I’ve been looking at marketplace for a small car with good gas mileage that I can get cheap. I don’t mind doing work to it like replacing a clutch or dealing with a head gasket or engine replacement. The trouble I’m having in my area ( Midwest United States) is that either mileage is well into the 200k range, price is unrealistic so I won’t bother trying to reason with them, the car is more of a headache than it’s worth (Chevy Cruze) or there’s more than one issue like transmission problem plus body damage. I could go up in price under $10k but I don’t see the up side in spending that much to get better gas mileage unless the car can go at least another 5-10 years.


I think you might be better off going with older Honda or Toyota (maybe hybrid) sedan with higher mileage and just expect to change the engine (and battery for hybrid). Hopefully they have records of transmission maintenance.
https://www.autotempest.com/results?fuel=hybrid&make=toyota&maxprice=10000&radius=100&title=clean&zip=43081