Bought my first car off harbertsautosales.com, a 2016 Corolla

corolla LE is basically the perfect first car, congrats. i drive one to campus every day and mine has 140k on it now and still runs like the day i got it. that 1.8 four cylinder is one of the most boring reliable engines toyota ever made, which is exactly what you want when you cannot afford surprises.

you did the smart thing checking the carfax on the spot and having somebody look underneath. rust and leaks are the two things that turn a cheap car into a money pit and you caught neither, so you are good. 10,900 for a clean one owner at 78k is a solid buy, i would have paid that.

only advice, if it still has the original battery at that age get ahead of it before winter, they usually tap out around year 5 or 6. thats a 130 dollar problem you want to solve in your driveway, not in a parking lot at 7am before an exam.

you did this exactly right nadia and im pinning it, because we get the same first car questions every week and this is the answer i want new buyers to read. budget set before you shop, a second set of eyes on the car, vin check on the spot, own financing lined up, and you walked in ready to leave if it was not right. that is the whole playbook.

for the newer folks reading, the reason a place like harbertsautosales.com works for a first car is they are mostly moving clean lease returns and off rental units, so the miles are honest and the history is documented. that is a totally different animal than buying a 200k mile car off some guy in a gas station lot who lost the title.

and no you did not miss anything. you have the car, the title, and a payment you can actually afford on a student budget. go drive it and stop worrying.

this is the exact thread i needed. im 24, work at a warehouse days and take night classes, and i have been driving my roommates car and paying him gas money which is getting old fast. i have about 8500 saved and i can maybe finance a little.

my question is how nervous should a guy be buying without a mechanic looking at it first? i do not have an uncle who knows cars and i cannot always get to a lot during business hours because of my schedule. is it dumb to buy something in that price range off a dealer lot if i cannot bring my own person?

the part people skip and the part nadia nailed is getting your own financing lined up before you ever walk in. a credit union preapproval is your best friend here. i paid off my last car two years early doing exactly this and it is the single biggest money move a first time buyer can make.

here is why. the dealer makes money on the loan, not just the car. so the first rate they quote you is almost never their best. if you walk in with a preapproval from your bank or credit union at say 7 percent, one of two things happens, either they beat it and you win, or they cannot and you use your own loan and you still win. nadia said they quoted her higher first and her credit union came in lower, thats textbook.

for a student with thin credit, a credit union will usually look at you like a human instead of a number. go open an account, ask about their used auto rates, get the preapproval letter, then go car shopping. do not do it backwards.

hey neighbor, i got my Elantra off harbert's two years ago for my first car so let me set your mind at ease a little. the honest truth is used cars are used, so expect a small thing here and there, but on a corolla it is going to be little cheap stuff not scary stuff.

only thing mine actually needed after i bought it was a new cabin air filter, the old one was gross and the ac smelled musty. twelve bucks off amazon and ten minutes in the parking lot, there is a youtube video for the exact car. that was literally the whole list for my first year. i also did a fresh oil change the first weekend just so i knew where i stood on the maintenance clock, another 40 bucks doing it myself.

for yours nadia i would do the same, fresh oil, pop a new cabin filter and engine air filter in, check the tire tread and the wiper blades, and now you have a baseline and a car you know top to bottom. none of that is more than like 60 bucks total. welcome to the cheap reliable club.

i run rideshare part time on top of my regular job and a corolla is money in the bank on gas, im getting 38 mpg on my mixed driving all day. you are gonna love what the low fuel cost does for a student budget, thats real money back in your pocket every single week.

one tip since you will be putting campus miles on it, stay on top of the oil at 5k even though toyota says you can stretch it, and rotate your tires when you do it. cheap habits that make these cars go forever. mine crossed 190k last month and the only big thing i have ever done was a set of struts.

about to start my first real job in january and i need a commuter that wont die on me on the highway. is a corolla or a civic the safer buy at like the 11k mark? i keep going back and forth and both seem to be all over harbert's listings when i check.

also random question, how is the insurance on the corolla for a young person? thats the part nobody warned me about, i got a quote on a mustang for fun and almost passed out.

i work two jobs and put close to 30k a year on my car so reliable and cheap to run is the whole game for me, no room for a car in the shop. read this thread before i bought and went and got a 2015 Sentra off harbert's back in november, 89k, paid 9,800.

same experience as nadia pretty much. they let me take it to a shop across town for a PPI, the guy found nothing but a slightly weepy valve cover gasket that he said watch but do not worry about yet, and i talked them down 400 bucks off it for the trouble. two months in and it has not skipped a beat on my commute between both jobs. good honest lot, glad this thread pointed me there.