start to look on autotrader.com or in your local listings, then go to
www.kbb.com and go through and bluebook the car you are looking at buying. My 1996 Contour GL with no options, except cassette, and power mirrors (pretty sure standard) costs 1750$ with a 5 speed manaual and 100K miles. But I had to dump abotu 1000$ worth of work into it, because it was on the verge of the 100K mile dye out thing. where everything that needs to be replaced at 100K miles, needed to be replaced. EG timing belt, Spark Plugs, Coil, wires, one of my Bearings is going bad (getting replaced wednesday), my fuel injector needs to be cleaned pretty soon as well (so says the mechanic).
