Forums >Off the Beaten Path>Will I finally buy a car?
ultramarathon/triathlete
I think I once posted about this and got great advice, sadly, no purchase was made.
My wife and I are back to considering buying a car. We seem to rent one about once a month-ish. It's usually $400-$600 a pop!
Criteria:
City friendly (small)
Good MPG
Safe
Can fit two car seats
Looks sporty
Fun to drive
Won't break the bank if we buy it outright
Insurance won't be super crazy (despite living in NYC)
I'd like to put a roof bike rack on it
A friend in the same situation just bought a 2013 certified pre-owned VW GTI. I haven't driven it, but it seems like a pretty sweet little car, looks pretty cool. My hitch is it "feels" like it's a "college-kid" car --what I'd want to be driving if I were still in college (though I personally couldn't have afforded it in college, lol).
Being a somewhat snobby car person (despite not owning a car in at least a decade), I wonder: is that car cool enough for me? These things don't really matter when it comes down to it, yeah yeah I know, but they do stick in the back of my mind.
What would I prefer? Probably a BMW 3 series, maybe an Audi A3 or AllRoad. I really like the BMW/Audi SUVs, but too big, too expensive. But those are probably just wasted money, right? And I assume the insurance would be way more. BTW, it's hard to just google an insurance quote! WTF is up with that?!
HTFU? Why not!
USATF Coach
Empire Tri Club CoachGatorade Endurance Team
Probably not.
If you want to spend a lot of money and worry about your expensive car in the city, go with the fancy option. I'd personally go with a used VW. Recently did, in fact. Love it almost as much as the one I had in college, which was a manual. Get the manual transmission (I regret not this time around). And if you want fancy, get the GTI. Oh yeah, and test drive one! They are fun as hell, have the tightest turning radius, and the widest hatchback opening. These things come in handy.
Whatever you do, make a decision already!
Kalsarikännit
Never mind. My links don't want to work. All the threads are still out there that answer this.
http://www.runningahead.com/forums/topic/13bd020d87104a4cb6b10d0f78537cc0/0
Gonna have to cut and paste, yo.
I want to do it because I want to do it. -Amelia Earhart
Never mind. My links don't want to work. All the threads are still out there that answer this. http://www.runningahead.com/forums/topic/13bd020d87104a4cb6b10d0f78537cc0/0 Gonna have to cut and paste, yo.
http://www.runningahead.com/forums/post/cf79478aac4341b8a7eac9d3d0ab3de9#focus
http://www.runningahead.com/forums/topic/11c0892400014282aa46433317de67f6/0
And what kind of car are you renting for $400-$600? My lord.
Feeling the growl again
We HAD a VW Jetta....if you want a VW model see where it was made. Do not buy the ones made in Mexico. Beyond that, I could go on and on about all of the poor/cheap design features of the VW (who puts cheap plastic pieces on a dipstick that will break off and fall into the crankcase??). We sold it at just over 100K as the maintenance expenses were starting to escalate.
While I love manuals Joann I'd have to disagree just because he lives in NYC. They suck in city traffic, as much fun as they are in every other situation.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
Ha, thanks I couldn't find them. None the less, I wanted something new to read :-)
I just plotted the mean $$ for my rentals over the last year. $448 is my average with Hertz. That's been for typically 3-4 days. The outlier was $748.92 which I THINK was an Altima for a week. I'm tellin you, renting a car is murder in NYC. It's not a sustainable practice (unless you're Hertz that is!).
AND, I get a corp discount through my office. I think it's 30%.
ETA: I want a manual, but my wife doesn't drive stick. I've offered to teach her, I think she can learn it, but I've attempted to teach significant others how to drive stick in the past, and it never ended well. Hey, that sounds dirty. lol
What about Zipcar?
Runners run
I don't know, I've been driving a manual in Chicago since 1997 and I'd go back to it in a second. The city people I know don't actually drive in city traffic, for the most part. That's where bikes, trains, buses, run commuting, etc come in. :-) Depends on what the car is going to be used for, I guess.
Exactly.
Also $448 x 12 = $5376. I would not be happy about that, personally.
They charge mileage (above 180 miles/day). It's good for running errands, bad for road trips. I still think they are pricey. I shop around at local Enterprises. At least in Chicago, the further out neighborhoods are really cheap. The problem is throwing in insurance (which is where they make a chunk of their money). Basic insurance is more expensive that the normal daily rate.
an amazing likeness
You've got 2 kids....face it, you need a white Ford Econoline 12-pasenger van with vinyl interior.
Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.
This may be a little large but I think this will meet all of your needs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql-N3F1FhW4
It's definitely cool enough for you.
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
Why is it sideways?
Subaru WRX