Is there any substantive difference between a Toyota Corolla, a Nissan Sentra, a Honda Civic, and a Mazda 3?
These are the four cars I’m considering. I need good gas mileage, good safety for the price, low or reasonable maintainence costs, and longevity. I don’t care about resale value because I plan on driving my car until it is dead.
All of these four models seem to offer the same kinds of standard options, although I know the Civic and the Mazda offer a telescoping steering wheel standard, which I like as a short woman.
So, which to choose? It seems like they’re all pretty much in the same price range. I’ve driven a Civic before and really like that I never ever had a problem with it until I blew up the engine. I like the Mazda 3’s styling.
I haven’t test driven any of these.
I’d also consider the smaller cars like the Yaris or the Honda micro thing (the Excite?), but only if the savings are worth what I’d be giving up.
I would head to the library and look up the latest Consumer Reports auto issue, that will carry ratings on all of these. Most of what makes a car different to own over the life of the car are things not evident in test drives or the sticker price. Reliability is important to me. I do not know what the reliability history is on any of these cars, but I think the smart money is split between the Honda and Toyota.
Sounds like there’s some irony there. How many miles did you have on it?
You can also check out the web sites; two of my favorites are Edmunds and Kelley. I don’t know if their ratings are as comprehensive as CR, but at least you can do it right now, without getting up.
I would also like to add my personal rant, which is if you look at all the expenses of owning a car over its life, the gasoline is a very small portion. Sure, there might be a difference between owning a Lincoln Navigator and a Prius, but once you are looking at four cars in the same class like you are doing, difference in fuel economy is noise level.
Here’s my rough take (as someone who has recently test-driven and comparison shopped all of the models you mention):
Toyota Corolla: Awkward and only slightly adjustable driver position (to sit far enough from the pedals you have to fully extend your arms to reach the steering wheel), great mileage, unexciting looks.
Nissan Sentra: After a first look I never went back – it was lower on my value scale, less interesting to drive and look at, and had lower CR ratings.
**Honda Civic ** - possibly the best engineered small car out there. Sophisticated ride quality for such a small car, great mileage, but somewhat cramped interior. It would hold its resale value better than any other car on your list. (although on re-read of OP I see you aren’t interested in that, in which case the slightly elevated price might be a negative in your book).
**Mazda 3 ** - the most fun you can buy for under 20k. Built like a swiss watch and incredibly involving to drive. An acquaintance who bought the manual transmission version claims to get nearly 40 mpg on highway. My favorite of the bunch, especially the hatchback version.
Have fun choosing your new ride! (I ended up going the used vehicle route instead)
Thanks, Figaro. I really like to go with the Mazda for exactly the reasons you mentioned, but worry that there’s not enough data/time yet on this model to compare it over the long term with the Honda.
And I’m just shy of 5’4", so being cramped is not an issue for me! (But it IS the reason why I’ll go for the telescoping steering column all else being equal.)
(What I reaaaaallly want is a RAV4. Oh, well. Maybe next time.)
Actually, the current generation of Honda Civic isn’t much (or possibly at all) older than the Mazda 3. Of course, Honda has its corporate reputation for building exceedingly reliable cars to fall back on, which might be enough to tip your mental scales in that direction. Consumer reports should be able to shed some light on how the two cars stack up in reliability and other intangibles.
Which reminds me: I highly recommend CR’s new car buying kit online. For the price of the subscription you get a lot of comparison shopping tools and – most importantly – a tool for determining the actual price your dealer should have paid for the car (as you want it equipped), so you can be well informed when you negotiate a price. The “dealer invoice” price is not what the dealer paid for the car. It’s what the dealer wants you to think he paid for the car.
I’ve had a Mazda 3 for 9 months now. I love it. It’s a lease, but I’m already planning on keeping it. I got the Mazda 3s Grand Touring. I do very little highway driving (my work commute is 3.5 miles each way, all lights & stop signs) and get an average of 25.2 miles per gallon. When I do drive on the freeway, I watch the “current mpg” display, at 70mph I get 36 mpg.
My econobox is the Civic. Great gas mileage, haven’t had trouble with it since I got it.
My issue is not with the car, it’s the Honda dealership I got it from (in Pasadena). I wrote a very angry letter to Honda about it and they were apologetic and I do think they ended up firing the guy because I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him and have been in plenty of times, but I still wouldn’t purchase anything else from them.
Long story short, I signed the contract and left the car in California on the dealer’s lot when I came out here to take the Bar. Came back a month later when my job started to pick up my paid-for frocking car and the guy accuses me of trying to steal my own car (even after looking at the paperwork) and unloads some ethnic slurs about Latinos on me. And something about grifting. I don’t even know what it means to grift, plus, I believe bigots should be more accurate in their ethnic identification skills. I am not Latina.
So anyway, I’d go for Toyota companies. I had an Echo before this and I’ve had a Corolla as well. In 2 years I am dumping the Civic and upgrading to a Lexus for my 30th birthday. Prior to my experience, I would have considered an Acura but I’m never getting anything Honda related again.