I bought a stripped 2 year old Cobalt in 2012 for my daughter to use from a new car dealer. At first, I was concerned because it only had 14,000 miles in 2 years. I checked records on the car and the mileage between services were even; it was unlikely to have been in an accident. I mentioned how I thought it was odd that someone would trade in a perfectly good car with such low mileage and so quickly to my oldest daughter. She had recently graduated from college, and she said that she knew a number of people that bought the least expensive car they could find upon graduation, and when they could afford something better in a couple of years, traded the first car in. I bought the Cobalt and haven’t regretted the decision 4 years later. You might find similar stripped bargains at new car dealers in your area.
“Who am I to say that someone shouldn’t pay for a new vehicle who doesn’t have the knowledge, want to spend the time, or wants to rely on luck?”
I agree. Without a constant stream of new car buyers the pool of great value used cars would dry up. Go new cars!
CSA
US News lists the msrp of the most expensive 2007 Honda Accord at $295000, hers must have had the optional dealer installed mouse fur upholstery and fitted luggage.
Whoops, sorry it took me so long to get back here. . . Yes, the title of this thread was supposed to be a humorous way of referring to myself in the third person. I figured after some of my other threads / posts i.e.- “shopping for a new car sucks. . .” some folks here would be tired of “hearing it” from me, (I’m pleasantly surprised I got so many responses so quickly, wow! 
)
I guess I just got bored on a Friday night and felt like a good rant. I SHOULD be doing something useful like working on my taxes, but its more fun to shoot the breeze here with all of you “familiar strangers”.
@“the same mountainbike” ." I hope you can forgive an old man an honest error. " Of course. I’m gettin’ older myself.
Thanks. I promise to do better in the future. 
(Da**it, this touchpad is too #$%^ sensitive, my thumb so much as brushes the wrong way and I lose a whole post!!! Functions open up that I don’t want, etc.)
Anyway, its difficult to respond to so many good posts in a brief post. Good to hear about others like @galant who are going through the same process as I am. @Bing makes a good point. Like I previously stated, 20 years ago I would have enjoyed the challenge. Today it seems like a huge hassle. Maybe its because I"M getting old. I’d rather spend my summer DRIVING around exploring - - "… . . seeing things that I might never see again, and I can’t wait to get on the road again. . . " - - rather than driving around to car dealerships, curbstoners, and random sociopaths from Craigslist looking for that one perfect deal. And, to be perfectly honest, I am shocked at myself that my attitude has changed SO MUCH. Its unsettling. Like I don’t know who I am anymore.
Its been well over a decade since I really had to shop for a vehicle. My preferred method was always to search for a private party sale from the PennySaver or similar magazine, or haggle out a deal on some car I noticed sitting in front of some gas station with a “For Sale” sign on it. Again, maybe because I’m getting old, but I’m tired of old jalopies that I have to keep repairing or having repaired every few months.
I used to think I had the knowledge / ability to pick out a good used car. Maybe I was just lucky, maybe cars are far more complex today, maybe my patience is shorter as I age, it just seems so complicated, and then you’ve gotta play those shell games with salesmen on the prices. . . yeah, I don’t think its the cars themselves that make it unpleasant, its the sleazy types of people you have to deal with in buying the car, I hate dealing with commissioned salespeople of any product. You know 95% of them just say what they think you want to hear in order to close the sale. . .
@“Margarets Dad” "Nobody reads those free used car magazines any more. " Yeah, I can see why, there’s no useful information in them. Why do they even bother printing them?
@jtsanders , BTW, whatever happened to @bscar2 anyway? He was quite a regular here for a long time, now we don’t hear from him anymore?
The stripped Cobalt you describe sounds like my kind of car. I bought my '93 Festiva in a similar situation. Some guy bought it new for his teenage daughter, and she ended up going to college out of state, he said he wasn’t going to turn her loose in Florida with a car all by herself, so I ended up buying it off his Pennysaver ad for $3,700 CA$H.
Another point, and I’m thinking about @boilerengtn ‘s comment here. I’ve been “On The Road” for over a quarter-century now, and I have seen, to my great dismay, how a great many people drive nowadays. STOMP on the gas - SLAM on the brakes, STOMP on the gas - SLAM on the brakes, weave in & out of traffic, tailgate, SLAM on the brakes, go around corners squealing the wheels, STOMP on the gas when the light turns yellow, check engine light been on for 3 years, oil change? we don’t ne-e-e-e-d no ste-e-e-e-kin’ oil changes!!! And all of those people eventually trade in their cars, think about that.
Yeah, those little econoboxes can go for 200 - 300k miles IF they’re maintained properly. But a lot of folks treat them as disposable. They buy them new, run the hexx out of them with little or no maintenance, fluid changes, etc then trade them in right before the real trouble starts. Then, if you’re buying a manual transmission, you don’t know if the previous owner really used the clutch properly. . .
I guess there’s a sliding scale between saving MONEY, or saving TIME & AGGRAVATION. When one is young and broke, you’re willing to spend TIME and put up with a lot of AGGRAVATION for the sake of saving MONEY. As you get older, if you’ve been able to achieve some financial security, you’re more willing to SPEND money for the sake of saving TIME & AGGRAVATION. Just thinking out loud I guess. . . or maybe I’m getting lazy as I age, I’m having trouble coming to grips with this myself.
