And we need some advice. Our budget is somewhere between 8-12k. She's just out of grad school and has a full time job and we're not planning on having kids for a few years... I was thinking a used Mini cooper from 2003-2004 with roughly 75k miles on it. We can get some around here between $8,000-$9,000. Is this a terrible choice? We were looking around at fits, prius's, insights, etc. but they tend to be more expensive, in the 13-15k range. I guess the reason I'm asking is because we're trying to do the mustachian thing and pay off her student loans very quickly.
Her current car is a '01 mustang with 178,000 miles on it, and it leaks oil like a sieve. Other than that though, besides the engine, most of the car is pretty new. Any ideas on how we should proceed? I don't want her old car to just up and die because depending on where that happens, it could be a dangerous area to get stranded.
Any thoughts or comments would be extremely helpful.
Thanks!