who has bought "used with warranty"? bad idea?

[WayOutCat]

after speaking with a friend about today's low interest rates and high repair costs (I am not a mechanic) I did something I'd never done before: I considered buying a new car.

However, though my friend is a smart shopper who only wanted a cheap car, I want the cheapest car that i won't be *bored* by, --big difference!-- hence: his estimated $150 a month payment became $400+/month for me!

SO, though he pointed out that one good reason to buy a new car is that there are FEW repair costs the first few years, and he warned me against buying a "used with waranty" car, since there are shysters aplenty in that racket...

... I am STILL once again tempted to consider the "used with waranty" option (which my wife reasonably suggested) since I have test-driven all sorts of new cars and been disappointed at every turn.

I could go through the list and detail at length what i experienced with each car, but I am hoping for faster replies from you all so that i can fine-tune this query based on what you tell me, SO I will *try* not to be TOO long-winded in hopes that some of you have some salient advice for me without my going on for paragraphs about every car. i will opt for basic brief info.

Here is the short version of what I found, driving new cars, that caused me to reconsider buying a "newer" used car (low-milage early 90's through possibly even a 2003/4) --

every new car I drove is suffering from one of two ailments.

it seems that with cars that have adequate power, the car companies are porking them out every year recently so that now there are no small cars anymore that have serious hp. for instance, despite the 240 hp, the new accord is about 3200 pounds!!! it was a dog in the water. The V6 Tiburon looked promising... til I read reviews of it here.

and--

the very very few actual new *small* cars left (like the civic for instance) are really underpowered. I haven't driven the mini yet, but they aren't cheap. I really want a small car with a V6, but the VW GTI is going to be $500+ a month!

I live in a snow state, so dreamy wonderful cars like the RX-7 & 8 are out of the question. I drove a Mazda 6 and it was ok but the powerband went into the red so often that i think to have fun, i'd kill it. also, it ain't cheap!

The local Subaru & Toyota dealerships are annoying (trust me, let's not get into details) and anyway, (in the Subby's case) the WRX is way too cop-magnet for me, and the Impreza is sloooooooooow.

SO, I am thinking again about those smaller, more fun cars from the days when the Japanese companies hadn't decided that we Americans want heavy, boring cars yet, and were still sending over small fun ones.

is it a BIG mistake to buy "used with waranty" ? or is it not all that bad, as long as I have a friend come along who is a certified mechanic to spot glaring lemon indicators?


thanks for any advice!
-dave
p.s.-- if any of you know anyone who is hankering for an affordable classic muscle car --i love it, but I'm tired of "big & classic" and now I want "small" --, I have a 4 dr 65 impala caprice 327 700R4 4:11 posi 12-bolt. i'd be willing to *trade* it for the perfect fast small car I'm looking for... trades are good! because *no one* will actually *buy* a car for anything like what its worth.

[Jimster]

You'll get better help in this forum

[WayOutCat]

thanks for moving it! i really should have posted that here in the first place...

[FDTT]

My cousind bought a car with a warantee. It was a 1993 i beleave, 240SX. All black, seemed to be a nice car.

So he got it and then the starter went not 5 minutes away from the dealer.
So he calls the guy and he says that the warantee is waranteed for 3000, so that he can have it worked on by any shop for a bill up to 3000$. So he takes it in to my friends shop. And ther is a hole wack load wrong. Then we find out that that shop will not be covered under the hole warantee agreement and that yaddddda yaddddda.....

Its a load of crap, ask for no warantee.

[Oldengineer]

I have purchased used cars with warranty and had good luck with it. The secret - I picked a 1 to 2 year old car with some original factory warranty remaining and then purchased the "factory" 7/70 extended warranty on top of it. Bought a used Chrysler LHS this way for about half of original sticker. It was a beautiful car with many problems - my extended warranty saved my pocketbook big time on this one. The warranty repairs cost Chrysler about 4 times what I paid for the additional coverage.

Regards:
Oldengineer

[WayOutCat]

thanks!

anyone else?

is the consensus that anything older than 2 yrs is a bad idea?