasn't a beater. They settled on a 1996 Lexus ES 300 and bought it for $3,200. (They're going to be doing long-term tests on the vehicle to see how it holds up)

http://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/the-debt-free-car-project.html

The #1 thing you need to do when buying a used car (especially an older, high mileage car) is to get it thoroughly inspected by an independent mechanic.

You will have to spend around $125 for this. Make sure they put the car up on the lift - they should spend at least 1 hour inspecting the vehicle.

Another tip: Before you settle on the car you want, call a couple of mechanics specializing in that brand and ask them what kind of problems they see often. Sometimes there will be big red flags, so you'll want to avoid that particular year or model.

Good luck!

Thanks Greg. About to read the Edmunds article now. When I was selling a car a while back, a guy asked me to take it to Midas for their inspection, which I did. He paid.

I don't think it was more than about $40, so I doubt it's what you're talking about but it seemed like decent info. Do you know of any chain that does what you're talking about?

Choosing a used car is really a very nice idea, as while using any used one we have the all the knowledge about the car from its older owner. This can’t be possible with the newer one. Also we can’t able to handle the newer one in rough manner. If you learned driving recently then the old cars will be the best option for you…