People rarely buy a car advertised as "capable of basic transportation" but even so you might be surprised how often it struggles to get into gear or is obnoxiously loud or has unadvertised kinks in its coolant lines, so a test drive is a good idea.

You can't easily tell whether a car will get better or worse the more you drive it, but you can tell when a car is immediately fun to drive. Start with the car that's fun to drive and hope it gets better (with proper care and maintenance) not worse.