"Pszemol" > wrote
> Don't forget you are not talking about the car for
> yourself but for Elle.
> She might be somebody's grandmother :-) Or - just a driver
> little more educated in benefits of modern car safety
> systems than you...

Not to contradict you, but to get out my puny view: I have
been restricting my search to older cars partly (very small
part) because I do not want ABS. ABS is harder to maintain;
has more that can go wrong; and I do not see significant
advantage from a safety standpoint.

I have always had a car without ABS.

I would prefer airbags but I am not requiring them.

> I am not talking about cosmetic rust but undercariage
> rust, ball joints, etc.
> Once again, I have to remind you that your advices are
> addressed to Elle.

I think JBeam is recalling, correctly, that I am in the
southwest. No rust in general, though a few of the cars I
have seen are from up north and show rust.

I finally read the fine print on carfax.com's connection to
dealers: Every time a dealer looks up a vehicle history on
carfax, the lookup goes into their system as a car that
/might/ be traded in or just got sold. I think it would be
luck to run across a Honda through this approach. I really
do not trust the salespeople there to call me as soon as
another 92-95 Civic comes in. They deal in the here and now.
A phone call does not seem to be worth it to them.