Tricks to Buying a Used Car, Part 1

Broadening my search, I considered the derivatives. What about a CR-V or the Rav4? The Honda CR-V is based on the Civic, and can be found with all-wheel drive (from the aforementioned AWD Civic). The Toyota Rav4, meanwhile, was built on the Corolla platform with all-wheel drive yanked out of the old Celica. Both have that stupid right-hinged swinging back door (think about it—in Japan, cars are right-hand drive and park on the other side of the street, so it makes sense for the first-generation of the vehicle sold stateside to have some home market funkiness).


CR-Vs are inoffensive and not unattractive, and the first-generation Rav4 glows with a weird Japanese monkey-head charm that's fun-weird. Both have bulletproof durability records. Trust the general reputation of a vehicle, because you're more likely to get a good apple in a barrel full of good apples than one full of rotten ones. The police will notice neither the Honda nor the Toy, unless you collide with a patrol car. Mileage? Options? Price range? Caveats? Being smart enough to know that someone else always knows more, I turned to the collective, the Internet, to dig up owner opinions, maintenance issues, and expert insight. Edmunds is probably the best for big-picture info, while KBB and cars.com let you triangulate value. With the web, you can usually find out more than you need, and I found myself shopping for mods before I'd even bought anything. Did you know the Rav4 has a cult following in Indonesia and Australia? I found a forum. It's a popular trail-crawler, and the rest of the planet gets a diesel in their Rav4. Lucky dogs.


The saga continues.