Buying a car for a road trip

[nik231]

Hello,
I live in the UK and me and 3 of my friends have decided to go on an american road trip this septeber. I was wondering whether I could get any recommendations on which car to get/ where/ what to look out for? We're flying into New York and the budget for the car is up to $2,500 (but the cheaper the better). The whole trip should be around 10,000 miles and preferably won't need to fix much on the way so reliability is the number one priority.

Thank you,
Nikolai.