Wanted: Pontiac Vibe or Toyota Matrix. Flint, MI area

[AquaConverse]

My beloved 2003 Vibe is out of commission due to a broken transmission and with 230,000+ miles on the car and it's not worth it to fix it. :'( I love that car dearly and have many fond memories driving and camping out of it. It meets my three criteria for purchasing a vehicle; 1. Needs to be a hatchback, 2. Must get good gas mileage, and 3. The rear seats must fold flat for comfortable sleeping on road trips (I know, I'm a strange bird).

I am hoping to replace it with another Vibe or a Matrix. I'm looking for one with automatic features, cruise control, moon roof, ect. and mileage around 150,000 (give or take) and my budget is $4,500 or less. I've been checking out CL and other avenues, but I've come across a lot of flaky people and dealerships are a joke. I was hoping I could see if any other Vibe enthusiasts could help me out, maybe someone is willing to sell or knows of someone?

OR if anyone knows of another car that would meet my criteria, I'm willing to look into something else if I can't land on another Vibe soon.

Thanks!
-Jenny

[Caretaker]

As a self professed car buying expert, I always instruct my friends to first buy "locally" through Craigslist. Search a hundred miles (different city) outside your hometown and find an individual buyer. A private seller will know everything about the history of the car (maintenance); a dealer will know NOTHING. I have taken a train to look at one car and have driven equally as far to buy a car after speaking with the owner over the phone. Next, search cars.com and put a 100 mile radius (minimum) around your location. You should be able to find a matrix or vibe that fits your criteria. A third venue would be cargurus.com. I have seen a few cars on that list that were not on cars.com, but at a minimum, cargurus will give you another opinion on whether the asking price is appropriate. One other piece of advice: don't ignore "salvage" vehicles. It is a joke how insurance companies salvage title a car with minimal damage. If you plan on keeping the car forever and have a great local mechanic you take take a salvage car to for inspection, and you can get pictures of the original damage for the mechanic to view, a salvage title vehicle can be a huge savings and isn't a liability to those of us who keep our cars forever. If you are paying cash for a salvage vehicle; fine. If you have to finance the amount, many insurance companies and banks will not deal with a salvage vehicle, so ask ahead of time. Let us know how it all works out for you.

p.s.: Jenny: if you can live without the moon roof, here is a nice rare orange one over in Burton, just east of you.
http://lansing.craigslist.org/cto/4833814537.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[vibrologist]

If the transmission is the only thing that is broken on your beloved Vibe you may consider having a used transmission put in. In my opinion that would be "worth it". You may have to do a little research on where to get the transmission from and whom to trust putting it in. hopefully you know a good independent mechanic that could help out.
You need to know the eighth digit to find the correct transmission on this site:
http://www.car-part.com/cgi-bin/search. ... ge=1&iKey=" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you are willing to buy a car with 150K, why not buying a tranny with less than that? And you keep the car you know and love. Heck, with your budget you could get a fresher engine too and redo the suspension to boot.

[AquaConverse]

p.s.: Jenny: if you can live without the moon roof, here is a nice rare orange one over in Burton, just east of you.
http://lansing.craigslist.org/cto/4833814537.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've looked into the one in Burton and it's a dealer, I was not impressed.
I appreciate all the advice and agree, I would much rather buy from an individual rather than a dealer, they are usually willing to haggle a bit more on the price and know the history of the car and it's ticks.

I've tried to meet with a couple individuals now and they've flaked out on me. I'm not sure if I have bad luck or if people are just generally unreliable.

I've got every MI Craigslist area on my feed. I'm willing to travel a bit for the right one!

[AquaConverse]

If the transmission is the only thing that is broken on your beloved Vibe you may consider having a used transmission put in. In my opinion that would be "worth it". You may have to do a little research on where to get the transmission from and whom to trust putting it in. hopefully you know a good independent mechanic that could help out....

If you are willing to buy a car with 150K, why not buying a tranny with less than that? And you keep the car you know and love. Heck, with your budget you could get a fresher engine too and redo the suspension to boot.

My Vibe had slowly been falling apart, it needs not only a needs a new transmission but the engine is on it's way out too. Also, the windshield is horribly cracked, the rear defrost and wiper has stopped working, half of the speakers are blown out, not to mention the suspension needing work and it needs new breaks. I'm quite certain it would cost me alot more than my budget allows to fix everything. Plus I intend on keeping my old one for a while to steal any parts from it I may need on my next Vibe, especially the tires that are only three months old!

[Caretaker]

Best of luck Jenny. I do fully agree with Vibrologist in that if you have already put significant money into your car (ie: new tires, new fluids, new shocks and stuts) you may want to spend your cash reserves on a new transmission instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Only you know the condition of your current car. But as was said, you could end up spending much less money on the remanufacturered tranny and have money left over to buy everyone on GenVibe Costco Supreme Pizzas
ooops, strike my post; we posted at the same time and I've now read your note. Yep, it looks like it is time to move on to another car. It is always easier to find that car when you are not in a hurry or in a crisis with your current car. If you were OK with that Vibe at the dealer east of Flint, then keep working on them. The car may be on cargurus.com and if so, will show you how many days it has been for sale. Despite that advice, it is dangerous to buy a used car from a dealer. Dealers have lots of used cars that owners dump on them as trade ins and can often offload a car which has a nagging internal engine problem which might go undetected by their mechanics upon inspection. And as I posted earlier, dealers have NO CLUE as to the maintenance history of the used cars they sell. If plausible, you will always do much better by buying from an individual seller, even when it means casting a much wider net to see their car. Have a lengthy talk with the owner on the phone ahead of time. Liars usually give short answers. Good eggs normally talk until your cell phone minutes run out. People are generally bad liars. Those who are good at it work at dealerships.

[vibrologist]

Have a lengthy talk with the owner on the phone ahead of time. Liars usually give short answers. Good eggs normally talk until your cell phone minutes run out. People are generally bad liars. Those who are good at it work at dealerships.

Caretaker: give us more of your wisdom!

Aqua: it makes sense to move on. Your Vibe is a mechanic's special at this time.

[msu90]

If the transmission is the only thing that is broken on your beloved Vibe you may consider having a used transmission put in. In my opinion that would be "worth it". You may have to do a little research on where to get the transmission from and whom to trust putting it in. hopefully you know a good independent mechanic that could help out....

If you are willing to buy a car with 150K, why not buying a tranny with less than that? And you keep the car you know and love. Heck, with your budget you could get a fresher engine too and redo the suspension to boot.

My Vibe had slowly been falling apart, it needs not only a needs a new transmission but the engine is on it's way out too. Also, the windshield is horribly cracked, the rear defrost and wiper has stopped working, half of the speakers are blown out, not to mention the suspension needing work and it needs new breaks. I'm quite certain it would cost me alot more than my budget allows to fix everything. Plus I intend on keeping my old one for a while to steal any parts from it I may need on my next Vibe, especially the tires that are only three months old!

Sorry to hear about your Vibe. Mine just passed the 205k mark. It still runs well...knock on wood. Did you have your transmission fluid replaced? I'm hoping to get mine to at least 230k and am trying to figure out what things I need to do to get there.

Good luck with your car search. I looked on Craigslist a month ago and they Vibes still cost a lot used!