Her disability came through, with a large (for us) retroactive check. She is sick of being driven around in my Focus 3dr with a stick. I am, too, cuz it gets awful crowded and she’d be more comfortable in a mid-size. Several of my cars have been off-rental or off-lease, and I am especially fond of the rentals because, though the renters abuse them, the agency takes care of them. Looking over the local Enterprise virtual lot I see that the $15k/40k miles neighborhood offers:
[ul]
[li]2013 NISSAN Altima 2.5 S[/li][li]2014 TOYOTA Corolla LE[/li][li]2014 CHRYSLER 200 LX[/li][li]2014 HYUNDAI Sonata GLS[/li][li]2014 VOLKSWAGEN Jetta 1.8T SE[/li][/ul]
The Chrysler is out because of its lousy mileage and the fact that it is both a Chrysler AND a Fiat. :eek: No Ford Fusions because they are another grand, and she made me swear that I will never buy another Ford; as stricture that I would gladly toss because there is some dead grandpa’s 90s T-Bird V6 that is calling my name. I don’t know Hyundais, and Nissans and Toyotas bore me to tears.
This leaves the turbo VW that is blue (my cars are usually blue, though the Focus is yellow) as the obvious choice, but I’m trying to not think like me and am looking for something practical and long-lived and, yes, maybe boring, so I’m opening the floor to practical and boring Dopers to make suggestions. And don’t feel limited by the five I listed. They only are examples of what we might look at.
The Honda Fit is a nice car. Good mileage. Reliable. Surprisingly roomy. You could almost get a new one with that budget.
For something used in the same range but a little more sporty, I like the Mazda3. I like a bigger car than that myself, but I’ve gotten Mazda3’s as rentals and we looked at one when we were car shopping for my wife and I liked it.
I disagree, if you want a single data point alternate view. My wife had a VW Jetta 1.8T SE (in black) for almost 9 years. The car gave her no problems to speak of.
In 2012, she traded it in for a spankin’ new Beetle (again in black), which she loves. For a two-door, the car is huge, plenty of space for passengers, a nice-sized trunk, gets pretty good gas mileage, and has phenomenal pick-up.
Well, I am definitely coming from a single data point as well, but my 1.8T in a Passat was difficult to repair, costing about 1.5 to 2 times what a more “Boring” car (according to the OP) would cost. Great car–loved to drive it, hated the repair bills
I am a big lardass. I’m not sure the Fit would fit. And an automatic always has attendant price bloaters. Probably not a good choice.
My kid brother is a VW fan from way back, so you can see why I’m not asking his advice. My older brother, well, I bought him Lemons: The World’s Worst Cars and he had to admit that he had owned nearly all the cars in the book.
Corolla or Altima. I have a bias against Hyundai, but I acknowledge it might be me. On the other hand, you buy VW because you want one, but don’t expect reliability. I have experience with new Beetles and it isn’t positive.
Yup, those are all boring rental cars you’ve picked out! The only one I’d really avoid is the Chrysler, not necessarily because it’s a bad car but because the depreciation curve on those is pretty steep. The Hyundai too, although to a much lesser extent these days. Other than that there’s not really a whole lot to choose between them. I’d just test drive them all (or at least sit in them all) and get the one she likes the most.
Note that the 1.8T in the '14 Jetta is completely unrelated to the 1.8T engine from the 90’s/early 2000’s. The old 1.8T engines were awesome performance wise, but they definitely had some oiling and turbo issues. That was also exacerbated by the B5 Passat/A4 platform that used a weird longitudal (i.e. front-to-back) FWD engine layout that didn’t leave a lot of room in the engine compartment. That made them great handling cars, but definitely a total sonofabitch to work on.
In general, the various reliability indexes seem to show VW has put their chronic reliability issues from the 90’s and 2000’s to rest. The new 1.8T is uninspiring but has been pretty reliable thus far. Most of the criticism VW has been getting these days is just that they’ve lost the fahrvergnügen and pretty much make the same boring cars as everyone. Which incidentally is why they’ve been turning up in US rental fleets a lot lately.
I’m a fan of VW’s and have owned and driven them for 25 years. My current commuter car is a 2000 VW Jetta GLX. I love that car and the only time it’s let me down is when I didn’t heed the early warnings of a bad belt and tensioner. Had some electrical issues which turned out to be a bad battery which I stubbornly refused to believe was the problem until I relented and replaced it.
I’m the original owner and can honestly say that with regular scheduled maintenance and prompt repair of wear and tear events, the car’s reliability is up there with the best of them.
