I'm a Consumer Reports guy and paid $30 for the Used Car Buying Kit. Among other things, it has a "Find the Right Car" feature (on-line) that allows you search for the car that suits you, by specifying:
1) Make: Toyota, BWM, Lotus, ...
2) Years, price, reliability
3) Body style: sedan, SUV, ...
That led me to the Avalon. Last week, I bought a 2003 XLS with 110K miles for $12K. I love it. I chanced across a model with the rare front bench seat, so in theory I can put seat belts on six passengers (the front-middle person has to be small, but not so small that the airbag is dangerous). The stereo is fabulous. The XLS has some luxury features that are new to me, e.g. two memory settings so you push a button and it adjusts the seat and the outside mirrors the way you like them. It's a kind of Lexus-lite.
I was a college drop-out in 1972 when I heard that Ford was hiring. I spent the next 2.5 years painting truck grills in the world's largest plastics injection plant, saving enough money to pay for my final two years of college. So I was a loyal Ford buyer for a while. The Taurus wagon is the best value on the market, measured as $/seat, in my opinion.
This time I went for reliability, though. The Consumer Reports reliability ratings for the Avalon are 80% solid red, 20% half-red, ZERO solid whites (or lower) - incredible.
The 3-series BMW has average (solid white) predicted reliability except for the half-red '05. The 5-series is half-red for '01 and '02, half-black (bad!) for '05 and '06, and otherwise average.
The one that amazes me is Mercedes. LOTS of black. They're very expensive POS's, if CU's data is accurate.
HTH - Hoytster
