Some Quick Help, Not-too-car-savvy girl here needs some ideas... Options

[mzztoyota]

Hi everyone I live in the Virgin Islands where even the hills have hills...and I'm selling my '86 Chevy Nova (Corolla in disguise...) and looking for a car for around $4,500. I found an ad in our local paper for a '94 Celica, and I'm going to go look at it tonight or tommorow. It's a GT 5 Speed with a new clutch and pressure plate, and the guys claims it has less than 60,000 miles on it (I'll be shocked if that's true).

I know that a lot of people say that Celicas don't have much power...but I'm not thinking of racing it, I just need to be able to get up steep hills. Is this car built for that kind of driving? Also, buying this car would pretty much empty my spending account for a couple weeks, so I need to be sure that I won't need to be making any mechanic trips any time soon...so what kind of common problems should I be looking for when I go and see this car?

I really appreciate your help guys, and if I buy it, I do plan on saving up and doing some work on it...so hopefully you'll see me around Thanks a lot.

[mzztoyota]

If the guy only has 60k on it and needed a new clutch sounds like hes a bad driver.

That was exactly my first thought when he said that! At this point, part of me is hoping that he just didn't know and was making up a number on the phone that sounded good...so that'll be one of the first things I look at tonight. My car right now has I think 113k and it's an '86 that's been on this island forever...as far as I know I am the third owner as well as the third person to learn how to drive a standard with it (blush)...and the clutch has never been changed (everything else, don't ask).

Keep in mind that this island is 14 miles long and 3 miles wide, no freeways, highways, or anyhting like that...so no long routes to rack up big milage. I think my average commute between home and work is 4-5 miles or something like that, lol...so milage here isn't going to be as high as in the states or other places...

~sigh~...it's going to be so sad to part ways with my oh-so-faithful Nova/Corolla....but the salt water here is a deadly concoction when combined with the metal of older cars...Rust City I tell you...