My D is considering replacing her car. She presently drives a Chevy Silverado truck. The gas mileage is making a serious dent in her wallet as the last few years she has had a commute. She just moved and now is having to add an additional drive to her 2nd job at a horse facility. (She had been living at the horse ranch)She realized she is going through a half a tank in just a few days. She uses the truck for hauling a horse trailer. Her BF has a diesel truck so she feels she can do with out having her own truck. Plus she is not trailering as much though she is will still own the horse trailer.
Her needs- something that gets good mpg, room for a big dog, room for a few bales of hay or bags of shavings. She is thinking she wants all wheel drive for driving at the barn during the rainy season. It gets pretty muddy. She lives in an area that gets rain and sometimes flooding. No snow but might take it up to the snow. BF’s parents live just at the snow line.
Looking for used with low miles- would like to spend below $23,000. Could go a bit higher depending on what she gets for her truck.
She hasn’t driven anything- considering looking at Honda HR-v, Suburu Crosstrek.
She might be open to a small sedan which would mean giving up the AWD but would probably save her money.
Other option is to keep driving her truck. It is paid for, 87,000 miles and has been well maintained. After driving a big truck for 5 years she is longing for something that is easy to park.
Car suggestions?
@dmd77 - that would be the ideal situation. That is what her BF does. He has an older manual transmission sedan that he uses for his commute. She would need to sell the truck to buy another car. They already have a lot of cars to park on their driveway. 4 already including the roommates car. If they added another it would be 5 vehicles plus a cab over camper. The neighbors must love them and none of the trucks fit in the garage.The horse trailer at least is kept at the barn. They would have to,pay to keep the truck at the barn.
Ideal situation would be for us to take the truck and give her the amount she would get selling it. We don’t presently have an extra car. The truck originally belonged to her grandpa so we know it’s history and it is a great reliable truck.
@thumper1 the Outback and Forrester are nice cars but I think in her budget she would have to buy one with a good number of miles. She is looking to find something under 15,000 miles.
@mom60 One of my Ds has a CrossTrek and loves it. She has a dog and is often carrying cargo of various kinds, with no problem. It’s amazing how much will fit into it.
I have the outback and my D and my S’s fiancé both have a Crosstrek. They are both really happy with their cars.
I will say that the Crosstrek is quite a bit smaller than my outback. For instance they have to take the wheels off a bike to get it in but I can fit the bike in my outback no problem.
Which is why I went with the outback. But the Crosstrek is a great car for the money
I bought a used 2014 outback last spring that had 14,000 miles and final total cost was under 25K. It was CPO through the dealer so it still has 4+ years of warranty and was a leased car, one owner. I think your D could get close to her price for an outback if she looks around. Also, I think the forrester tends to be slightly less expensive than the outback so that might work.
I have a 2007 Ford Focus station wagon that would fit the bill perfectly, except that it doesn’t have all wheel drive. I have hauled all kids of stuff in it, including bales of shavings and bedding, and always travel with a golden retriever, sometimes with another dog too.It gets 35MPG highway, in my experience. Never had a bit of trouble with it. Unfortunately, they stopped making it, since station wagons are unfashionable unless tricked up to look SUVish, like the Subarus. I will say that everyone I know who has a Subaru seems to love it.
BTW, S’s GF just bought a Crosstrek. Nice car, but I think probably on the small side for your D’s purposes.
As much as she likes the styling of the Subaru Outback and Crosstrek she thinks they are above her price range. She is going to drive a Civic hatchback and see how she likes it. Will also drive the HRV. She thinks she will give up on the AWD. It adds to the price and it isn’t a must have.
A lot will depend on what she can get for her truck. If she doesn’t get what she is hoping for she might have to lower her expectations.
If she is looking at Hondas, perhaps the Honda Fit may be worth a look for its large and versatile interior in a small fuel efficient relatively inexpensive package.
I drive a Subaru Forester. I am happy with the car, although it burns oil a bit, and started doing so around 50,000 miles. Decent room in the back, and it does well on moderately rough roads (eg, gravel not all that well maintained). They are definitely not large trucks, and are sort of barely trucks at all. MSRP for the cheapest new one is $22,600.
@mom60:
Is there any reason your D wants to find a car with 15,000 miles or less? This isn’t the 1970’s when with a typical car, especially a US car maker, when you got to to 30k you started looking for a new car because it started to fall apart, these days that isn’t true. I just took a look at my neck of the woods, for both the Forrester and the Outback (I agree the crosstrek may be a bit small), and for the Forrester I found relatively late moded used certified cars (2015 model year) with like 25k miles for around the range she wants. The outback tends to be more expensive, But I sid see some with 26k miles in the low 20’s, same with the forrester. Cars these days can routinely last up to 200k miles without any major work needing to be done, and Subaru’s are known to last. AWD is not the old 4WD, it doesn’t tear up the transmission and transfer case. The outback technically has more storage space than the Forrester, but the forrester is talled and may have more vertical space, the dog may like it better:).
