Mind child, Delmar (not his real name) is turning 8 weeks soon, so naturally I’ve already started shopping for his first car. It’s hard! All the cars my single self thought would be great options to teach my kid that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” and that “hard work is how you get anywhere in life” are vehicles I can’t get myself to consider anymore. Maybe I’ve gone soft?
Upon my wife birthing Delmar, various wires in my brain either got crossed, or they un-crossed themselves and are now functioning properly, because my plans to daily-drive my family in old cars have pretty much gone out the window. And while I myself still feel OK driving old junkers, don’t think there’s not part of me that isn’t constantly thinking that I need to not die for at least 18 years, at least.
Naturally, my hunt for my son’s first car has taken a sharp turn from 1965 Plymouth Valiant to post-2010 machines. This is a large departure from where I stood about a year ago, which was: “Just get the child the cheapest crap-can possible and make him wrench on it to keep it running” and also “I drove an unsafe old Jeep in high school/college, so my kid can handle one, too!”
In my defense, I don’t think this is me going soft, I think it’s just reality that the safety innovations in the past 20 years have been absolutely tremendous, and I’d be a fool to ignore them. Take Electronic Stability Control, which helps keep your car under control in emergency-maneuver situations. From NHTSA:
In 2015 an estimated 1,949 lives were saved by electronic stability control (ESC) among passenger vehicle (PV) occupants. These lives saved consisted of 857 passenger car (PC) occupants and 1,0911 light-truck and van (LTV) occupants. The estimated 1,949 lives saved in 2015 is an increase over the estimated number of lives saved in previous years; 1,575 lives saved in 2014, 1,380 lives saved in 2013, 1,225 lives saved in 2012, and 896 lives saved in 2011. Added together ESC has saved more than 7,000 lives during the 5-year period from 2011 to 2015. NHTSA’s estimates of effectiveness for ESC have been updated in the report, Updated Estimates of Fatality Reduction by Electronic Stability Control (Kahane, 2014), discussed in the Background section of this Research Not
From IIHS:
IIHS studies indicate that ESC reduces fatal single-vehicle crash risk by about half and fatal multiple-vehicle crash risk by 20 percent for cars and SUVs. Many single-vehicle crashes involve rolling over, and ESC’s effectiveness in preventing rollovers is even more dramatic. It reduces the risk of fatal single-vehicle rollovers by 75 percent for SUVs and by 72 percent for cars.
Did you read that?! “It reduces the risk of fatal single-vehicle rollovers by 75 percent for SUVs and by 72 percent for cars.”
That is insane. There’s no chance I’m ignoring that. My kid’s car is getting ESC, period.
And you know what, he’s also getting side airbags and a good overall IIHS rating, especially on the Small Overlap Rigid Barrier (SORB) test. I realize in the future there will be more stringent tests, so the car won’t be the safest, but it’ll probably be safe enough.
I would love to get my kid something with a manual transmission, but it all depends on what fuel prices look like in the future. There’s a decent chance he’ll be driving something electric. Maybe I could get him an EREV so he can still do some oil changes, which we can all agree, are good for the soul.
Maybe he’ll inherit my BMW i3? The Mazda3 hatch above with a stickshift could also be a decent option, and it is included in IIHS’s “Safe Vehicles for Teens” list:
That list is pretty boring though, and though safety is paramount, I’d like my child to drive something at least somewhat interesting. Is the i3 too small for a road filled with SUVs and trucks? I don’t know; it’s hard, and I only have about 16 years to figure it out!
What car you buy your kid/have them save up to buy themselves?
Focus ST. A manual to teach my son, small, but not too small, and enough power to get him into cars but not too much to get into too much trouble. Plus I’d be the cool dad 😉
Torn between a Sentra, Frontier, and an LT1 Camaro.
Can’t say why or that it makes any sense, but I have 3 years to figure it out.
“It reduces the risk of fatal single-vehicle rollovers by 75 percent for SUVs and by 72 percent for cars.”
That is a wildly misleading way to present data. Have a read of “Bad Science” by Ben Goldacre. Without knowing what your risk of a fatal rollover is you can’t tell if a 75% reduction is significant. It sounds significant, because 75% is nearly all of the percents, but if your chance of dying in a rollover is 1/1,000,000 that’s a tiny reduction in personal risk, and might come at the expense of having a fun car, or learning car control skills that help you avoid other high risk situations.
