Background: husband's timing belt just went out on his 02 Nissan Frontier (that's his fault--he thought he had a chain for some reason and never got it replaced the whole 200k miles he's had it). We're currently waiting for the call to let us know how bad the damage is once they get inside… Odds are, it's going to cost 6-10x the value of the vehicle to fix.
We prefer Toyota or Honda--however, because we live in the South, the import cars are more expensive to fix and he has a hard time finding parts for his Nissan locally, meaning he can't fix them himself and has to go to Nissan dealership.
I'm looking at used trucks in case we have to go the route of replacement. We have a very small budget… Like, 12k is pushing it. I see that used Chevy and Ford are the cheapest prices for used, even some 2010 models for 10grand.
TLDR: Which make is the easiest for DIY maintenance and repair?