Also wanted to mention that I’ve gotten a lot of good ideas from this forum (reading other threads) I never would have thought of on my own. From @cwatkin 's review of the Mitsubishi Mirage to @“Rod Knox” 's mention of the Nissan Frontier. Reading and posting here is really helpful. I don’t know, its like I’ve got a crush on that Honda Fit or something, but I’ve had my eye on that car since it was introduced here in 2006. Maybe some other car would be a better choice, ah, I don’t know, guess I’ll sleep on it. . .
It must be very stressful to have to choose an inexpensive sub compact car that will last 20 years. The odds are against you, cars can develop problems that make them impractical to continue to own.
Why not plan to replace this next purchase after 5 years. If you find that you don’t like the car or become interested in a better car you car sell it and buy something else. If your car remains problem free beyond 5 years and you are satisfied with it you will have exceeded your goal.
BTW I’m the guy that floors the accelerator several times a day just for the thrill but I have been driving the same old car for 16 years and need a reason to replace it.
5 years?! Wouldn’t that get super expensive, buyin’ another car every 5 years? Truly, once I find something I like, I prefer to stick with it. I’d probably keep one car for the rest of my life if it didn’t wear out / safety features didn’t improve over time. Trying to think of something clever and funny to say here, but its late and I’m tired.
I think we’ve already discussed at length; its perfectly reasonable to expect even an inexpensive sub-compact car to last 15 - 20+ years if its maintained properly and not abused. The problem is when you buy one used, and the first owner treated it as a disposable car and didn’t keep up with the maintenance.
Super expensive? Some of my customers pay $60,000 for a new car and trade them for $35,000 five years later. I suppose expensive is a relative term. To buy a vehicle for $13,000 and dump it for $5,000 five years later would be $1,600 per year with no repairs for the first three years. The next vehicle would hopefully be a better vehicle worthy of more than five years ownership.
Around here good late model used cars and trucks have an gold ingot buried in their chassis or interior somewhere ,IMO aftr checking used car prices a person is better off going someplace and buying a leftover last year versus the "clean " 2-3 yr old used car .
(Called to task the saleslady at the semi - local Honda dealership on the used CRVs ) If you really want to save money buy a 10 yr old reasonably miled reliable make ,but around here for some reason that doesnt as a rule include Toyotas (people beat those things to death before they are offered for sell and I bet given the Toyotas reputation ,the good ones go somewhere else for resale .)
A $60,000 “new” car has a trade-in value of $35,000 after five years? That seems kind of high, or perhaps I’m just out of touch. Anyway I hadn’t thought of it that way before ". . . would be $1,600 per year. . . " I’m going to have to think on that for a while, quite a while. It goes against my grain to get rid of a car before its all used up. Once again, I have gotten intriguing advice here. I cannot determine if I agree with it or not at this point. . . .
The Cobalt has so few extras that it has window cranks, not electric wndows. Cruise the auto dealer web sites and review their inventory on line. If you find something you like, go look at it.
Actually I think Nevada has a good point. The average value after 4 years appears to be somewhere around 50%. Some cars worse and some better. I suspect it is becoming less and less practical to attempt to keep a car 20 years any more and once you get used to turning a car over every 4 or 5 years it really is not as expensive as it seems versus paying repairs for 15 years and then starting over again with not trade. My problem is they eliminated what I like and hard to find anything for my price point that fits my want list anymore.
In my neck of the woods, there are plenty of 15-20 year old cars still being used as daily drivers
I think it’s because the guys can’t afford monthly car payments and comprehensive insurance, though
Another thing to consider . . . I’m in southern California. Rust is not really an issue, and we don’t have safety inspections. No doubt many of the older cars here would fail a safety inspection in other states. If the guys in California had to keep cars in good enough shape to pass a safety inspection, there would be a lot less older cars on the road
Speaking of buying a stripped car, I was in high school when the 1958 recession occurred. The DeSoto/Plymouth dealer had a 1958 Chevrolet DelRay(the bottom of the line Chevy) and a bottom of the line 1958 Rambler. Both cars had the 3 speed manual column shift and no power accessories or even a,radio. Both cars had less,than 5000 miles. Both cars had been traded in by the former owners for the top of the line DeSotos,with all the options. The former owners bought the strippo Chevrolet and strippo Rambler because they thought they were saving money. They found out that they didn’t like these cars. I bought a bottom of the line Rambler Classic 550 in April of 1965. The car had 7000 miles and I got the balance of the. 24000 mile warranty. I bought the car for $1750 and thought it was great. I did have a,windshield washer and backup lights installed. People today don’t know what a real strippo is. The 1957 and 1958 Studebaker Scotsman didn’t even offer an automatic as an option.
Yeah no comparison in my book. We had the 58 Chevy wagon and my BIL had the 58 Desoto. That was a luxurious car and fast.
db4690: No safety inspections but SOCAL emissions inspections on a 15 to 20 year old vehicle can be brutal.
I am with @db4690 on CA old cars. My ;89 Corolla was pretty rusty in 2003 when I was in CT. I see quite a few of those being driven around here. As far @sgtrock21 goes, I am sure there are quite a few that have figured how to “bypass” emissions in CA. The other day there was a '95-'96 Accord in front of me, smoking worse than a 60’s diesel truck with the rear of the car covered in soothe. I doubt even the police bothered to stop him. They would rather give tickets to someone who has the proper papers and would pay the fine. 