Or maybe fatal rollovers happen all the time and ESC is essential, but you just can’t tell from that data.
My sister-in-law is a doctor and made her entire family go vegetarian based on a study that showed a 50% reduction in a particular cancer, which would be enough to eventually delay the death of an entire child if she had one million children eating a diet high in processed meats.
I only had one parent when I got to driving age, and she was fine with me driving her old 2CV. She vetoed my having a motorcycle, so there’s that.
I don’t have kids, so that apparently means two things: none of my views on childcare are valid (seriously, it’s my wedding, take your toddler outside if he can’t be quiet, FFS), and I have spare cash to buy motorcycles.
I am figuring the kid will get one of our (mine or my wife’s) car if we upgrade around the time they’re 16. But we’re still about 16 years off from that. There will always be a few extra cars around so I don’t think there will be an issue of having things to drive.
I don’t know if I will let the kids drive the F250 I drove in high school (which I still have), considering it will be 40 years old at that point.
Ford Focus hatchback (niece) and Mazda CX-5 (nephew). Good safety ratings, good hauling capacity.
A minivan like a Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna. They are safe. They are not small, and there is no natural inclination to hot rod a minivan.
Oh man, I can’t actually write on this website about the stuff we got up to in minivans back in the day, it’s definitely a great way to make the kid popular with a specific crowd for sure.
1986 Chevy Astro has entered the chat. Buddy had an 1987 Aerostar and another friend had a Toyota van. They each hooned quite well.
Yeah, thay are surprisingly sturdy vehicles; and so much room for activities.
Honestly? Either a Town Car (due to being modern enough to be decently safe while also easy to repair) or something like a Mazda 3, which is fun but, so long as it’s like mine and a NA 4 cylinder, not fast enough to get in trouble with.
My first car was a 29bhp 2CV. Definitely fast enough to get in to trouble with.
Either a Buick Regal with the supercharged 3800 or a 2004 Ford Ranger.
I bought my 19 yo daughter a 2009 Vibe a year ago. It gave up it’s life in a T-bone collision. The side airbags worked and she was shaken, but otherwise unharmed. She now has a 2008 Prius.
She loves the hatchback utility.
At 16 I had a ’78 LTDII coupe, malaise era land barge.
I remember having a similar moment after my daughter was born, but then the financial reality of having a massive pay cut, a wife newly unemployed, and a big ‘ol financial crisis going on in the background lead us all the way back to a $650 Oldsmobile along with a few other assorted shitboxes for awhile.
I didn’t actually think too much about whatever car my daughter was going to end up with in the those days. As things got better and the years went on, I was able to replace some of the fun cars I had sold to pay bills during those years. On such car was an ’82 Jaguar XJ6 with a Chevy engine we picked up super cheap because most of the electrical gear on it didn’t work. She was with me when we picked it up. Driving home was hilarious, it was over 90deg. outside and we didn’t have AC, plus the windows and sunroof didn’t work, so we were just driving along sweating like crazy, drinking these huge bottles of Gatorade. When I asked her how things were, the replay was “This is Great, I love Jaguars!”. At that point I figured that would end up as her first car.
Years later she was able to log a significant number of hours in that Jaguar with her learner’s permit, and by now it had working windows and a sunroof at least. I said she could have it when she was 16 as long as she took care of it, but her tastes changed and she decided she wanted a car that was truly her own. So, I agreed that I’d match whatever she could save at the restaurant job she started at when she was 14. Between that and cleaning houses, she was ready to split the bill on a FB Marketplace ’87 Corvette she had found for $3900. We went to see it and I told her to try negotiating the price and see what would happen. She got $400 knocked off, so that was a nice little bonus.
Now she has that, drives it regularly, and I gave her what had been my winter car, a 2014 Chevy Spark so she could also drive something in the winter. That car was what she learned how to drive a manual in, so she’s plenty familiar with it.
We’re still fixing up the Corvette. New steering gear last year, a new windshield to replace the cracked one was her main Christmas present. Last year we had it up in the Corral at Road America and she got to do 90mph down the back-stretch during the morning parade laps. Hopefully we can make it back with new paint this year. That will be a good chance to teach some basic auto-body skills. I’ve found those can come in handy with all sorts of things later in life.
Enjoy the journey, Mr. Tracy! Whether it’s busted-knuckle rusty-wrenching on outdated AMC products, checking the air-pressure on an i3, or calibrating distance-sensors on a grey-market BYD machine of some sort, just keep finding things to do involving your new kid with whatever you’re driving and I’m sure you’ll have a great time!
