Well, I think my 1990 Toyota has finally bit the dust. So, I’m looking around at cars. I loved my Corolla, and would like to have something similar - maybe even a bit smaller. People have mentioned Echo/Yaris, Civic, Ford Focus to me, but I know little about cars, and was hoping to get some input here. The important things to me are : affordability, fuel economy and reliability. I mostly do city driving (although I probably would do more highway driving if I had a newer car). I don’t care about having anything fancy or flashy, as long as it gets me from A to B. Any good / bad experiences? Recommendations?
I just bought a 2006 Civic EX (highest trim level, I wanted the moonroof). I really like it, the EX has a lot of nice little features that make the car more enjoyable to drive. It gets outstanding fuel efficiency (28 mpg is the lowest I’ve ever gotten, and that was only once, last week I got 39.5 for that tank and that’s been my record high, usually gets betwen 32 and 35 and I do a good mix of city and highway driving). My clutch has been occasionally making a clicking sound and feel when I depress it, and I haven’t gotten around to getting it looked at yet.
It was around $20,000 and it fulfills my basic desires from a car. It’s got great fuel economy, it was relatively inexpensive, and it’s fun to drive. The design (which is a bit future-car-ish) has grown on me, but I didn’t like it at the start. It’s a small car, but is surprisingly roomy (they moved the wheels farther towards the edges so as to fit as much as possible in the center. I haven’t had the car for even a year yet, I can’t say much about its long term reliability, but so far I very much like my Civic.
The only downside to owning a Honda is that they must have their timing belts replaced exactly when the manual says or the engine will get trashed.
If you go for a Focus, buy the newest model you can. It often takes Ford time to work the kinks out of a design, Ford’s also, IME, tend to suffer from electrical problems as they get older.
I used to have a Corolla, but in 2000 I bought a 1.6 L Ford Focus, which I still drive, and have no complaints about it. It’s very economical, pretty fast, reliable, but most importantly the drive quality and handling are superb. Highly recommended.
If you go with a used Focus, check where it’s built. The Focus built in Hermosillo until 2005 was notoriously bad.
I bought a Scion xA in February, and I love it! It’s a great little commuter car and I find it very comfortable. I added the cruise control, and it came with a few extras that I didn’t necessarily want, like the jack for an iPod (I don’t own an iPod…) I’ve been getting better mileage than it advertises - it seems to be averaging 38-40 on the country roads that I mostly drive. Two features that I especially like - the front seat is pretty high for a little car (I hate feeling like I’m sitting on the floor) and when the back seats fold down, they lie flat.
All of this under $16K. The xB is supposedly the same vehicle but with a boxy body, so it gets worse mileage, but it has more interior space. Anyway, take a test drive - you’ve got nothing to lose! Happy shopping!
Based on these recommendations, also look at the Honda Fit, Nissan Versa and the Toyota Matrix, all of which are hatchbacks and I think all have four doors.
Even though I don’t own one, I’m always pimping for the Fit. The biggest reason I love it is that it has a fold flat front seat, so you can stick something inside that’s like 7’ 10". Plus, you can sleep in it, which makes for an awesome road-trip-mobile.
I’m a big fan of my Hyundai Accent (hatchback model). Cheap, good milage, dependable (and 10 yr warranty), easy to park, all around good getabout. I personally can’t stand the Ford Focus. Every thing about it seems dinky.
I recall having an absolute bottom-end Focus from Hertz once, and the single redeeming feature was that even that one handled fantastically. (As does my new(ish) Fiesta with the sport (i.e. stronger) suspension, but the Septics don’t get the ‘supermini’ option, whatever a supermini really is)
Seconded. I’ve got a 2007 EX and it’s fantastic. I’ll never go back to a Toyota now, Hondas just feel nicer. A few years ago I upgraded from a bottom-of-the-line '93 Tercel to a '05 Civic Si and it was wonderful.
I have a Skoda Roomster 1.4 diesel. I routinely get 60+ miles per gallon - although I do deliberately drive for economy - if I wasn’t trying, it would probably be around 50.
I love my Dodge Neon. It’s fun to drive, gets good gas mileage and I haven’t had to do a thing to it other than change the brakes and the oil and it has 50 K on it.
