It never rains but it pours.

When I bought my last car, I actually did it through a "small" dealer - basically, a married couple that bought cars at auction and then resold them. I'm sure there must be people like that in the Bay Area. And I got my car (back in 2005) for less than $3,000 and it was in fantastic shape.

Completely out of left field, and feel free to ignore because it's not ideal, but has your family considered consolidating households? In other words - would you and your mother be able to find a place together, that would allow each of you to get to work and such?

Believe me, it's not ideal (and no one knows better than me, seeing as my mother and I share a duplex). But it does have some benefits to it - for example, we're paying off the mortgage on the duplex together, which means it gets paid off faster, which means that we might have the place paid for before we both die. Plus, we're sharing the cost of utilities, etc. and of course, there's the "I have someone here if something goes horribly wrong and I need help" side of things as well.

I'll keep an ear out.

I'm in the complete wrong part of the country to be of any realistic help, but I'm sending good car thoughts your way. I blew a rod in my station wagon years ago, and it was not a happy experience.

While I don't have one now, my family has a long history of station wagons, and they truly are really useful cars - they can haul people, stuff, and even both at once! Whenever anyone was moving in college, I was quite popular, thanks to the wagon. :-)

Best wishes for finding a good car for a good price, quickly.

I've never even been to the Bay Area, but I have friends who are around there, so, signal-boosted through FB. Best of luck, and much sympathy.

Cheapest wagon nearby to you being sold by Carmax is about $8,000, which I expect is far out of your range. :/ (In fact, that's about the cheapest car of any type they have for sale near you, and nothing nationwide cheaper than about $6k).

I second the tips on trying to find an old Honda or Toyota. Those cars really are nearly indestructible. Also Volvos have a great reputation for being extremely reliable well into their old age.

*hugs* Good luck, hon. Wish I could do more to help from way out here. :/

i second the notion of buying a honda civic. i'm at 150K with mine and still going strong. plus, it's a hatchback and you can fit a ton 'o crap into it--it's the next best thing to a station wagon. in terms of repairs, i've only had to fix a few things that you'd expect to need replacement after so many miles.

getting a manual transmission rather than an automatic helps make it less likely to be stolen and here on the east coast, manuals are always more readily available and cheaper than automatics.

good luck!

Will be on the look-out. Must it be automatic transmission?

Oooph. That's a rough situation. I'm really sorry. your mom is probably right though: if it's thrown a rod, and it's really old, it's ALMOST NEVER worth fixing.

If you were in the Northeast, I could get my dad on the case (he's a master auto tech, and works for a pretty large car dealership--more to the point, his dealership is full of Decent Souls who have been known to quietly set a nice little used car aside that would go to auction and let it go for a very reasonable price for people who really need it, and my Dad has been known to go through said cars and help cherry pick the best).

That not being an option, I've got a few suggestions that may or may not be useful, but I'll toss anything that might be useful out there. This is what I've learned as a mechanic's daughter and from five years working at a car dealership in college.

Someone else mentioned auto auctions. This is where a lot of trade-ins end up if the dealership doesn't want to sell them themselves. They will usually (but not always) pick the best to sell on site, and send the rest to auction. Sometimes they'll send away very nice cars, though, if there isn't room on the lot or if they don't have a lot of luck selling that particular make or model. If there is one in the area that allows the public, this can be a good option. They're What You See, What You Get, No Warranty, but you can find some nice cars there. I had a nice one at one point my dad pulled from the auction line. I got six good years out of it and it was a very reasonable price.

If you have a good relationship with a mechanic, it's totally worth asking if they will go through a car you want to buy before you commit to buying it and tell you what they think. My dad will do this for free for people he likes, but a lot of mechanics will do it for a very nominal sum for a good customer. Even private purchasers will often allow you to take a car for a small time to your mechanic. At least ask if you can, even if you can't (bluff if need be). If they balk and make excuses, I'd be VERY worried. If they assure you that will be fine, then you can rest a bit easier they're not trying to hide something serious.

Police cars tend to be sold very cheaply when they hit a certain mileage. This is a GREAT OPTION if you can find it. It's VERY HARD TO DO SO. Mechanics like to buy them. :) (at a certain point in my life I was convinced all mechanics had two cars: a decommissioned police interceptor and a Camero). If you happen to find some available (often at auction) don't ever go for the detective's cars, they tend to be beat to pieces. Go for the interceptors; they're rarely idled and almost always have most of their mileage on the highway. You want that: sitting in stop and go traffic is Death to Cars.

