Well would anybody like to be the voice of reason

[vt_maverick]

Somebody once told me to add $100 to your monthly payment (if you're financing) to budget for repairs, upgrades, etc. throughout the year, plus another $50-100 if the vehicle's fuel economy sucks (which ours obviously does). Use that basic formula to figure out what you can afford per month, then do the reverse calculation to determine what the maximum purchase price you can afford would be (if you have good credit, assume an 8% APR across 60 months to be conservative). Then you start looking at VX's in that basic range, while also doing the additional research to determine what a reasonable asking price would be for each vehicle you're considering.

[circmand]

how handy are you? If you can do basic repairs and have a decent down or paying cash? What is the price difference between the 2 since you do have a very low mileage example but it is still 10+years old. Not everything in a car ages by miles. The area the 2 vehicles are from I would say an Arizona VX at 50,000 is a better deal than a Northeast car with 25,000 miles. Between snow, ice salt etc the Northeast car is exposed to much more harsh treatment.