3 Cars You Can Drive Forever - Kiplinger Personal Finance
Cars in general have become more reliable over the years. Pinpointing exactly how many miles, on average, any given model has racked up is virtually impossible, but we've identified some with exceptional -- sometimes surprising -- endurance and value. Honda Accords of all years are everywhere, usually in tan, silver or white, like my friend Marcel's 1999 model. If you look up the Honda Accord in Consumer Reports you will see a sea of red dots in the rankings -- a sign that owners have darn few problems with these cars. Now, the smaller Honda Civic shares the Accord's inherent quality but is more likely to be modified by its owners with spoilers, wings, loud exhausts, that kind of thing -- with maintenance simultaneously neglected. So the Accord gets our nod. Of all the cars General Motors put out in the 1990s and early 2000s, it's the Buicks that got all the awards from the quality-ranking organization J. D. Power and Associates. And it's also the Buick LeSabre , along with Centuries, Regals and Park Avenues that live on, more so than their Chevrolet, Pontiac and Oldsmobile equivalents. One reason these cars endure. That makes them a great value to pick up used, which is what my co-worker Marc did with his 2004 LeSabre. He bought it with 74,000 miles and has put on another 84,000 with very little trouble. Source: www.kiplinger.com
