My personal fav for young kids in college is Volkswagen Golf because they are so cute and many young people's car of choice. They can be had for very little and they look so darn cute. They can be had for peanuts in really good condition because they can get beating.

https://www.cars.com/for-sale/searchresults.action/?mdId=21242&mkId=20089&page=1&perPage=20&rd=20&searchSource=GN_BREADCRUMB&shippable-dealers-checkbox=true&showMore=false&sort=price-lowest&stkTypId=28881&zc=22044&localVehicles=false

Do search cars.com and cargurus.com and such to find a car in your area, but also as other's said, do private because you can get probably the best and most realizable car from a private person. This is a good starting point to get the idea or check the value of your car against what is out there in reality. I also saw on tv lately the carvana.com they bring car to you and you can test it for 7 days. No idea who they are.

https://www.cars.com/for-sale/searchresults.action/?mlgId=28871&page=1&perPage=20&prMn=6000&prMx=8000&rd=20&searchSource=GN_REFINEMENT&shippable-dealers-checkbox=true&showMore=false&sort=price-highest&zc=22044&localVehicles=false

Anonymous wrote:Searching for a used car for my son going off to college in the fall. Our budget limits us to pretty old cars. What would be a dealbreaker when used car shopping. No car in this price range is perfect. Seems like every car we look at needs something repaired, an extra key made, new tires, etc.

Is there a cut off year year? A certain age you won’t consider?

Mileage?

Necessary repairs?

Leather vs fabric seats?

Been in a crash?

Brand?

[i]One of these things is not like the other! One of these things is not the same!

Anonymous wrote:Searching for a used car for my son going off to college in the fall. Our budget limits us to pretty old cars. What would be a dealbreaker when used car shopping. No car in this price range is perfect. Seems like every car we look at needs something repaired, an extra key made, new tires, etc.

Is there a cut off year year? A certain age you won’t consider?

Mileage?

Necessary repairs?

Leather vs fabric seats?

Been in a crash?

Brand?

IN ORDER OF MY IMPORTANCE:
(In full disclosure: I am just an average car buyer, not a mechanic, I only have an average person's experience. Bought and used few cars.)

Been in a crash? - That is the most important thing to me and this would exclude the car from the run. I know, I know, there are those tinny crashes that do nothing to the car but the thing is that there is a probability and possibility there. Even the smallest of the crashes can cause some invisible hair thin crack in the fame that the car is build on, or the engine and it might not act up immediately but it might be a big problem later. Best to move to a car that has never been in the crash.

Brand? - To me the first real information is Brand. Because they have been around for long enough to have certain reputation. It is a common experience of the whole public and that tells you which cars are respected and there is a good reason for it. It is mass consumer who used them and has a reasonable basis to make a statement this car is so and that car is so. I personally like reliable brands and those that are more respected even if a car will be bit more expensive but driving a respected car is good feeling that can project on you as a person and as you follow the thread on judging by others on cars, yes they do.

Mileage? - Because the more miles the more beaten up car is, car is basically an engine with a metal box with seats attached to it and made the box looking cute for you. So millage on the car, is like years on a person. With few exception to the rule, the more years the older the person is .

Necessary repairs? - This is also important because this tells you what was wrong with the car and what can go wrong. If a car had lots of repairs then you can assume more to go. All the cars I ever had, had no repairs aside from tire change and bulb change, if the car is regularly maintained and taken care of, the car should not break. If it does it means that this is a crappy car.

Leather vs fabric seats? This is also important but not as important as the above because what good are the best and nicest of the seats if you have a junk? Do you agree? So now if you prioritized wisely and found yourself a bunch of cars that are mechanically sound and have low mileage and preferably one owner you can focus on interior. Buy what you like, make sure it is clean inside, but not clean to the bone and run down, it has to look clean and not have too much of wear and tear. As to seat, I will take leather over cloth anytime. I do not like vinyl because it stinks when it gets hot and even if it does not it still releases. So Leather every time because it is clean and easy to clean. The people who use the car sweat on their legs and bottoms and being in contact with seats.. all what comes out of the person , gets into the seats. Leather stops it, fabrics absorbs it so, technically, yes, you can clean the fabric but there is tons of other owners in it .

