[mike55112]

Originally Posted by slowbubblecar

Used to be a good idea a few years ago until they ramped their fees up. All of those cars were donated so I would anticipate them needing some kind of work. I picked up a couple of cars from them in the past, both DSMs needing headwork. Bought them to fix and sell.

Hard to find a "reliable" car not needing any work at that price. Most cars at that price will have issues regardless but are just not worth fixing (shocks, etc). Most likely looking at an older car so I would look over balljoints, tie rods, etc. Regardless of what kind of car I bought at that price, I wouldn't trust driving it to Chicago.

Best bet for reliability would be an older Honda or Toyota. Definitly would be safer buying an import with higher miles than ANY domestic car at that price range. I would definitly stay away from charityautoaction.com with your criteria.

BTW, this is john, James was still logged in.

Very true, I bought a tercel a couple weeks ago for 175 and after all the fee's it came to 498.