[RickM]

The fisrt trick is to select a few vehicles and years to search for.
Then educate yourself on what goes wrong with the models you're interested in. There's usually a hadfull of things to look for.
It's a good idea to know when improvements were implemented in a model line as well. For instance when looking for a CRV I found that HP was bumped 20 ponies in 1999. I then narrowed my search to any vehicle 1999 or newer.


Also, stay away from first year designs and keep your eyes open when scanning newspapers, penny press, websites and supermsarket bulletin boards.