Also to add - I mentioned one owner. If you have a car owned by one person and they were clean and neat, you will get yourself a well loved car. If it was in hands of many people you have many more chances that the car was beaten up. Especially if kids ride inside the car will be more worn inside. More cleaning also leaves mark on the interior. Lastly - smoke. The more owners the greater chance someone smoked in the car and car that had been smoked in is really a problem for me. If you need to live with it, then assumption would be that leather would be a bit better as fabric sucks smoke like a sponge while leather is bit more resistant, but probably not on the atomic level.

I think you have a lot of good choices. My car is worth $800 maybe, but there is nothing wrong with it.
It's a small Japanese car that seem to drive forever and cheap to fix and to insure.
Look at Civic, Corolla, Mazda3. Good cars, cheap to fix and drive forever. Why not budget for new tires!
Take scratches over crash and make sure airbags are good.

I'd try to get something with 70K miles or 125K miles, if possible. A lot of stuff goes wrong and needs replacing at 100K miles. If the car is at 125-130K miles, it usually means that the current owner had all those worn out components replaced.

Look at the service records, pull the CarFax, and get a mechanic to do an inspection (only costs about $100).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would look for a 2009 civic with low miles.

I second this. I have an 05 civic that (knock on wood) has only needed regular maintenance

Yeah, something like this.

https://www.carfax.com/vehicle/2HGFG1B61AH536130

Anonymous wrote:I would look for a 2009 civic with low miles.

I second this. I have an 05 civic that (knock on wood) has only needed regular maintenance

Anonymous wrote: this wasn't what the OP was asking. if you can't provide information STFU

Totally unnecessary. What is wrong with you PP?

OP when looking for a used car, search online car forums to find out what the typical issues are. Some cars have known issues that often hit at roughly a certain mileage. The issues will be specific to the brand, make and model generation for that car. This will give you an idea of any major repairs to expect coming up.

I would look for a 2009 civic with low miles.

Anonymous wrote:A lot of schools don't allow cars for freshman on campus.

this wasn't what the OP was asking. if you can't provide information STFU


OP

For me. i would base my choice on several things. mileage of car, age, brand, and typical trip length ie is the kid going to driving 4-5 hours home frequently, or is the car just going to be used for campus and around town use.

if the kid was going to traveling several hours to from school pretty frequently. you'd want a larger car more comfortable car for the highway. but if its going to be mostly around town/college use you can go smaller. to make fore easier parking ect.

high miles are not a deal breaker on a honda or toyota, provided services are up to date.. but high milage on on a domestic vehicle gives me pause.

age of car. and old car with low miles is fine, but you give up some safety equipment over newer cars. ie maybe no traction control and som options like blue tooth or nav, ect

leather/cloth. in a ten year old car, really doesn't matter. come down to preference. leather/vinyl is easier to keep clean.
I did a search on cars.com with in 10 miles of my zip code between 6000-8000 bucks...
I saw a few cars that would be doable with less than 100K miles and less than 10 years old.

they are out there, you just gotta look around and hopefully get lucky...

A safe bet is a 2009ish Corolla or Civic. Buy it from a private party (one owner) who has title in hand. There are mobile services that will check out the car if you aren't good with cars. Or you can go to carmax or a dealer and pay a lot more money for the same thing.

Why does he want a car?

A lot of schools don't allow cars for freshman on campus.

Searching for a used car for my son going off to college in the fall. Our budget limits us to pretty old cars. What would be a dealbreaker when used car shopping. No car in this price range is perfect. Seems like every car we look at needs something repaired, an extra key made, new tires, etc.

Is there a cut off year year? A certain age you won’t consider?

Mileage?

Necessary repairs?

Leather vs fabric seats?

Been in a crash?

Brand?