Inferring from the story photo that a newer Mazda3 is an option, I will say NO to that one. I love Mazdas, I love the previous generation Mazda3 (drove an ’06 for 8 years) but the newer one (especially the “hatchback”) is not an option. You cannot SEE out the thing. The crossover versions are fine. – – – Just yesterday my almost-14-year-old (who has shown zero interest in driving, and in fact had a physical negative reaction to me having her sit in the drivers seat (on my lap) and try out just steering the car in an empty large parking lot) initiated a conversation as we drove across town about the basics of navigating traffic and driving. So I told her what I was looking for on the freeway through town, how to predict other drivers, etc. It mentally exhausted her after 5 minutes but it’s a start. – – – She will probably start driving in the same CR-V we are in right now.
I’m pretty sure SWG or Mercedes will have a couple dozen cars they’re willing to part with.
About stability control: I was driving my ’78 recently and inadvertently chirped the tires at a green light. It could easily have fishtailed and whacked another car. That made me realise how much I rely on stability control.
“Mind child” at the beginning of the story: did you mean “my child”?
Delmar should visit Laurence and learn to drive in Project Cactus.
Our kids first car was a 96 Miata with a 5 speed manual. We figured that no one can text and drive it and could only haul one other stupid teen beyond the one at the wheel.
Unless she protests with a new idea of her own, my daughter will get the newest, nicest 2 door Wrangler I can find. It’s compact in width, lending itself well to learning to drive. The handling characteristics teach a youngster the important habit of staying engaged with the vehicle. They’re incredibly easy to park. She loves to add her personal touches to everything, so the customizability is there for her. The backroad we live on is among the last to get plowed in the winter, so the 4wd, ground clearance, visibility and very good stability control will give her some confidence. We unfortunately have a large amount of gas and oil big rigs, lifted trucks driven by teenagers, and drunk drivers out here in the boonies, so I absolutely will not consider anything that sits low and isn’t body on frame construction.( Save your arguments about small cars being fine-15 years on a fire department have left me with some very strong opinions about putting kids in small cars) And then, she WILL absolutely hit a deer at some point, so repairability will be simple, if it needs repaired at all from an animal strike. The convertible option will keep it enjoyable for her, and the backseat will be removed and a storage box/toolbox installed, for the impediment of teenage activities. ( not what your thinking, that will happen no matter what) but the importance of making sure your kid isn’t driving around with 4 other kids in the car cannot be overstated. There are other reasons, but this is just the most obvious. That, and she already wants one, so a happy bonus is that this will also be the path of least resistance.
I am ashamed to admit that I am 100% used to the lane change warning lights in my side mirrors. I had to drive my mom somewhere in her car (2015 Accord) about 30 minutes on the freeway, and I really missed them. My car is a 2016 C class. I don’t know when these moved from optional/luxury to mass market, but it’s something to consider.
No shame they are a useful tool why not use it.
I find the lane keeping nannies a little too intrusive. My husband’s last two cars have had that distance-keeping cruise control. It’s handy in stop and go traffic, but I have never used it myself. I have to ask him, “Is Hal driving?”
My parents’ Santa Cruz has lane keep and the radar cruise. I almost never use the lane keep, but the radar cruise is really nice especially here in TN, where people… don’t maintain their speed going uphill very well. Kinda nice to not have to keep re-enabling cruise because I had to hit the brakes, but I rarely if ever miss it when driving my car that lacks it.
My kid got my old car, (a 2017 Impreza wagon, for the record, but it would’ve been whatever I’d been driving), and it’s been a good gig for him. I sold it to him for a song, so it didn’t become a source of big debt for him, and it’s old enough that he doesn’t sweat over the dings and abrasions that come with ‘young guy in the city’ car life. This also gave me an excuse to legitimately shop for my next car, a year or two sooner than I otherwise would have.
Lord only knows what your vehicle stable will look like in 16 years, but you’d no doubt have a bunch of new choices about which one of them to pass along. And a built-in reason to find yourself a replacement for it is A Good Thing, no?
I know it doesn’t make for a good article, but…
In the famous word of Wednesday Addams, “Wait.”
I live in northern CA. Don’t worry about what car. Start saving money now to pay for the insurance and gasoline (or electrons). Local gas prices are $6/gal for premium and my auto insurance on my two 20+ year-old cars (without collision coverage) went up by 30%. As a PG&E customer good luck trying to figure out the cost of electricity. My SWAG is between $0.40 and $0.50 per kWh.
