Toyota Corolla. I am a Software Engineer and make a good salary but am frugal when spending money on cars since I know they are not assets and only depreciate over time.
Same except I bought an old Toyota Yaris for £2000 cash. It's cheap to maintain and is super reliable. The missus would like a Mercedes G wagon though.
+1 for Toyota hybrid. It's relatively inexpensive vs my income and satisfies all the non-functional requirements I care about (safe, reliable, low emissions etc...).
Wasn't a Toyota, but I got burned with Honda's similar car, the Insight hybrid. The engine leaked oil, taken in to the shop multiple times until it died just under 90k miles. Many people had similar stories online.
It was new tech at the time, so hiccups happen. But I'm sticking with gas cars until there's a longer track record of reliability in hybrids or electric.
2019 Tesla Model 3. Electric is the way to go and can't say enough goodness about Tesla. After the state/fed rebates I think my Std Plus came in around $27K. Now here's the best part: paid total of $20 in 2yrs for charging in >20K miles. During day, my work pays for charging so it's fully charge all the time and if not work like during the pandemic, target has free charging and other locations, of course most are not free. I've had no other cost to maintain the car at all in the 2yrs. Considering one could pay $4/gal with 25mpg comes to $3,200 in gas I saved not to mention no oil/filter changes either. It's great, while charging for free at Target, I'm streaming Netflix or Youtube onto the car's dashboard while working on my laptop. A complete mobile home office :)
Was there a compelling reason for choosing the Model 3 over the Model Y? I’m also curious if you’ve driven long distance with it. I drive 250+ miles pretty regularly and wonder about the Supercharger experience.
Well back in 2019 there wasn't a model Y but I'm getting one soon! As for long trips, yeah there was some trepidation hearing of all the anti-tesla blocking tactics you hear, but none found so far. The longest has been to LA and back from SF and it's was smooth. The trip maker designs your trip so that you'll never be in danger of out of charge. Also made many trips to Tahoe from SF and no problem there either. Many charge points along the way also making it a nice pit stop for eats and restrooms.
Actually it's much like the old days of road trips where your trip isn't just the destination but the route to the your destination can be fun too.
PS> you can get onto Tesla's site and plan your trip. you can see for yourself depending on the Tesla model where you'll need to divert to charge if even needing to divert. Most Superchargers are along most major thoroughfares including some destination like SF Zoo has SC too. Here's the link: https://www.tesla.com/trips Here's a route from SF to LA based on my Model 3
Nothing wrong with that. Good (YMMV, but at least existent) public transport. I grew up in London so not the same but similar. Only started driving because of needing to go to remote locations and am always public transport first.
An old i3. It's a carbon fiber body on an aluminum frame. The outside body panels are not carbon fiber, just plastic, which is better if you bump into things. It's a rear wheel drive with the motor on the rear axle and the center of mass is good. The torque curve is great, like on all eletric car, and it's a pleasure to drive it with one pedal. It turns very well which is nice inside cities.
On the downsides, it doesn't go very far very quickly because of its small battery. So I sometimes use other cars from my local non profit car sharing, like the Jaguar I-Pace or Toyota Corolla (which I like despite it being a fossil car).
I don't own a car but do have a Case 580 SK that is licensed to drive on the roads. I did the math and it doesn't make sense to insure and maintain a vehicle Vs. Transit and Taxi fares. I am hoping my crypto will take a big jump and then I'll probably buy a Tesla Super Truck with it. I think if the insurance providers allow online purchase of day permits I might buy a car but paying to insure a parked car seems like a ripoff.
2006 Honda Element, manual transmission, AWD. Reliable, can fit an insane amount of stuff in it, consumables are cheap for it. Fuel efficiency is not great but i drive very little. Under 100,000km on it.
I bought it used several years ago and with used car prices surging and vehicles that can be slept in going up in value, I suspect its gained around $2000 of value.
None. I’d like to get a luxury SUV with leather seats and a high end music system, but I don’t want to pay $60K+ for the kind of vehicle I want. And I live in a city where everything I need is in walking distance. And I don’t have children so I don’t have a reason that I’d have to own a vehicle.
I wanted to be able to haul things, and I don't like trucks or SUVs.
So I drive a big box with a gigantic panoramic moonroof and more features standard for less money (leather seats, automatic wipers and headlights, blindspot detection, backup cam, etc). I got a good deal on it since the passenger version of the Connect sells worse than a Sienna or Odyssey.
2011 Subaru WRX hatchback. Fun to drive (my priority), decent gas mileage, useful cargo space, good resale value, has a large aftermarket and enthusiast community behind it making parts cheap and plentiful. Everything I want in a car that's not a Mazda Miata, which is what I drove the previous two cars I had.
The only reason we changed our previous 2016 Mercedes Benz C-Class sedan was we needed some extra cargo space to contain some of my wife's gear which had overflowed to take up the back seat of the C-Class as well as the boot.\
Normally I buy cars new and keep them for about 10-12 years.
2005 Mitsubishi Grandis. Super reliable, it can haul my family and tow the caravan and since it's a little older I don't have to worry too much about a ding or a scratch. It's nearing 200,000 miles now so it's still fairly low mileage for a large japanese car.
2006 Honda CRV, 140k miles. I look forward to the day when they try and take my diesel guzzler off me. "They may take away our lives, but they'll never take our CRVs!"
2017 Toyota Prius. Excellent fuel economy and driver assistance features. My partner complains about the seats not being comfortable enough and I agree, to a certain extent.
BMW 323, 2009, bought second hand with only 40k on the clock. It does have incomprehensible orange dashboard warnings sometimes but they're easily dealt with.
Have fun with it!! My dream car is an RS3 (or basically any Lotus). I can afford it, but I don't think I'd use it to its max enough to justify the cost.
