Daughter’s first car

Welp! 16 years of age is about to start for my daughter next month. She is going to need a car for school after the New Year starts. She will only be driving to and from school. It's 8 miles each way. In the late summer of next year, her brother will be joining her in high school and she will have to take him to school too. My wife wants her to be high off the ground in a vehicle with good visibility all around. No trucks or sedans. Small CUV or SUV is her absolute rule. I say some sedans or coupes are fine but she isn't having it. Sooo with that being forced upon me. Anyone have any good recommendations? My only wish for the vehicle is to have good reliability. I do not care about mpg at this point or brand of the vehicle. $10k is the max I will pay for a used vehicle. *Side note, if anyone has a good solid reason that a vehicle's height off the ground makes no difference then please state your case so that I can share the findings with her. I feel our options are quite limited without coupe/sedans. 
 

Oh yeah, estimated range for her to be insured per month is jaw dropping! $350 to $675 a month  is crazy and the final rates still depends on the vehicle she gets. Yes, she will have had drivers ed, defensive driving class and a telematics device. 

Getting through high school as someone cool is key.

Sure a beige Camry wound be more practical but don't you want her looked at as awesome and cool?  AND her brother has a seat and looks good too?

I started my girls off in Hondas. CRVs to be specific. It was a great decision. Hondas have delivered everything I could have ever asked of them in this role.

My oldest daughter is currently shopping for her first grown up car as an adult on her own. All she wants is another CRV to replace the old one. 

Best shape Pontiac Vibe/Toyota Matrix you can find?

Those always impressed me as damn near unkillable.

In reply to Sine_Qua_Non :

Taller = higher CG = less stable

Matrix / Vibe is probably a good call. It's a tall Corolla.

Look for the SUV no one else is. You'd be surprised at the Buick and Infiniti you can find vs the same Chevy or Nissan. A Buick Encore is a lot of bang for the buck. 

In reply to Sine_Qua_Non :

How old of a car are you considering?  I ask because you may find that your kid is opposed to a relic.  You know, a car made from before the beginning of time.  And, since your daughter's time started in 2007 she may see a car this old as prehistoric!  

Just something to think about.

John Welsh said:

In reply to Sine_Qua_Non :

How old of a car are you considering?  I ask because you may find that your kid is opposed to a relic.  You know, a car made from before the beginning of time.  And, since your daughter's time started in 2007 she may see a car this old as prehistoric!  

Just something to think about.

She understands how expensive new and used cars are. We are starting with 2010 and newer to start with. I wish it was a 2013/2014 car but they are going for a lot more than $10k for a 10 year old car. 
 

I definitely would get this one if I could but my wife said Hell no! 
 

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/cars-sale/nice-eagle/258875/page1/

8 miles each way? Used Nissan Leaf with a lift kit

My daughter turned 16 last year and got my wife's 2014 Buick Enclave. It's built like a tank and I feel good about her driving it. Dead reliable and cheap compared to Honda/Toyota. 

Sine_Qua_Non said:

My wife wants her to be high off the ground in a vehicle with good visibility all around. 

Sounds like a school bus would work perfectly!

adam525i said:

Sine_Qua_Non said:

My wife wants her to be high off the ground in a vehicle with good visibility all around. 

Sounds like a school bus would work perfectly!

You would think so but for some reason the bus comes at 7am and my subdivision is the 1st stop. The target time for school bus arrival to the school is 8:30am. School doesn't start until 8:45! Why so early???

My younger kids bus comes around at 6:15am and their school doesn't start until 7:45am. These crazy early pick up times is ridiculous. 

 

I'll second or third the vote for a Honda, whatever you can find.  Probably a CRV.

Both my kids drove Subaru's ('07 Outback wagon and '09 Forester) and they have been mostly POS's so don't go that route.  They are still running/driving and sitting in college parking lots most of the time now that they are at that stage, but it took way too much wrenching and money to get there. 

My wife's Honda Odyssey gets regular maintenance and just keeps going.

I'm not sure that a case can be made for a car on stilts being "safer."

The higher the seating position the less visual perception of speed the driver experiences.  It has to do with parallax and how humans perceive speed.  Add to that the increased rollover probability that comes from a higher center of gravity.  [I feel that electronic anti-rollover aids work but come with their own issues of reducing the performance envelope and possibly working against driver inputs to avoid a collision.]

I think a 2010+ four-door mid-size sedan from Honda, Toyota, Ford or Hyundai with the standard 4-cylinder engine is the perfect choice for a teen driver.

John Welsh said:

In reply to Sine_Qua_Non :

How old of a car are you considering?  I ask because you may find that your kid is opposed to a relic.  You know, a car made from before the beginning of time.  And, since your daughter's time started in 2007 she may see a car this old as prehistoric!  

Just something to think about.

My daughter is absolutely in love with the car that I let her drive and it rolled out of the factory 16 years before she did.  The convertibleness of it probably helps turn it from prehistoric to cool, though.

Have you thought about the Honda Element/Scion Xb/Kia Soul category? Similar platforms/drive trains, good reliability. 

For future reference, the way that I approached this issue with my oldest was to buy her mother a new car when the kid was 12. We paid extra for all the airbags and safety equipment that they offered. 
 

We drove that car for the next five years and then effectively sold ourselves a good used car with a known history.
 

At about year eight, my now 20 year old daughter hit a bridge abutment in that same car. The floor folded up badly enough that I couldn't remove the floor mats, but both kids walked away without a scratch. 
 

Single best investment I've ever made. 

I got my daughter a Mini and she's still stealing my Jetta  for what it's worth I was driving it a few weeks ago and smashed the oil pan to bits on a large rock left at a construction site. There's one vote for a little more clearance!

I bought my oldest a 2011 Crown Victoria. They are safe and reliable.  She enjoyed driving it and was replace with a Honda Fit.

Mazda CX5 

Drives better than the competitors with equal reliability and without the higher cost of Honda Toyota. Nicer interior too. 

You can pick up a 07 and older Ford focus for pretty cheap.  Only issues is they rust and around town mpg not great.  My father's zx3 rolled over to 200k miles and has been very reliable.  Everything you need, nothing you don't, no distracting info screens. They are like $2500.  

Tall with good visibility? Short drive? 

I suggest m35a2 Deuce and a half. 

Just gonna leave this here:

https://www.carscoops.com/2021/11/nissan-leaf-crossover-is-already-a-thing-thanks-to-japanese-tuner-esb/

More seriously, I get that there's a desire to "be upstairs from the accident" but I don't know how realistic that really is in a world of giant pickup trucks and even bigger brodozers made from them.

My son's first car was a 1963 Buick Special like the one below.  215 aluminum V-8 with Fubaba exhaust, BUT; with you daughter's insurance rates, they would eyeball airbags and all that and penalize accordingly.  

Ford Escape?  1st Gen RAV-4?  Mitsubishis are hundreds cheaper than comparable Hondas/