I feel for the Californians who didn’t vote for the same political party for 5 decades. I did time in Eureka and Santa Maria. Great areas and great people but my pay couldn’t keep up with the green agenda. I wasn’t rich enough or poor enough to afford it. However here in PA has just went down to $3.45 and electricity just went up to 11 cents per kwh. I don’t make what I did in California but I have more money left at the end of the month now. In business you learn if you can’t increase income you can still succeed by cutting costs.
Which did you like better – Eureka (Cutten?) or Santa Maria?
Eureka by a mile.
I will now no longer complain about my 24 ¢/kwh
Is solar an option, because at that price it will pay back itself much faster.
Yes, solar is a good option now for people with reasonably long life expectancy. I’m just not sure that I qualify any more.
By the way, when I worked for a time in South Korea (for the big S company) the rate in my apartment was the equivalent of $0.88/kWh! My A/C bill in the worst summer months would be around $4,000 because no solar control windows. The S company made the A/C and it was shit, so the temperature would hover around 90F even with the A/C always on. The company preferred to pay the bill rather than do something about the A/C or the windows.
I wouldn’t but a car for my kid. She got to earn it and buy it herself, which she did just fine. Just like I wouldn’t pay for her to go to college. You want it, go get it yourself.
My kid turns 16 in a few months. She is rocking a 2006 Honda Civic with 258k miles on it. It is a single owner vehicle that had all maintenance done by the same dealer. It is in excellent condition, runs like a champ, doesn’t use any fluids, and doesn’t have enough power to hurt itself or do anything unexpected. No touch-screen or phone integration and basic controls.
I have enjoyed driving it enough that I found another one (also a 2006) with 108k miles on it and also a single owner vehicle to use as my work commuter shitbox. Got some brand new Nokian WR-G4 tires on both so they’re ready to conquer the mild SE Michigan winters we’ve been having when the time comes.
My kid is 18, and does not have his license. It is now a daily discussion. All my vehicles besides the Bolt are manual transmission. It is terrifying him. He is good with the Bolt, but almost refusing to learn manual, despite having never known anything else, basically.
My point, it’s this generation. My bet is they will want electric (we are talking 16 years from now), but being your kid, maybe not. The environment you are bringing him up in will most likely promote a cool car as a first car.
My only advice is to make sure it has as many airbags as possible. It’s really my only concern. My old 94 Toyota Pickup won’t cut it, as it has zero.
You are also getting SO far ahead of yourself. It’s fun to read, as I remember being there and going through all the same thought processes. It’ll get easier, and don’t be afraid to ask.
Oh Oh Oh, jump STRAIGHT to Triple Paste. Don’t waste your time on anything else.
The usual big/slow/simple/safe and if it’s got a manual and only seats two, so much the better. Zero infotainment to distract. Fuck wifi hotspots, ambient lighting, etc… Good visibility. Fixable with just a hammer, a roll of duct tape, and a bit of wire found by the side of the road. If it also happens to be a diesel, that might help build character in a younger driver (putting up with adversity given fewer stations have diesel, plus the smell and noise, etc…).
I’m not sure what would satisfy all these requirements… maybe a euro-market Volvo 140/240 with the rear seats removed?
I’ve got and am having zero offspring, so it’s not a quandary at the top of my list. 😉
I intend to pass my Y on to my older 2 to share (they’re Irish twins) so they are in something really safe and I can lock some limits in until they are experienced enough.
I bought one daughter a 2017 Mazda 6, and the other got a 2014 Accord Sport. Both are manual transmissions, so they got that skill down. I expect them to do their own maintenance (winter tire swaps, spark plugs, brakes, oil changes, coolant flushes), but their toolboxes are pretty limited. These cars are easy to work on with a lot of room.
Those are both great choices and frankly, I’d be happy to drive either one of those myself. Extra kudos to you as a responsible parent choosing manuals. 🙂
I also commented elsewhere. My kid got a 2015 Mazda 3 hatchback. Great car, easy to work on, and it drives really well.
They are can already tell the difference in responsiveness between it and our Toyota appliance. That makes me happy.
I’ve recommended a similar Mazda 3 before as a first car. Not super fast (especially with the 2.0), but if you’re like me and live in a place like TN, it’s a joy on backroads either way while being good on gas and seemingly never dies.