Old rental cars tend to be sold off the same way. This is more of a mixed bag. You see these at auto auctions.

Avoid late 1990s model Chevy Malibus. They tend to start developing break line leaks and they chew break pads like bubble gum. Not worth it. Malibus before that period and after that period are better bets,. I had a 1999, and it was Serious Trouble when it hit about 100,000 miles. the only reason it is still on the road (my brothers drive it now) is because my father is a master mechanic and he does a lot of work on it.

I have a Nissan Centra now and we really like it, for the record, and I have a friend who's got one that's from the late nineties and still runs well.

Look at the carfax (if you can) of where ANY car has been driven. Cars from areas which don't require heavy salting are to be preferred, all other things being equal. Salt is hell on cars. That's why you see more old cars in the south than you do in the northern states that get a lot of snow and ice.

In all seriousness if you have any specific questions, I will be glad to send them along to my Dad, and he will be glad to answer them. He's a ASE master-technician. He works for a Chevy dealership, so most of what he sees are American cars, but he does see and work with other vehicles, especially since he often preps and fixes cars at the dealership for resale and decides what will or will not go to auction.

I'm going to fire my personal e-mail address at you through your web site contact. Feel free to ask, in all seriousness--I know how rough this particular situation can be.

Oy. I third or fourth the Honda Civic recommendation. That's what we have, and she's amazingly sturdy, with regular maintenance.

I wish you amazing car karma, and hopefully some help from the God of Transportation.

I don't know anyone in your area, but I'm praying for help for you and your mom.

Slightly off-topic, I must say that your descriptions of Toby's car and Toby's driving seem very realistic. Of course, I'm a non-driver too so I might not be the best judge, but they sound right to me.

Totally off-topic, I loved Gimme a "Z"!.

I can't be much further away and still be in the same country, so I'm no help.

A brief story:
A penguin had to take his car for engine repair.

The mechanic told the penguin to leave his car with him for about two hours, to find out whats wrong.

The penguin goes across the street to a grocery store, climbs into a freezer and ate vanilla ice cream.

When the two hours was up the penguin went back to the garage to find out what happened to his car.

When the penguin entered the garage, the mechanic looked at him and said, "Looks like you blew a rod."

The penguin replied, "NO way, thats vanilla ice-cream!"

Best wishes from Florida....

Our mutual friend fuzzyqueen is selling her car: "Before we post this on Craigslist, I'm going to post one last time here- we have a '93 Subaru Legacy LS (4dr) for sale. New tires and fan belt. It's in dandy fine condition. We don't need this car anymore so we're selling it. Cost is $2,000."

Aaand...I gave you the wrong user name. It's fuzzy_queen.

Ah, I twittered at you then found this when I checked LJ. I have an '89 Honda Civic manual transmission (stick-shift) station wagon with four functioning doors, but no air bags (important to some - I say, where's the fun in driving a glorified go-kart if it has air bags?). I could sell it for $700, on an installment plan, or just plain loan it to her until she finds something to relieve the immediate need. The nice thing about have a hoopty is that you're not too worried about letting people borrow it.

Works fine, has about 211,000 miles, but could reasonably run at least another thirty or forty k without major maintenance.

Good luck with this. I don't know much about cars, myself, but I've read enough to have the impression that when an engine throws a rod, it's time for (a) a replacement engine, or (b) a replacement car.

The Cartalk guys explain it better, in case you really want to know.

A friend of mine was selling a 4 door sedan in about the $2k-3k range. I think it needed some work, but I'll see if I can find out more.

Never mind. Looks like it already sold.

I emailed you yesterday, but in case gmail ate my mail... we have a civic your Mom is welcome to have.

As a non-North American I'm slightly startled that virtually all of the recommended cars on this thread are either Swedish (Volvo, and they really ARE fantastic cars) or Japanese/ Korean.

Am I missing something living in a family that runs two Fords (one of them a 'station wagon', if that is what you call an 'estate' car)?

Although the motorbike is Japanese, now that I think about it ;-)