This is what happened when I drove my Mercedes to pick up food stamps

[quakerboy]

85. Youve been lucky

Ive also been very lucky with the cars Ive owned. Ive never had any major malfunctions either. But thats not usually the case on 26 year old cars.

I wouldn't sell a $5000 car with a known history in solid working condition to buy a cheaper used car with an unknown history. Unless you are mechanically inclined, you would be daft to do so. My personal experience and observation watching others buy cars is that once you drop below the $4k mark, its really a crapshoot.

As to insurance.. I just checked the actual numbers for my policy. Adding a 2003 Kompressor to my insurance policy would cost me approximately $100 per year. I just asked the same question regarding an old CRX that I was considering buying (you know those things can get upper 40's for MPG?), and that was going to cost me $60 per year. Once you own a car(no payments), and as long as the value is under 10k, most of the cost of insurance is the Driver, not the car itself.