Getting a car with 30k miles or so these days is pretty much new, and a lot of cars come on the market like this as certified used coming off low mileage leases so there is a supply of them. Same would be true of other makes, you likely could get things like the Honda CRV (the HRV is too small and likely because it is new, will be more expensive), the Mazda CX5 and other such small AWD vehicles in the same kind of range.
I think her thinking on less miles is that the car will last her longer. Selling the truck will give her a decent down payment and she wants to make the best decision based on cost, reliability and longevity. She doesn’t work in a super high paying field so she wants to make a good long term decision. @musicprnt and @DadTwoGirls she doesn’t like the looks of the Forester. I’ve suggested driving the Impreza hatchback since they seem to be more in her price range but she doesn’t like the design. The used Outbacks she has seem with between 20,000 and 30,000 miles are for sale around $25,000. Used Subaru Outback and Forrester models command a higher price in her area versus some other makes. She isn’t opposed to looking at a 25,000 mile Subaru if she can find one around $20,000. We suggested a used Prius but she thinks they are “ugly”.
The main reason she wants a different car is gas mileage. If she goes with an Outback versus a Civic her gas savings isn’t as high. If the savings don’t add up she should just keep the truck since with a new car she will have some amount of the purchase to finance. She is already spending a good portion of her 2nd job earnings on gas and with Ca adding another gas tax she is beginning to think she might cut back on that job. Even now she realizes that her gas is costing her almost what she is making on some days. If she didn’t have the responsibilities of several extra horses she wouldn’t need to make that drive 7 days a week. She could cut that down to 4 or 5 days a week.
She is lucky that within a radius of 50 miles she has a lot of different dealers to look at inventory.
I know the Outback would be a great car in any road or weather conditions. I’m wondering how some of these lower sitting cars will do in heavy rain. The roads to the barn get flooded in rain and have some low spots that can get fairly deep.
My H just bought our to-be 20 year old a gently used Mitsubishi Outlander Sport this morning. We helped our older D buy the same model in 2012 new - and she is 5 years in with no problems and still loves hers. It’s not a showy brand, I know (I’m a Subaru fan myself!) but comes with a good warranty, was the size she liked, has 4 wheel drive (we live in Ohio) and nice options. Decent gas mileage. A good starter car that is next to new. It doesn’t sit as low as a car, but not as high as some smaller SUV’s.
For under $23,000 you could definitely find a new Outlander Sport loaded with a very good warranty (D1 who bought new got 10 year/100,000 mile on hers, D2 will have 5 year, 60K on hers.
@mom60:
I would tell her not to worry about miles on a car, seriously, and likely she will get tired of the car before it dies, the major parts of a car, the engine and transmission, with routine maintainence will get to 200k miles, it is pretty incredible given how bad cars were not all that long ago (well, for me, talking well before your D was born!).
The outback is pretty heavy so its gas mileage is not that great, which could be a drawback (not like a pickup truck, obviously). There also are small SUV’s from a lot of manufacturers, and while I like Subaru your daughter might like something from another manufacturer, they all make smaller suv/crossovers. I still have personal bias against the US manufacturers remembering how bad a product they turned out and how arrogant they were, but most of them are putting out a decent product these days, too .
We have a 2011 Outback wagon that gets at least 26 miles to,a gallon…which I’m sure is better than your daughter’s truck. The newer CVT engines get 28 MPG or higher.
Ours had 111,000 miles on it when we bought it…used. It also has the winter package on it…so nice heated seats! No that isn’t a mistype. We fully expect this car to go 250,000 miles…or more. It was purchased at a dealership, and had been serviced there as well. Oh…it cost $12,000.
I just bought a new car. Decided to buy new because I wanted a back up camera and Bluetooth. I looked at used.
RAV4’s I thought were pretty expensive used, most Toyotas are. I found that I could buy a off leased GMC Terrain or Chevy Equinox pretty cheaply compared to the Toyota or Subaru or Honda. Just another thought for a small SUV which I was looking for.
RAV4’s and Toyota’s (Lexus too by extension) in general tend to be more expensive used because they’re one of the best manufacturers of cars and trucks in terms of almost any measurement (e.g., resale value, reliability, cost of maintenance, etc.) over the last 20-30 years.
Our family has two Toyota’s and one of them, my DD (daily driver) has 257,000 miles and has been virtually flawless and VERY inexpensive to maintain. And the local Toyota dealer has been the only shop to ever touch it.
I wouldn’t buy a GMC/Chevy period. As I previously mentioned and others too, the Mazda CX-5 is highly recommended and cheaper than the Toyota RAV4.
