Which car should I buy?
What do you recommend?
My 1998 sedan and 2001 minivan have finally died, so it’s time to buy another car. What’s your advice?
First, used or new?
I don’t buy cars often enough to keep up with current trends on cost vs. value, so I’d appreciate your opinion.
I bought mostly new cars from 1979-2001. For example, the one used car I bought in that era was a 1991 Ford Taurus, which I bought in 1993 with 45,000 miles. It was terrific for two years, but then the transmission died. A car mechanic I played golf with said Ford was too cheap to spend on good quality steel, so their transmissions didn’t last long. But that was a long, long time ago, so I don’t know anything about recent cars.
On the other hand, I bought a Japanese-made Infiniti in 2008 with 190,000 miles which ran pretty well for another 14 years.
I bought a 2019 Toyota Corolla in 2022, which was a good car that I hoped to drive for a long time, but then a joyrider smashed into it while it was parked and that was the end of it.
So, in today’s market, what’s a better deal new or used? (Assume that I am too inept to do any maintenance on it myself.)
Second, gasoline vs. hybrid vs. plug-in hybrid vs. electric?
In the very long run, the human race will presumably get around in electric cars powered by solar and/or fusion electricity. On the other hand, I’m 66 and not that worried about the very long run. On the other other hand, I live in California, which intends to outlaw the sale of new internal combustion cars in coming years and currently has encouraged/allowed the price of gas to be about $4.40 per gallon, which is fairly low compared to the last three years.
I have a narrow one car driveway, so it would be complicated to charge more than one car at a time, and I don’t like complications, which get in the way of my posting daily on Substack.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but my feeling is that Teslas and other electric vehicles currently appeal most to Silicon Valley tech guys who enjoy dealing with new technology but have wives who drive V-8 SUVs that the family takes to Lake Tahoe. I can respect that, but I’m not that guy. Plotting out who gets to park in the narrow driveway tonight to recharge is not me. Maybe in the future I’ll have an Artificial Intelligence Jeeves who will organize all this stuff for me, but I don’t yet.
I see that a Chinese company called BYD has just announced that its car can recharge in five minutes. Maybe in the future we won’t have to worry about who gets what spot in the driveway overnight, but instead will just drive to the former gas station for a five minute recharge during the day. This could conceivably solve the problem of solar energy being abundant (and thus cheap) in sunny Southern California during the daytime, but not in the meantime when your car is in the driveway. But that’s in the future.
Hybrids and plug-in hybrids seem pretty appealing in theory in that they are less vulnerable to persecution by the State of California while being less of a challenge to live with. On the other hand, the capital and maintenance cost of having both a gasoline and an electric engine is higher.
Gasoline-powered cars have well over a century of development and infrastructure behind them.
Third, I don’t much care anymore about a car choice as an expression of Who I Am. Who I am is an old guy who just wants to get around as conveniently as possible.
Fourth, Reliability and Convenience: I’d like my next car to be as reliably, conveniently, and safely as possible.
Which brands are most reliable?
Fifth, Safety. What are recent innovations in safety that are most valuable? For example, I rented a 2023 Nissan Altima to drive to Bandon, Oregon and was impressed by its blind-spot detector system. How about parallel-parking? Has that arrived yet?
Sixth, Sound system: I’m too old to care deeply about music, but I’m also too old to have acute hearing, so I’d like a decent sound system.
Seventh, SUV vs. sedan: I’d probably prefer an SUV over a sedan. I’d hoped to keep my minivan running forever, but it died after 23 years.
When my detractors accuse me of never admitting to a mistake, I freely tell them that I was dumb enough to buy a Taurus when they were first redesigned in 1996. I got more compliments on that car than anything else I have never done in my life but in the end it was a piece of shit. Not long after I switched to Japanese base models and never looked back. I no longer get compliments but I'm at the point in my life where that isn't important vis-a-vis my car.
To directly answer your question I would need some time and I need to get ready for work, but if you buy a new Japanese car of some sort, you generally won't go wrong. I would go ICE as it is the more proven model and I would go new over used just for the peace of mind and for the same reason you don't marry a single mother
I’m currently contemplating a Tesla, partly in solidarity- here in London I need to park in the street and there are plenty of parking spaces with chargers exclusively for electric cars.