I'm in the market for a beater car that my son can putt around in for the next two years. Most of the driving will be the mile from home to school and mile back. I'm sure it will also include the three miles to Taco Bell on a fairly regular basis. In other words, not really for the highway. His football practices are becoming more and more at inconvenient times and the idea of him driving himself just makes my wife and I ecstatic.

I found a very clean 01 Nissan Altima I can get for a very good price. I know the previous owner and he kept up maintenance very well on his vehicles. It has 186000 miles. I haven't driven it yet, but someone else did and said it seems like it doesn't want to shift into overdrive. They said they thought the overdrive was going out. My question is, since my son probably wouldn't be using the OD, is this a problem? Or can this just be the first sign of an transmission issue that I should run away from as fast as I can and keep up the search? BTW does everyone know that older, little trucks are almost impossible to find any more?

In my opinion, buying a car with a problem that you don't know what is/what it will cost to fix is a bad idea. That being said it could be something as simple as low fluid. Doubtful, but possible.

Aw just go get yourself a brand new truck and let him have yours.

The overdrive going out is a sign that it will soon not move. Nissan transmissions are very expensive

Run. If od goes out the rest will follow. Besides that I hate nissans. We have them at work and we owned one for a short period. We had a 01 altima. Wife loved it when she bought it. Drove it for two weeks and had to have the moter built. Apparently it was a common issue. We traded it the day we got it back and when the guy got it at the dealer it wouldn't pull.

Why buy a car anyway? Find him an older pick up truck that y'all may actually get some use out of

Pm me your phone number I've got two older trucks I'm fixing to sale. Oneis a 1986 Toyota 2wd long bed, the only thing not original on it is the seats been covered and it has a new weber carb. Air works the other is a 94 SS s10 good clean trucks, either one would be good first trucks

Send a PM tomorrow. Off to work.

Don't think that thought hasn't crossed my mind.

Do yourself a favor and just go get him a ten year old Camry or Accord and don't worry about reliability.