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Most cars between the 1980s to recently had timing belts. Now many, if not most, manufacturers are going back to timing chains, but that means anything in your price range is going to have a big expense on the horizon. Most service intervals are 60-90k miles for the belt, but buying used is buying blind and they can say they just replaced the timing belt, but when it breaks, you're the one who has to pay. Unless they have a receipt for the service, buyer beware.
I've been watching the price bracket just above yours ($4-6k) and there is a lot of good stuff out there (lots of civics, some prii, some corollas, some sentras...). Heck, I just sent a friend an ad for a 1998 Civic HX with 145k miles on it for just $3500. There's good stuff out there, but it's questionable whether you'll do better than what you have. What's the first digit of your VIN? Just curious, because I've heard the ones from Mexico are crap, but the ones from Canada are unstoppable.
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