Yes, he is supposed to get a California license within a few weeks of moving to California if he wants to drive.
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/newtoca/newtoca
Does he have any specific needs for a car?
With 100 miles per day, he probably wants a comfortable reliable fuel efficient car. A Prius as suggested earlier would be a good choice if there are no other constraints.
If he is interested in buying a used car he can get a lot of good information from carfax. I have bought 2 certified pre-owned cars in the past year, a subaru outback and a honda civic. It is helpful if he just test drives some cars to see if he can narrow down what kind of car he wants then he can do a lot of research on line without having to drive around to different lots. I looked for cars that were very low mileage, 2-3 years old, with a warranty from the maker. Looking at the carfax I looked for cars that had had only one owner and had impeccable service records. I was suspicious of cars that didn’t offer a free carfax report, seemed like they might be hiding something. Different car makers have different terms for their certified pre-owned cars in terms of their warranties, it is worth doing a little research to see what cars have the best warranties.
I would recommend checking out Consumer Reports for reliable, high mileage vehicles in his price range. Leasing is almost never a good idea unless you are the leasing company.
I am 6’1" and the maximum reasonable size for a Prius. I have a 70 mile roundtrip commute and if it were much longer, I would likely have upgrade earlier.
I drive a hybrid Camry now and despite my spirited driving style (see Tesla thread) I still get over 35 MPG all-in.
Most states require a new DL within 30 days of establishing residence there. Some are more aggressive than other in ticketing violators. As long as he doesn’t get pulled over for something else, he could risk it, but I would not endorse that.
With that kind of commute, I don’t recommend leasing it, for the reasons people have stated, that is 500+ miles a week, that will blow out a lease in no time, plus living in a city area even if he has off street parking, you likely would get damage to the car and even if minor can cost you when you turn the car in.
I tend to agree with those saying buy a good car coming off a lease, these days they have 2 year or three year leases that will have 30k on them, and with cars today that is almost brand new as long as they have been taken care of, and that car can last a good long time, even if your S is putting up that kind of mileage, for many cars you can get 250k out of them without major work other than replaceables, like cam belts and the like.
Also keep in mind gas prices, California tends to be extensive, so you want something with good mileage. A hybrid may be a solution, what I would be concerned about there is the battery pack, with the mileage he will be putting on he might right into battery pack failure. I don’t know with the other manufacturers, Toyota has a 150,000 mile warranty on their batteries (this may be common) so unless he plans on keeping the car a lot of years, that might work out for him (he might end up with 30k a year between work and other driving) , if he planned on keeping it longer than let’s say 4 or 5 years he could run into needing to put a new one in, that will cost him around 3500 bucks or so to replace.
You could also go very small, cars like the Fit and Yaris, but they tend to be underpowered and also may not be very comfortable, you can get cars above 30 mpg that are comforable, the impreza does 38 on the highway, 28 city (hybrids are kind of different, they do better mileage in the city) and I would be looking at that, given the commute. He also should definitely test drive the cars and think about what is comfortable to drive, a manual might give better mileage but given some of his driving is in the city, an automatic (a CVT might be a nice compromise, it has near manual MPG but is an automatic)
I don’t know how old he is, the OP didn’t say, but I would avoid anything that is the least bit upscale or sporty, insurance companies absolutely kill a young male driver (who I assume is single), even if they hit the magic 25 year old barrier, getting something like a civic or prius or impreza is going to cost significantly less. Yep, BMW’s are great cars, Lexus are great cars, but a young male is going to get killed with either of those, not to mention living in the city those cars will be targets for all kinds of things and also both cars can be very expensive to maintain or fix…if parking on the street, cars like civics can be targets for thieves, the civic and accord are the most stolen used cars, the Camry is up there, too (and these lists are weird, older cars can be bigger targets then newer ones, mostly because of demand for parts) so keep that in mind, too. From what I understand street parked cars in SF are like cars were in NYC in the 1980’s, there are a lot of break ins, people looking for anything of value, so that might be a concern, too. I would recommend getting some sort of ignition cutoff (alarm systems are a joke), and maybe something like LoJak (the sticker on the car may be more of a deterrant than the unit). .
I bought a two year old Subaru Outback last spring coming off a lease with only 14K miles and the civic I bought was 3 years old and only had 23K miles on it. If he gets an idea what kind of car he wants he should be able to find something with very low mileage.
Extra caution with the recent flooding in San Jose, the chance of those submerged cars "flooding " the used car market with too good to be true deals.
Go with only reputable used as new companies, ask all the right questions, have a mechanic look for signs it was sitting in flood waters and know the lemon laws.
^good point. It sometimes is worth the drive to find a great deal out of state and drive the car back.
If you have an electric car – how do you charge it if you have to park on the street – because you don’t have garage access? Given where he will be working – without a corporate parking lot – no charger at work either. (Hybrids charge themselves? I am clueless!)
