so my friend's 97 corolla is about to die out and she's looking to replace it w/ a slightly newer used car. she's a grad student so she doesn't have a huge budget. she'd ideally want to spend less than $4.5k which isn't much at all. she's willing to work towards $5k only if the car in question is worth it that much more...

so i was wondering if you guys knew of certain cars that would fit that range which would also provide good/adequate reliability or wouldn't require too much extra work.

i saw a used 2000 V6 camry for just under $5k w /110k miles. would that be worth checking out?

also, what are some general maintenance issues that she needs to expect to happen (or have already been addressed) for cars in that age (100k+ miles)? e.g. replace suspension parts, transmission failures (w/ honda V6's being a given ), etc.

any help would be cool beans. thanks guys