Learn me. First cars.

I’m constantly asked by kids ridding the bus what should I buy for my first car.  

Most of these kids that ask don’t have dads. They are either Foster kids( surprisingly a rather large percentage ) or Children of single parents.  

I tell them to keep riding the bus and use public transportation but they have the ambition to get a job and no way to get there. 

No the school doesn’t have auto shop to teach how to repair and maintain cars. Not to mention any repairs would be done with tools they don’t own  outside where it just got above zero  and there is more than a foot of snow and ice. Plus in all likelihood they will need to pay their own insurance. 

They are likely at their first job making less than $10/ hour  probably under 25 hours a week  

Always answer a question with a question. 

“What should I buy for my first car?”

”How much you got saved?”

uh, jag xjs v12. 

boom done

The answer is Prius.

The long answer is: unless you get lucky, or are given a car, basic transportation starts at around $2000 these days.  You can buy cars that are cheaper, but, again, unless you get lucky, they're going to need work to function in any reasonable capacity as "transportation".  

2nd Gen Priussesss seem to be hitting the 2000 mark around me, for higher-mileage ones.  Cost of ownership is about as low as anything else out there.  That'd be my go-to recommendation for cheap seats for the non-enthusiast crowd.  

Either that, or some well-depreciated pickup truck, but only if they think they can/ are willing to fix little niggling things that crop up now and then.  

Cheap, easy to work on and safe. 

Could be a lot of things depending on interests

First response should be, "What kind of car do you like? It will be organic after that.

Anything that was built to be neglected and abused.  Rental fleet fodder.

Since insurance statistics show that teenagers are likely to crash their first car something safe and cheap.  15 year old Ford Taurus is my usual go-to.

SVreX said:

Always answer a question with a question. 

“What should I buy for my first car?”

This, but "Can you get to your job without a car?"

"Can you share a car with someone?"

SVreX said:

Always answer a question with a question. 

“What should I buy for my first car?”

”How much you got saved?”

In the late 1970’s after the two wild twins ahead of me my pop looked at me and said I wasn’t getting my DL until I was 18 years old. It didn’t help I bumped a guys door while driving a truck at age 15 on a construction site I worked at.   

He caved at 16-1/4 years old but no car until I turned 18 - drive your sisters Beetle when they don’t need it (HA).    

So I walked to work and saved money the 4 years I was in high school. Saved like a squirrel and bought a car and paid three years of college.   

Work.  Save money.   Don’t buy goofy crap.  

Miata 
Is 
Always 
The 
Answer 

Datsun310Guy said:

SVreX said:

Always answer a question with a question. 

“What should I buy for my first car?”

”How much you got saved?”

In the late 1970’s after the two wild twins ahead of me my pop looked at me and said I wasn’t getting my DL until I was 18 years old. It didn’t help I bumped a guys door while driving a truck at age 15 on a construction site I worked at.   

He caved at 16-1/4 years old but no car until I turned 18 - drive your sisters Beetle when they don’t need it (HA).    

So I walked to work and saved money the 4 years I was in high school. Saved like a squirrel and bought a car and paid three years of college.   

Work.  Save money.   Don’t buy goofy crap.  

 

 

But how did you pay for your new iPhone and unlimited data plan? 

Great answer!  I concur.

What do those kids do if they don't have a sister's VW? What do they do if they are rural and walking/bicycle isn't safe or practicle? Transportation is still relevant to many young folks. 

SVreX said:

Always answer a question with a question. 

“What should I buy for my first car?”

”How much you got saved?”

In more than a few cases it’s I need a car to get a job, I need a job to pay for a car.  

Suburban kids are often not able to get where the jobs are. Isolated by freeways with no walking access across or around them.  Or distances that would take hours to walk to and more hours to walk from. 

Professor_Brap said:

Miata 
Is 
Always 
The 
Answer 

Wouldn’t a Miata cost too much to ensure?  

ProDarwin said:

SVreX said:

Always answer a question with a question. 

“What should I buy for my first car?”

This, but "Can you get to your job without a car?"

"Can you share a car with someone?"

Let’s assume for purposes of discussion they can’t get a job without a car. And no they can’t share a car.  

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

Anything that was built to be neglected and abused.  Rental fleet fodder.

Since insurance statistics show that teenagers are likely to crash their first car something safe and cheap.  15 year old Ford Taurus is my usual go-to.