I’m handing it off to my teen very soon and and am considering GTI or GTD to continue to get the most fahrfernugen from my commutes.
That said, I like the look and hear good things about the Kia Optima and the Kia Forte5 hatch. Similarly, the Hyunday Sonata and Elantra GT.
Depending on where you live and your budget, the MB C300 4Matics are coming off lease and those are great value and great driving cars.
We have a 2012 Sonata and I’ve been very happy with it, after years of econoboxes. It’s roomy but not massive, decent fuel economy, comfortable, and the trunk is massive, if that’s a consideration. My husband is “meh” about it, but he admits it’s because he likes sports cars, and this doesn’t compare with a 'Vette or his beloved Crossfire. And he does concede that it’s a good car for what we wanted. My only regret is that we got the blue one - I’d have preferred gray, but they didn’t have one on the lot and we didn’t want to wait.
Is this really true any more? Manual transmissions are becoming less common (at least in the US), and being marketed less as a no-frills option and more as a car-enthusiast option. That might shift some of the price bloaters over to the manual side.
Can she drive an automatic but not a manual? If that’s the case, that might be a good argument for an automatic in and of itself.
I just sold my 2004 Honda Civic. It was a good reliable car up until about a year ago.
I LOVED my Corolla. It got totaled when a lady in a truck smashed into me, and I was short on time to replace it so I had to go with a Camry. You want to talk about boring to drive. I would buy another Corolla in a heartbeat. Mine had 209,000 miles on it and going strong when it wrecked.
Rental cars are stripped down to the bare bones. If you’re willing to spend/lease just $5K more, to $20K, you can get a 2014 Toyota Camry or Honda with rearview camera, leather, and sunroof from CarMax. If you plan to keep the car for 150,000 miles, buy something comfortable and lasting.
No particular opinion on the listed cars but this made me wonder. I can’t imagine buying a former rental due to the assumed abuse. How can you ‘take care’ of a 2-3 year old car with (making this up) say 10 years of equivalent abuse?
Well, what kind of “abuse” are you talking about? Despite the joking about “the fastest car is a rental car” and such, most people drive rental cars pretty normally. Even if it did get a jackass renter or two who drove it hard, it’s not going to cause any lasting damage. On the other hand, you know it got all the required maintenance and multiple times a week it was cleaned inside and out and inspected for damage. I know my cars certainly don’t get taken care of that well!
Alas, the issue is moot. Some months ago, before this windfall, my daughter had our Roadmonster’s fluid leakage diagnosed someplace else and an intake manifold gasket replacement was going to be $1300 when I didn’t have $1300. While pronouncing our Crown Vic dead, our regular guy offered to look at it, claiming to be an LT-1 expert.
The good news is that the repair will be much cheaper, $700 or $500 if we throw in the Crown Vic (he’s had demolition derby plans for it since before his boss sold it to us). I know I can get more than $200 for the Ford, but Wife heard just how bad the brakes were (it’s always a mistake to tell the truth) and won’t allow any of us to drive it, even the two blocks home from the shop. I’ll add the condition that he tells us when the demo derby is.
The bad news is that they didn’t put the LT-1 into the Roadmonster until '94, and I’ve been limping by with just a garden variety 350 cu in/5.7L Small Block with a measly 180HP instead of 260HP. Its still fun to get on it when some punk in a flat-black Sonata with a coffee-can exhaust tip wants to play. Lousy mileage, but neither of us has a long commute. We can plan more about the next car; maybe something with hand controls for Wife.
Well, not to hijack things too much, but VW’s “strategic shortcomings” mentioned in that article is their somewhat bungled attempt to capture more of the North American market. They mostly did that by (as some put it) “dumbing down” the core Golf, Jetta, and Passat lines by using simpler mechanicals and cheaper interior materials and such to get them to a lower price point. Frankly, making them more Japanese-like. Unfortunately for them, if Americans wanted to buy a Japanese car they’d buy a Japanese car and the plan has largely backfired. While the cheaper prices have attracted some new buyers, they’ve also alienated the core VW customers. (Of course the real blunder in their North American strategy is their crummy SUV selection, but never mind that for now.)
Anyways, the new cheaper VW’s that came out as part of this strategy have been panned by the auto press because of the quality and drive not being up to traditional VW standards, but so far the indication is that the reliability has been perfectly fine. Again, the fact that these things have been turning up in rental fleets tells it all-- they’re boring and reliable cars, neither of which were qualities we normally expected from VW.