I drove a Toyota Corolla last week (rental car). I hated it. It was uncomfortable to drive, handled poorly and I wanted to rebuild the transmission as it shifted so poorly, even though it only had 5000 miles on it.
The new cars are all bigger, with a Corolla or Civic being about the size of an 80’s Camry or Accord. If you want something small you should go down to the Toyota Yaris, Honda Fit or others. I don’t have any experience with those. I have an 8th generation, 1998-2002 Corolla. It’s extremely reliable and everything, but boring. The steering and suspension are real soft, so it rides well for a small car but doesn’t handle as well. Then engine is decent. I don’t think it has quite enough legroom for the driver, and the steering wheel is a little too far away as well. My mileage has ranged from about 24 mpg (in winter) to 34, with no pure highway trips.
We LOVE LOVE LOVE our Honda Fit. Drives great, sips gas, cargo space out the butt. 17K out the door. (It’s goofy-looking, but we consider that part of its charm.)
Avoid ford.
Toyota, Nissan, Honda, VW all make nice small cars, VW’s TDI Diesels are especially nice, 45-50 MPG, and diesel engines last forever, no fussy electronics and unproven Hybrid technology, Diesels are simple, durable, and reliable, when i finally drive the wheels off my '02 Neon (great little car, reliable, fun to drive, acceptable mileage), my next vehicle will be a diesel (probably a VW Golf series)
I’m always intrigued, to say the least, by simple outright statements like this. No Me Ayudes gives good information, for instance. You don’t. Do you expect your statement to be taken seriously? And I’m not being defensive, even though I drive a Ford - you could have said the same thing about any company and it’d still annoy me.
And an unrelated observation…I do love seeing all these Americans gushing over Hondas. Awwww, bless. (Transatlantic Top Gear viewers will understand 
)
:dubious:
You do understand that the TDI is an electronically controlled engine don’t you? It has sensors and actuators just like it gas powered cousins. Cite
:rolleyes:
It has less electronics than a Hybrid like the Prius or Civic Hybrid, though…
Okay, to clarify then, my first “car” was an '88 escort pony, it gave new meaning to the term “Murphy’s Law”, you name it, it broke…
(all miles rough estimates, it’s been almost 20 years since i had the piece of crap, may it rot in pieces)
10,000 miles or so, the computer (specifically, the idle controller portion) died, i could drive the top speed in each gear without even touching the gas, if i pushed in the clutch, the engine would bounce off the rev-limiter
20,000 miles, the right front tie rod failed, 5,000 miles later, left front failed
30,000 miles, the drivers-side window shattered spontaneously, and failed again three days later after it was replaced
45,000 miles, the ignition system died
55,000 miles, fuel tank developed a slow leak, couldn’t keep more than half a tank of gas in it
60,000 miles, the throttle-body fuel injector BURNS OUT, wiring harness fried
65,000 miles, i’ve had it with this piece of crap and traded out of it for a Dodge Shadow that proceeded to give me 120,000 miles of trouble-free driving
during all this time, it had an appetite for tires, 50,000 mile tires would last 20,000 if i was lucky, and yes, I had them rotated and balanced regularly, it had a whopping 85 horsepower of 1.9L four-cylinder fury, even with it’s four speed manual transmission , it had less power than an asthmatic snail crawling uphill in a puddle of cold mollasses, it was the worst piece of unmitigated Ebola-ridden monkey dung i have ever done time in, it’s 20 years later and i still hate the thing, if i ever saw it again, i’d buy it back simply so i could blow it up
that experience soured me on ford products, but my experience isn’t limited to just the crapscort, my sister had an '01 F-150 that was equally problematic, her husband had a Contour that spent more time in the shop than on the road
admittedly a sample size of three vehicles is statistically insignifigant, and the eighties WERE a bad time for Detroit, but to me, a vehicle is a rather large investment, being burned by ford once myself, and seeing the trouble my Sis and BIL had with their ford products (newer models than my old crapscort) makes it highly improbable that i’d ever trust another ford product, EVER…
hey, you asked for more information, so here’s my cite…