Nice Car for Someone's Kid

[Jeff_DML]

Originally Posted by Theo

On old well sorted E36 would be a great choice but very hard to find at this point.

You guys not teenagers at one time? If I buy my boys a car then it will be a low powered understeering fwd car. I might splurge for awd if I was east coast.

[bren]

We have our old 325ci in waiting (for 10 more years.)

I just have to figure out how to disable the DSC cut-off switch.

[John V]

Originally Posted by Jeff_DML

You guys not teenagers at one time? If I buy my boys a car then it will be a low powered understeering fwd car. I might splurge for awd if I was east coast.

Realizing my opinion is not valid because I'm not a parent, I'm with you on this. A relatively new (safe) Prius, Corolla, Civic, Accord, Sentra... something that is slow, cheap to operate, cheap (relatively) to insure, won't require a lot of maintenance and repairs.

Another observation is that those of us who had to spend our own hard-earned money on our first cars took a lot better care of them than the kids whose parents gave them a car, in general.

[Josh (PA)]

Originally Posted by Jeff_DML

You guys not teenagers at one time? If I buy my boys a car then it will be a low powered understeering fwd car. I might splurge for awd if I was east coast.

This is my my kids drive a $7,000 e46 325xiT.

[Plaz]

Originally Posted by John V

Realizing my opinion is not valid because I'm not a parent, I'm with you on this. A relatively new (safe) Prius, Corolla, Civic, Accord, Sentra... something that is slow, cheap to operate, cheap (relatively) to insure, won't require a lot of maintenance and repairs.

I'm with you on this. Just a couple of years away for us now.

I'd like to get something for her that has the "automatic braking in case of imminent collision" feature that's popping up in many new cars now, too.

[3LOU5]

Originally Posted by John V

Realizing my opinion is not valid because I'm not a parent, I'm with you on this. A relatively new (safe) Prius, Corolla, Civic, Accord, Sentra... something that is slow, cheap to operate, cheap (relatively) to insure, won't require a lot of maintenance and repairs.

Another observation is that those of us who had to spend our own hard-earned money on our first cars took a lot better care of them than the kids whose parents gave them a car, in general.

+1

My first car was one I bought from my sister: a 1980 Toyota Corolla SR-5 Liftback with a 5-speed stick. It was a simple, RWD car that not only was bulletproof, but easy to work on as well. Just enough to power to not get you into trouble, reliable, practical and fun-to-drive. (I voted for RWD, because I had a blast drifting and doing doughnuts with it during the winter....which further helped me understand how to control a car should it start doing things I didn't want it to).

I know for a fact that if a car was just handed to me without me working hard for it, I wouldn't take as good a care for it than if I bought it myself.

Looks very similar to this, minus the fancy wheels:

[wdc330i]

There was a huge thread on the 2addicts site about a guy who bought his son a 2 series coupe. It was a reward for getting straight As in school. But there was considerable backlash from the community about it (a little bit of support, too.)

Here it is: http://www.2addicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1354831

Edit: Reading through now, it was lightly used.

[Plaz]

My daughter's HS parking lot is also full of expensive new (or newish) cars.

I see on a daily basis how cluelessly those kids drive too, it's horrifying. I feel lucky every time I get out of there unscathed.

[wdc330i]

Somehow I never realized that my Mazda GLC was RWD.

It was my car in college (I paid for half of it.)

LOL, no wonder it liked to do 180s in any kind of winter weather. I went to college in the Hudson Valley.

https://autopolis.wordpress.com/2012...more-you-like/

[kognito]

My first 3 cars were convertibles, and none were supplied by my parents.

1968 Renault Caravelle, 1965 Corvair Monza, and a Fiat 850 spyder (don't remember the year)

The Corvair was owned by my dad before it was mine, but it was not given to me. I had to strip and paint our house before it was mine. Job took me almost 5 weeks to complete, so I never considered it to be a gift