Hi folks, Jurafsky's partner here.
Just wanted to point out a few things that would most likely make it clear for everybody.
The reason we're looking for a vehicle to keep is mainly related to health issues (as stated above). We don't want to find us without a car next winter.
We're not looking for any particular vehicle, as it's not a hunt for a dream car. As long as it's guaranteed to be working, we're cool.
Thing is, a dealer tried to sell us a lemon, a repair guy was trying to convince us into buying a vehicle with no documents, where he "would handle it all", and when you have to figure out who's to be trusted you can only rely on previous experiences.
We are trying to avoid being scammed because we're new.
We also considered getting a certified pre-owned, but in this moment the best thing is to gain knowledge on how does this work.
We would avoid kijiji or craigslist since there's no way of knowing what of the car, and the less we can worry about what we buy, the better.
Coming from Europe, where cars are to be checked once a year and if they don't get passing marks you can't drive it around, we have the feeling that every vehicle can be potentially destroyed.
A carfax report isn't enough since if the previous owner fixed the issue without involving his/her insurance the damage won't be listed.
Knowing that our budget is 12k tops for our first vehicle, what would you rather recommend?
Is a certified pre-owned the way to go or is there some little known fact that we should be aware of, a game changer for what it may be?
Thank you all for the answers!