I travel about 450 miles/week for my job, mostly highway miles. My 2001 Sable has 200k miles on it and I have put a lot of money in repairs into the car and don’t want to risk any more repairs. The car is working fine, no mechanical troubles right now and I do have 200k miles on it!In the next few months I want to sell it and get something else. Any suggestions on what kind of car I should get next. I am really leaning towards a used SUV. My criteria are: it can’t be a ‘granny’ car,price must be no higher than around 20-25k, have 20-30k miles, have a good warranty, be rated high for safety, and get fairly decent gas mileage.
Subaru Forester? Ford Fusion? Toyota Rav-4? All have good reliability ratings and decent fuel economy, and would fit in your price range, although the Ford Fusion is not an SUV.
Add Honda CRV, which comes in 2 Wheel and All Wheel Drive. Very reliable, easy on gas, and long lived. Larger SUVs will drink a lot more gas than your Taurus.
If you don’t need AWD the choose the FWD model of an SUV will save on gas mileage.
A brand new design Toyota RAV4 4 cyl fit your needs perfectly. CRV brand new design is decent too. Anything before the current redesign for RAV4/CRV last year is not worth your money IMHO.
Given all your miles driven I would avoid anything else as they get relatively poor mileage in SUV form.
Why are you leaning towards an SUV? With that many miles I think I would be looking for high mileage. Of course if you like the idea of an SUV and you can afford the fuel (likely to go up not down in price) an SUV may be available at a good price as the fuel prices go up.
I would not worry that much about reliability reputations. Yes there are some differences, but I believe they tend to be over stated. Most all cars today can do 200,000 miles with regular maintenance. I suggest that proper maintenance on a car with a bad reputation for reliability will usually result in lower cost and more reliability that poor maintenance on a car with a great reputation.
Suzuki Grand Vitara. Commercials are goooood.
Since your Sable has obviously served you long and well, why wouldn’t you consider another Taurusable? 200K is nothing to sneeze at. I have two friends who have them with over 300K. Do you really need AWD? The Taurus, and I assume it’s Sable clone, have it available. See: http://www.cartest.ca/2008_ford_taurus_awd_limited.htm and http://www.edmunds.com/ford/taurus/2008/index.html?mktcat=taurus-years&kw=2008+taurus&mktid=ga17574411&gclid=CPPUhu2585ACFQh6IgodEiDJxA