Looking to buy a 2002 Nissan Altima is reliable?

This would be my first car I'm buying I've been saving up for a while so I went to a Honda dealership and they had the 2002 Altima for $5995 it comes with a 12,000 mile warranty and 2 years free service, and a free tire rotation it has 98k miles on it I want to know is this a good deal or should I avoid it?

Try getting a car below 50k miles. You never know what could happen once you drive off the lot in car with nearly 100k miles.

You're paying $1,000 - $1,500 too much for that car.

For $6K, you should be able to get a more recent car than 14 years of age, if you widen out your search in terms of models.

It sounds overpriced to me.

And the warranty is of little value in the real world but you won't find that out until later. The free service also has strings attached I would wager.

Tire rotation is $10, its no big freebie. They just want to get you in to sell you other service.

Would look for a similar car from a private party. Also, its 14 years old so you can't count on the mileage being correct. They are exempt after 10 years which almost encourages people to roll them back.

The Nissan has a ton of potential. However, the dealership is listing the Altima way over it's current market value. A 2002 top of the line trim level Altima in near perfect shape with 98k miles only has the current market value of approximately $4,500 from a dealership. You can run the numbers yourself.

http://www.edmunds.com/nissan/altima/2002/tmv-appraise-results.html

All I can help is to give you a checklist to ensure that you're getting a reliable car.