I would stay away from private sales to avoid exactly the problem that @beerme refers to. It would be illegal for a dealer to sell such a car – but still a good idea to have an independent mechanic check it out. I like consulting the list of consumer-recommended mechanics at cartalk.com to find a good one. Or have him join Nextdoor in his area and ask for leads.
Hybrids do charge themselves.
With a commute that long, I’d want a hybrid. I want one anyway but couldn’t really justify the higher price since I live about 5 miles from my office.
I admit to being kind of cheap about cars, but I’d never tell my kid to go get something line. BMW or Lexus just because he had a generous car allowance. As others have said,insurance is super expensive for young men–don’t make it worse with a high performance or expensive car.
I got a Hyundai from Carmax 4 years ago. I’ve been very happy with it although I may downsize soonish (it’s an SUV). I was very happy with the Carmax experience. I hate negotiating and car shopping in general. People who love to haggle would probably say I paid too much but I’m satisfied with what I paid and it was a really good experience overall.
I dunno I bought my last car from a dealership and it came with a host of issues - one of which being the clutch was not installed properly so it’s very stiff. Don’t fall into the trap where you think that a dealership is automatically better than a private sale. If it’s a used car, you should always get a second opinion on it. No matter where it comes from UNLESS you buy it with a warranty that you actually trust.
When I bought my car, there was a $250 option to return the car within 48 hours. I went to an Infiniti dealership for an inspection (G35 is the car) and they gave me a whole list of things that would need to be fixed. New door speaker, new tires, cost of fixing curb rash, front suspension bushings, and a battery that barely held a charge. These are all things that were wrong with a car bought from a used car dealership with a near-perfect rating on Yelp/Google. So the next day I went back and negotiated a discount on new tires, a free new battery, they gave me a $200 check to fix the speaker, and they gave me dealership prices on fixing the curb rash. All in all, I saved around $800 after seeing a mechanic ($160 for the inspection) because they didn’t want to lose their sale ( I imagine the price paid was above their margin anyways since they bought it at an auction). The $250 option + $160 inspection (which they put towards the first service there) was well worth the savings, both financial and mental.
Also, if you’re buying a used hybrid - keep in mind that replacing all the batteries is a HORRENDOUS cost and something that becomes more of an inevitability especially when a Prius hits above 150k.
Not illegal to sell a flood damaged vehicle. It just needs to be disclosed (many states mark the Title so you can tell it has been damaged).
Well, buying a car is a multi step process. First, he’ll want to figure out what he thinks he wants and go test drive. Then he needs to do some Internet research and see what that vehicle equipped how he wants it should cost. Typically the way I buy a car is I find the best Internet price, cars direct.com has typically been competitive, print it out, and that’s my max price. I take it with me to the dealership and let them know this is what I’ll pay. Don’t talk about what you can afford per month, or any of these other crap questions they ask to try and make a bad deal. Your max price, is your max price. When we’re trading in we also figure out our blue book value so we know what we’ll take for the trade as well. We typically get preapproved for the financing so we don’t have to haggle over that part either.
@Torveaux #32 is correct, but only a dealer really faces repercussions for a failure to disclose. Good luck tracking down a private seller and getting your money back. That’s the point I was trying to make.
Hybrids (e.g. Toyota Prius) use the electric motors and battery as supplemental to the gasoline engine. That allows the car to capture energy when slowing down and shut off the gasoline engine when stopped. You do not need to plug them in. Indeed, except for plug-in hybrids (e.g. Toyota Prius Plug-in or Prime) that can go 10-50 miles on electric alone, they do not have any place to plug them in at all. Either type of hybrid can be driven on gasoline alone, although getting a plug-in hybrid may not make too much sense if you do not have a place to plug it into inexpensive electricity (the bigger batteries cost more and reduce cargo space).
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1078138_toyota-hybrid-battery-replacement-cost-guide suggests that Toyota Prius and many other hybrid batteries only rarely need replacement.
However, Honda IMA hybrid batteries (as used in Civic hybrids before 2012) tend to be failure-prone, according to http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/02/honda-civic-hybrid-battery-reliability-gets-worse/index.htm (shows comparison of Honda Civic hybrid and Toyota Prius battery replacement rates in their survey).
Have him drive the Prius…maybe rent one for a week. We don’t think they are particularly comfortable. DH commutes 45 miles each way to,work…and refused to do,so in a Prius. Seats were not comfortable…at all.
He had an Accord until recently. He now has a very old used Golf. But for long drives…we also have an Outback and a Volivo.
Both of our kids have Camry. They love them…comfortable, and reliable. We got both off,lease, three years old…for under $15,000. And low mileage.
The prius is the worst most boring car I’ve ever driven. I almost feel like it turns people into bad drivers because it takes away all driving pleasure. I agree with other posters about camry hybrids being better. My girlfriend has had 2 base model mini cooper’s that she used to commute 30 mi each way. Fun car, reliable, gets 32mpg avg.
(First one was totaled by an idiot in a fj cruiser btw, it didn’t break)
@ucbalumnus I have multiple friends who had the issue with prius batteries