Slightly OT: Safe Used Cars?

[mimieliza]

I'm looking at vehicles between $4000-$5000. What is the best way to tell the safety ratings for used cars?

What year were shoulder belts and headrests required for all passenger positions? Is there anything else I should look for to evaluate the safety of early to mid '90s vehicles?

I'm looking mainly at 4-door sedans, and AWD or 4x4 wagons and SUVs (Subaru, Honda, Toyota, Nissan).

I'm nervous about auto safety -- we currently have a 2002 Subaru Forester and a 2004 Honda Accord. I'd really like to be able to do away with the car payments on the Accord, but I'm torn because it's SUCH a safe car. Can I get a safe vehicle that's 10+ years old?

[murphydog77]

Hi. Here are a couple of web sites to start browsing through:

http://www.iihs.org

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/portal/site...305d546108a0c/

I like the iihs.org site because they do stricter tests than the government does. They're the ones you see on Dateline doing the frontal offset crash tests.

Shoulder belts in the back seat were required in '89, so you'll see those in the vehicles you're looking at, but they aren't required in the center seating position until 2008. Only recently have auto manufacturers been adding them to that position. One thing to stay far away from that I know Honda had in the very early '90s were the automatic shoulder belts in the front seats. With that type of seat belt, it's *so* easy to forget to buckle the lap belt (even I forgot to do it a few times in my fil's '90 Civic and I'm really anal about buckling up). The early '90s were a time when passive restraints were required, but they hadn't quite gotten the air bags down yet, so I would try to go for a vehicle with an air bag. You might want to have a reliable mechanic look at the driver's air bag too. I've seen a couple of news stories about how people have removed air bags (for whatever reason???) from steering wheels and you don't know until you need it.

I think you really can't go wrong with a mid-late '90s Honda or Toyota.

Heather, CPS Tech
http://www.CarSeatSite.com

[kijip]

You should be able to get a mid to late 90s (say 96-99) Civic or Corolla for your price and they are reliable and safe. You can even get one with side airbags.

Older SUVs would be a big red flag for me safety wise since so much has happened to make these cars less prone to rollovers in recent years. Also to get down to $5000 with an SUV you are going to need to go back to early 90s. 1996 brought mandated locking seatbelts.

[mimieliza]

Aaaggghh!!!

The IIHS site scared me! Ugh. The side impact and frontal offset crash test videos are so horrible. Now I'm freaking out because neither of our cars have side airbags. '04 Accords without side airbags got a Poor rating for side impact (but the "Best Pick" rating for frontal offset). So instead of downgrading to a less expensive car, I'm all ready to trade it in for a NEW car. :)

I had automatic shoulder belts in my previous car, and actually didn't mind them, except that they would practically strangle you if you made the mistake of shutting the door while leaning forward or something.

Thank you, that was exactly the type of advice I was looking for about seatbelts and airbags. Of course now I'm scared and want to keep my '04 Accord. :)

[mimieliza]

I have not found any cars in our price range yet with side airbags. It's so frustrating. Why aren't these standard yet? Why weren't they standard five years ago?

I was afraid of that with SUVs - I'm actually very anti-SUV, but we live in a rural, snowy, mountain area. It would be nice to have two AWD or 4 WD vehicles. I'm actually not really looking at smaller cars (like the Civic or Corolla) as much because I need something a little more powerful for getting up and down the mountains. Hmmm... I actually need to do some reaseach and figure out what different trim levels were available for Corolla and Civic in the mid-90's- maybe some had more powerful engines than others.

What are locking seatbelts?

Thank you! This is really the type of information I was hoping for. :)

[kijip]

FWIW, our Corolla does pretty dang well in the snow. We used to need snow tires every year (Eastern WA gets a lot of snow) and we would be driving over mountain passes 2-3 times a month to get to Seattle. Now that we are in Seattle we use chains during the winter to get to Eastern WA often during the winter. Great handling and very zippy all around. It is a 98 Corolla LE with Side Airbags, cruise control and tilt wheel. The LE has the 4 cyliner engine. If I was selling it as a private owner I would sell it for about $5000 or so. Kelley's says a dealer would ask about $7000 as a starting point of negotiations. Going with a compact car allows you to get a newer car with lower mileage. HTH.

The other option would be to look for an early 90s Accord or Camry if you just don't want a compact car. Kelleys say that a private seller could expect to get between $3000-5000 for a modestly trimmed Camry from 93-95 with side airbags and average mileage.

Locking seatbelts allow you to install car seats without a locking clip. Most often (like in your Accord) this means you pull the seatbelt out all the way and then as it retracts it will click-click-click and lock. This no-brain feature of locking seatbelts was not required until 1996 but many cars had them earlier.

[mimieliza]

That's really good to know about the Corolla. I live in your neck of the woods - Eastern Oregon.

I think I'll just keep looking until I find something in our price range with side airbags. I don't need something right away, so I can afford to be picky and not buy anything until we find something that's just right.