What is the price of a 15 year old Taurus? How reliable are they? What do they cost to insure? 

Unfortunately, the answer for a lot of kids seems to be that it isn't currently possible.  Buying the car is the last step, not the first.  Locally, the first is "pay your own driver's training".  Public schools don't do it around here, at all.   IIRC, my son's cost around $350.00. It's VERY difficult for children of limited income households to get beyond this hurdle alone.  Then they need to do a certain number of "practice driving hours", often in a family with limited access to vehicles to begin with, in order to get a driver's license.  Then they need to arrange insurance.  Unfortunately, in a small family, this means a teenager as a primary driver .  .  .  cha-ching!!$$!!$$!!$$  So figure $150-200/month for BASIC coverage.  Ok, now we can start looking at cars.  Unless they get REALLY lucky, anything under $2-3K is going to have massive amounts of differed maintenance.  So, if buying cheap, they had better have at least a few hundred to cover repairs. Then they find out that, when it comes to cars (as with everything else), "the man" must be paid.  Tax, title and license are going to be several hundred bucks, even on a clunker.   This is before they buy their first gallon of gas, oil change, or set of tires.

So, my question would be, is there a way you can work for 5-6 months without having a car?  (Bus, car pool, family, moped)

Sadly, in my professional capacity, I've seen a lot of people who are trapped in poverty (especially in the more urban areas) by this very issue.  Anything paying a reasonable wage requires transportation and transportation requires a reasonable wage.  

It really depends how much they value their freedom, independence and ability to both make and maintain friendship/get with people who they sexually desire. 

When I was 16.5, having a car was freaking awesome. In fact, some of my most fond memories surrounded some of the cheapest vehicles I've ever owned. 

If a kid asked me "what car should I get", I'd say "whichever car you can drive away for the least amount of money." 

I would go with the best small economy car I could afford, cCivic, Corolla, etc.  The idea is something reliable, inexpensive to maintain, with affordable consumables. Given the climate you’re in being able to buy good tires for the winter is a definite plus as well. 

Appleseed said:

What do those kids do if they don't have a sister's VW? What do they do if they are rural and walking/bicycle isn't safe or practicle? Transportation is still relevant to many young folks. 

The funny thing is my twin sisters were in junior college and were party animals.  The Beetle was never available for me.  

My response wasn't meant to be combative. I've lived (to varing dregees) rural most of my life. I was thinking what would a country kid do? 

frenchyd said:

I tell them to keep riding the bus and use public transportation but they have the ambition to get a job and no way to get there. 

They are likely at their first job making less than $10/ hour  probably under 25 hours a week  

Your advice is probably the best advice.  A $10/hour job is not going to support purchasing a car and insurance.  If they have the initiative to get a job, that's good.  If they can find one that doesn't require owning a car to get to (there could be many ways this could work), then they are taking a potential cause of unreliability out of the equation.  

Saving money for a car is one thing.  Planning a budget to keep the car maintained, insured, registered, etc is what realistically needs to happen.

Too many people these days are setting their life up around "monthly payments."  Payday loans, "leased" HVAC sytems or Tires/whees, a "phone" that they use to send asinine photos to strangers, etc.    That's one way to budget, but it's not how financially successful people are doing it.

Are they willing to learn how to wrench on their own cars? If I didn't do all my own wrenching I never could have owned a car in high school.

frenchyd said:

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

Anything that was built to be neglected and abused.  Rental fleet fodder.

Since insurance statistics show that teenagers are likely to crash their first car something safe and cheap.  15 year old Ford Taurus is my usual go-to.

What is the price of a 15 year old Taurus? How reliable are they? What do they cost to insure? 

The Taurus is not particularly loved and doesn’t suffer the Toyota tax. (Comparable Camry will cost more than double).

They were built to be neglected but keep running and are pretty much never stolen so their insurance is as cheap as anything out there.  Believe me, i’ve Put some thought into this.  

In my house the oldest girl is driving my Passat until she leaves for college since she can’t take a car with her but it wouldn’t be a good car for a teenager to buy and gets worse mileage than ideal.  My sone drives a stick shift Fiesta his mother bought him, great car but too new and pricey for kids to swing on their own as a first car.

Miata are pretty awesome but for crash durability and insurance costs I don’t love them as first cars.

If anything, the best lesson you could give these kids is how to shop for a car without getting reamed by a shady/unscrupulous seller.