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?