Is this car a good buy for $1,000?

It's a 2004 Honda CRV-EX AWD with 200K miles. It's a 1 owner car (elderly woman) that was serviced at proper time (she has records). It was mainly driven on the highway. I know this woman personally.

It drives nice, its still very peppy. The oil, radiator fluid and transmission fluid looks clean and doesn't sel burnt. The interior is clean, but the exterior has some dents and scratches.

She just put 4 new tires and struts in it, 2 months ago.

Sounds good to me.

Buy it… Its a honda. I would buy it

If you know her, if it looks like it has been cared for and the paperwork looks good, seems like a good deal to me.

Don't buy it at any price.

A) Can you find a better one for only $1000? How about $1500 or even $2000?

b) I'm not saying that you should be suspicious, but you sound so naive that I could apparently replace the tires, change the oil, transmission fluid and coolant in a complete junker and fool you about its true mechanical condition.

c) Having one owner and service records, It's probably a good car but don't expect miracles out of something with 200k miles it. You'd be wise to have a qualified shop inspect it and test drive it for you.

Normally I'd say a $1000 car would be a junk car but sounds like this one may be a good buy. You know her, you know how the car was driven, you know the maintenance of the car, information you don't usually know on a car like this. From what you described, I'd buy it if I wanted the car. For the high miles, you said hy. Miles, better 200,000 hy. Miles than 100,000 miles in city stop and go traffic.

It sounds like it is worth $1000. If you only get a few months use out of it before it dies you will have your money's worth.

Test drive it for 20 miles, stopping and restarting every 2 miles. Drive the last 5 miles on the freeway and let it rip (obey the speed limit). Turn on the AC and the heater on and off. If it can make the 20 mile trip, it will make the next 20000 miles.

Nope

How fast can you hand her the cash if you don't mind feeding the engine timing belts every 75,000 miles. Call any Honda dealer's servise department to see what the price is to change a timing belt. Every AWD car on the face of the earth eats brakes, rotors and tires 50% faster than a front wheel drive car. An AWD vehicle is much heavier than a front wheel drive car which is more strain on a four cylinder engine and transmission. I suggest you look through her records to see how often the *transmission fluid and *brake fluid has been changed. Moisture from the atmosphere has been entering the vent hole on the master cylinder reservoir cover since the car rolled off the assembly line. Sooner or later the water in the brake fluid rusts the inside of the brake calipers and brake lines.
Check her records to see if the cooling system has been flushed at least every four years.