Looking for a new (to me) car. Asking about personal experiances

[4RNR]

I need to get another car but I have not been in the car market since 2013-ish. Im looking at a bunch of random stuff from different years. My main concern is reliability. I dont care which car had an extra gizmo or more HP. ideally looking at mid size old school SUV and trucks.

Powertrains (all are 4x4 or AWD)
3ltr and 4ltr V6 Ranger/Explorer

4.3 Chevy V6 Blazer / S10

5.3 Chevy Tahoe/Avalanche. I know its not midsize but theres a lot of them

5.7 Tahoe/Suburban. Same reason as the 5.3.

On the opposite end. AWD like Subaru. Last I heard there were issues with the CVT transmissions, from all brands, spanning different years and models. Or the new Explorers......Im looking at you LEOs!!

Anyone driven there or continues to drive these daily? High mileage? If so, any issues?

[walker2713]

We found CarMax to be a good way shop and to buy….

Bought our two most recent autos there….Honda Accord in 2021 and Lexus N300h in 2022….both are 2018 hybrids.

George

[Oldherkpilot]

If you're driving a 4Runner now, that list will not impress you. The Ford might work, although every day I pray the deer jump out in front of the F-150 and not my 4Runner.😁

[4RNR]

If you're driving a 4Runner now, that list will not impress you. The Ford might work, although every day I pray the deer jump out in front of the F-150 and not my 4Runner.😁

Lol.

Yes that's what I have now. 4th Gen. Clean too. Runs great, no leaks, no rattling, no nothing 165k. Unfortunately rear left strut mount is seriously rusty and that's not fixable.

Also why I didn't ask about them. I have first hand experience

[JTMcC]

We're a ways from town, our heaps gotta go 300,000 miles to make me happy and we've had good luck with that. No more kids in sports or at school so our miles are much less now, school was 35 miles away for all 4 kids. Youngest is in college now.

We put a happy 300,000 (with some normal repair items, nothing major) on a number of vehicles (none of them new, all of them comfortable, and all of them had a 3rd row seat) the most recent being:

2005 GMC Yukon XL 4WD
2005 Lincoln Navigator 4WD
2005 Cadillac SRX RWD

Youngest daughter is driving a 2010 Subaru Forrester with 150,000 no problems and a pretty solid, but smaller, car. AWD if that matters.
The newer they get, the harder it is to find solid reliable hi mile rides. The quirks are major in many vehicles.

[Tuefelhunden]

I have two good mechanic friends. Their advise and what they drive is Subaru for cars/SUV and Ram for trucks. YMMV! I and the wife have a Durango (3rd) and I have a 2500 Ram diesel (3rd) but have also had two Hemi 1500's. Never had trouble beyond recalls out of any of them since early 2000's. I've also had great luck with BMW 3/5 series and MB E-class sedans which can be had in RWD or AWD.

[Navin Johnson]

Personal experiences may have some relevance With new cars, but no one knows how it was treated by the previous owners.

If you’re disappointed with your 4 runner I don’t know what to tell you

If you’re buying new, the most durable midsize, SUV would be the current gen forerunner.

If you’re buying Used, I would recommend the current generation forerunner with an extended warranty

It’s hard to give advice without a general budget guideline

In today’s starved used car market anything under 20G is a crapshoot. Expect to spend mid 30s to get a decent forerunner used.

The full-size trucks from the big three are generally pretty good as that’s what they base their namesakes on. Many of their midsize vehicles shit transmissions like a cat that got a bowl of milk, at around 100k

Good lick

[BN]

My main concern is reliability.

On the opposite end. AWD like Subaru. Last I heard there were issues with the CVT transmissions, from all brands, spanning different years and models. Or the new Explorers......Im looking at you LEOs!!

Anyone driven there or continues to drive these daily? High mileage? If so, any issues?

Subaru or Toyota for reliability.

We have the following: 2014 Sienna with 100k+, 2016 Subaru Legacy with 105k, 2019 Highlander with 55k, 2019 Outback with 50k. My wife drove a 2002 Highlander to 250k and it still ran great but needed the abs brake stuff repaired and it would exceed the value of the vehicle. In hindsight, she would have taken it to an after market place and had it gone over and kept the 2002 Highlander. Subaru seems to have low mileage used cars around here. Toyota is still pretty proud of their vehicles. We'll probably only get Subarus from here on. Never any major repairs on any of them.

[4RNR]

Personal experiences may have some relevance With new cars, but no one knows how it was treated by the previous owners.

If you’re disappointed with your 4 runner I don’t know what to tell you

If you’re buying new, the most durable midsize, SUV would be the current gen forerunner.

If you’re buying Used, I would recommend the current generation forerunner with an extended warranty

It’s hard to give advice without a general budget guideline

In today’s starved used car market anything under 20G is a crapshoot. Expect to spend mid 30s to get a decent forerunner used.

The full-size trucks from the big three are generally pretty good as that’s what they base their namesakes on. Many of their midsize vehicles shit transmissions like a cat that got a bowl of milk, at around 100k

Good lick

I'm perfectly happy with the car, just not the frame rot where the strut is.

Never bought a new car and have never spent more than $12k. Also, have never been disappointed. Typically drove them till it was cheaper to get a new one or till something awesome came along suddenly.

I'm looking mostly at older cars that have been taken care of. Not one with aftermarket upgrades. Most of the stuff I'm looking at is say 1995 - 2010 +/- a few years

[Duces Tecum]

Four or five months ago, just prior to Christmas, we bought from Enterprise Car Sales a black-on-black four year old Ford Explorer with 60K miles. It appars to have been leased by a company who issued automobiles to some of its executives. Enterprise thoroughly detailed the car prior to offering it for re-sale. They have a special arm of the business that does that. We paid $23,000 for it. Financing is available for those that wish it. The only thing we had to do after driving it a bit was to by OEM front floormats from EBay. Seems they were missing from our purchase.

Most pleasant car buying transaction I've experienced. I would do it again in a heartbeat.



Duces