cars

I have been thinking of getting a car since early this year but the finding has yet to be fruitful. Initially I didn't know what car to get and thought that most cars are too big for me. After driving Nok's car (Honda Civic Coupe) for quite sometime, I find that it's actually not that big after all. When I was back at home, the largest car I drove was Proton Wira aeroback, which is not very big compared to most Japanese and American cars. So I think it's an improvement in my driving skills as I now feel more comfortable driving a larger car.

That had increased the choices of cars I'm looking at - Honda Civics or Toyota Corolla, ideally VW Golf. However, I feel that my budget is way below the prices of cars available here. I don't intend to get new cars but just simply want a car that has a total mileage of less than 100K. Unfortunately, cars with such low mileage seems to cost more than USD6K, which I feel is too much to spend on a car that I will be using only for 5 years or so.

Does that mean that I should increase my budget or am I just looking at the wrong place? I'm been looking through our MSU network, the local newspaper classifieds, and online car listings. Maybe I should just stick to taking the bus and cycling. That's a lot cheaper than getting a car even in the long run. But not having a car also means that I don't get to go around and taking the bus seems to be taking up too much time. It's also hard to set up experiments that require attention 24 hours as I can't come back later at night.

Why is it so hard to get a car?