Since like 2017 I’ve been driving my dads old 2010 Honda civic. It just needs a ton of work at this point, the whole underside is like falling apart, so I’m looking to purchase a used car.

I just have no idea what I’m looking at really so was wondering if anyone had any advice. I love that old civic and I occasionally see like other old cars for sale, from like 2013, 2015. Would these cars be a mistake to buy and in like a year I’d get told the same thing, oh your whole underside is rotting away?

Also how much attention should I pay to mileage? And if I do look at an old car, is a low mileage actually worse since it means it wasn’t driven around a lot?

And yeah any advice you can give. Are there any makes/models I should avoid? Any features or specifications I should look for/avoid? Etc. thanks

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[–] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm sure he meant transmission, but there are some odd control module board failures starting to happen in early 2000s Buicks. AC Delco discontinued the parts, and apparently the only way to fix the issue is to either hope that a junkyard pull isn't affected by the same component failures (which, again, mostly going to be aging electrolytic capacitors and not transistors or ICs) or flat-out refurbish the board to bring it back to factory spec. Which is a damn shame, because the 2000-2004 Le Sabre is the most reliable thing that GM ever built, and is otherwise incredibly cheap to maintain once you address a couple of design flaws inherent to the *Series III 3800 V6 in those cars (mainly shitty plastic coolant line elbows that tend to crack and leak, and if it's time to do intake gaskets, IT IS TIME TO DO INTAKE GASKETS, NOW).

Of course, GM can't abide anything that isn't a disposable shitbox that falls apart ten seconds after its powertrain warranty expires, so they had to kill these models (and engines) off around '06ish. I think there were two years around there of the Lucerne that were nearly the same build but with updated electronics.

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