jesmed: That seems to be what I have come across for the most part, the two or three deals, or at least they seemed that way, by the time I got to them, were gone.
bscar2: That seems to be what I’ve heard as well, test drove a 01 A4, honestly I wasn’t that impressed.
MarkM: Wow! Thanks for all of the info, where do I start? Reasons I didn’t include the XTerra and Passport was due to the fact that I thought I had heard they were fairly unreliable, same goes with Escapes, Explorers, Mariners, Rodeos, Montero and the like. Is this incorrect? I’ve also been discouraged by a friend from buying something like a Highlander, or Rav4, as they are not built on a truck chassis.
I have two friends that are fairly knowledgeable, but sort of polar opposites. One, can fix pretty much anything and knows a ton about cars and is used to buying beat up cars for a grand or so and has a little crazy in him. Says I’d be fine in a lot, where as the other friend is knows a lot about cars in general, but isn’t a real hands on car guy for fixing them, not to say he doesn’t know what he is talking about. I’m guessing maybe somewhere in between I can find something that will suffice?
I only need something for a season or two, three at the most then I am upgrading to something much newer in the $10k-$20K range. And I know how to drive stick, so that shouldn’t be an issue.
Dagosa: I’ve been looking into Rangers, and S-10s, but from what I find, there are not many that haven’t been driven pretty hard, even more so than slightly more expensive suv counter parts. And used Tacoma’s are ridiculously over priced imo.