Need a another car and I'm considering some used Mazda CX-5's. My budget is about 8k and I found a 2016 Mazda CX-5 Sport AWD 2.5L with 142k miles for exactly 8K at a dealership. CarFax has 2 accidents reported. the most recent was only 'minor' damage to the center rear and the first was just reported as damage to the left rear but 'drivable'. No frame damage. Other than that the car only had 1 prior owner. I live in a commuter area where people can drive up to 100 miles (round trip) a day to get to a major metropolitan area, which leads me to suspect that the mileage is mostly highway but no way of being certain of that.
Using KBB and other pricing tools, seems like this is a pretty good deal for a dealership and I'll try to get them to knock off a little more. I keep bouncing back and forth if I should pursue this or not. I can get older CX-5's with slightly less miles for about the same but over 100k in miles does an extra 20-30k make much of a difference in performance/reliability? I could also go with other known reliable make/models that are AWD but then I'll be looking at a cars about 9-11 years old with just under 100k on it (I'm using http://www.dashboard-light.com/ as my primary source for engine/transmission reliability, if you have any other good resources let me know).
Note: I may drop the AWD requirement and just get a Honda Accord or something, I've had pretty bad experiences in the snow with my current FWD and the security of an AWD would be ideal.
This long story was to mostly vent my frustrations of used car shopping and to get honest feedback as to what you guys would do with an 8k budget? What are some known problems with the CX-5 that I should know about and that could pop up at any moment given the mileage? Maybe calming words to reassure that I'm not insane to be spending 8k (hopefully a bit less) on this car? I wanna be confident if I go to the dealership but my confidence level on this vehicle keeps bouncing up and down. Currently pretty low, was previously high until i read something negative about this car hahah .
Using KBB and other pricing tools, seems like this is a pretty good deal for a dealership and I'll try to get them to knock off a little more. I keep bouncing back and forth if I should pursue this or not. I can get older CX-5's with slightly less miles for about the same but over 100k in miles does an extra 20-30k make much of a difference in performance/reliability? I could also go with other known reliable make/models that are AWD but then I'll be looking at a cars about 9-11 years old with just under 100k on it (I'm using http://www.dashboard-light.com/ as my primary source for engine/transmission reliability, if you have any other good resources let me know).
Note: I may drop the AWD requirement and just get a Honda Accord or something, I've had pretty bad experiences in the snow with my current FWD and the security of an AWD would be ideal.
This long story was to mostly vent my frustrations of used car shopping and to get honest feedback as to what you guys would do with an 8k budget? What are some known problems with the CX-5 that I should know about and that could pop up at any moment given the mileage? Maybe calming words to reassure that I'm not insane to be spending 8k (hopefully a bit less) on this car? I wanna be confident if I go to the dealership but my confidence level on this vehicle keeps bouncing up and down. Currently pretty low, was previously high until i read something negative about this car hahah .