Borg

I wouldn't be concerned about the odometer reading. Just check the service manual to make sure the odometer reading at each service isn't suspicious. If there are no books with the car, and no good explanation then it may be dodgy. A 5 year old car should still have all the books. An average of 11K a year is within normal parameters. My partner bought a 5 year old car 10 years ago that only had around 20,000kms on it. Turns out the lady who sold it to her only ever drove it on Sundays to go to church. She had a company car that she drove to work during the week, but loved her Corolla so much she couldn't sell it. Eventually she could no longer afford it, so my partner got herself a great little car. It is still in A1 condition today.

Also consider a Yaris sedan. They are cheap to run, have many of the modern safety features not found in the other cars listed, and are surprising roomy inside. The 1.5L engine may not win any time trials but has enough power and torque for city driving. I have seen 2006 autos as cheap as 2004 Corolla auto sedans. If you want a manual you could possibly get a brand new one for around that budget too.

Here are a few things I have picked up over the years. 1. If a car is in stock, you are paying cash, and the car is not a brand new model, you have the upper hand in negotiating a good price. This is especially true if the dealer has a number of cars in stock in the same colour, or in an unpopular colour, and you buy that colour. Sometimes you can do a good deal on brand new models if they aren't moving as quickly as anticipated or if head office wants to get a few cars out on the road. The carsales website comes in handy here as it is possible to find out what cars/colour/trim that some dealers have in stock. The phone is your friend here too. 2. Test drive many vehicles. When you do "test drive" the sales people. Spend some time in the showroom, maybe go a few times, and see which sales people are busy and which are standing around twiddling their thumbs. Have a general chat to a few of them. Once you have decided on a car and a dealership, make an appointment with a sales person that knew what they were talking about and you felt comfortable with. There is no guarantee that they wont turn into Count Dracula when the sale game begins, but at least you should have weeded out the ones that dont know their product, or treat sales as a mundane job and not a passion. An example of a question I often ask is what safety features a car has. Mr Mundane will answer something out of a brouchure. Mr Passion will not only know all of the obvious ones, but also how they work and why they are important whilst demonstrating them. 3. When you arrive at the dealership to do the deal, take along a notebook or folder with all of your research notes. This should include the exact make, model and colour that you want with an estimate of RRP plus dealer delivery, quotes from different dealerships (most will supply these by email these days), a list of accessories that you want with the RRP, so when the sales person quotes $250 for mats that they sell for $85 you will be ready, some newspaper/internet ads of other rival cars (even if they are not on your short list, a printout of the Red Book and Glass Guide estimate of your trade in's worth if you have one, and details of your car loan if you need a loan. Every time I have bought a car the first price quoted is ALWAYS* above my estimated RRP + ORC, and the price offerred for my trade in is always lower than my estimate. Sometimes I have been quoted a trade in value below the Red Book estimate for a car still under factory warranty, with low to average kms, full service history and in excellent condition. If it is possible, sell your car somewhere else, whether it be privately, to a different dealer, or to one of the on line car buying services. You will save money. Just like when you buy a car, shop your car around. This is a lot harder, if not impossible, if your new car is being imported from overseas and you need the money from the old car to pay for the new car. *Once I bought a new car from a salesman who had just sold a car to my dad. This is the only occasion when all the early haggling was skipped and he gave me close to a bottom line price. I still managed to get the price down a little more......patience and persistance are the keys. 4. Before you are ready to buy, have a short list of dealers with the car you want in stock (if possible), so that if negotiations are going nowhere you can have a plan B. If you need to, get up and leave....but leave a mobile number. Say you are heading to a rival and watch that price fall. If it doesn't, you know that you have reached the bottom line (or close to it). Go to the 2nd dealer on your list with the price you just negotiated and see if they will beat it. 5. If all of this sounds to hard, use a car broker. There are a number of good ones on the net. 6. Do you research before you buy, not after. It is too hard to get that deposit back if you change your mind or find a better deal. Just get a price that you are happy with and can afford, and forget what price someone else negotiated. You cant compare apples with oranges, so why beat yourself up because someone else saved an extra $1000. They may have got a car that had been sitting in the dealership for 12 months that the sales people were desperate to move. 7. Read and research. The link I provided in my first post will give you enough ammunition alone to save your hard earned money (unless you won Tattslotto, then IMHO you should pay extra and get every option the after sales person offers LOL). 8. Don't forget the aftersales person. Once you have signed you will get a visit from another sales person who will try to sell you everything from paint protection, rust protection, window tint, extended warranties, fabric/leather protection, and land on the moon! If you have done your research you will know that the dealership makes massive profits from these....just listen and politely decline. When I picked up my new car last week I overheard the aftersales person talking to the boss as they were leaving. They were having a good old laugh at someone who had just paid sticker price on a car, and then got every protection possible.....maybe they had won the lottery??? More than likely they were a noob and hadn't done their research.

Not on the Yaris sedan...just Odometer and 2 Tripmeters.

I was out at Nunawading Toyota today (Saturday) and they had 2 TRD Aurions in the showroom, along with a very well test driven new model Kluger. Apparently it had been test driven over 15 times on its first day.

To all the knowledgable Toyota enthusiasts out there in cyberspace, I decided to start a thread to offer advice to people looking to buy a new car. After buying a couple of cars recently (one for myself and one for a friend in the last 2 months), I have searched forums like this and other websites to gather information to give myself a "fighting chance" in obtaining the best deal possible when up against an expert in extracting as much money out of a potential buyer as possible, the car salesman. As I have read through various threads about people buying cars and some of the advice given about how to haggle etc, I though it would be a lot easier if there was a thread dedicated to this......so here it is. So post away, share experiences and offer advice, so that next time someone decides to buy themselves a car they have a fighting chance against someone who knows all the tricks and sells cars every day!!! To start off I found a site that offers plenty of valuable information called Car Buying Tips. Link

That strain of E.coli is one of 3 pathogenic strains that cause serious disease in humans. Along with its cousins ETEC and EHEC, VTEC is a real problem for Medical Microbiologists like myself and Nephrologists (Kidney medicos). The only question I have is where do you guys think I should put my cultures of VTEC into my Honda to feel the rush???? ROFLMAO !!!!!

You dont have to be young. I saw an elderly lady wipe out her own car, and that of a young mum and bub, when she zoomed backwards out of an angle park into traffic straight into the side of the mum's car. Both cars looked like that EXA, but the only injury was a cut to the mum's arm.......amazing. The cops and ambos were stunned that there was no one killed, especially with a bub in one of the cars.

I will have an 07 Civic sitting in the garage next to my other half's Yaris in a few weeks. That JDM Type R Civic is HOT, and leaves the Civic hatch for dead IMHO. It will have to be detuned a bit for the Oz market, but it would still fully deserve the Type R badge unlike the hatch which is more a type S. FWIW I think it would be a strange decision for Honda Oz to release the JDM Type R sedan here not long after the hatch though, and it could possibly cost around the $50K mark. Hmmmmm.

I bought a new Yaris YRS Auto today. I saved over $2000 with some goodies included at a Melbourne dealership.