Please share your experience on cars you have had good experience with and that you would recommend to someone looking for a reliable commuter car. For example I have had great experience with Honda Accords, Civics, and Toyota Camry.
Honda Accord, Honda Civic, Toyota Camry, Toyota Prius. Why switch?
(2) Toyota Camrys
Lexus ES350
Honda Odyssey, Honda CRV.
@Pizzagirl Just wanted to know if there was anything else out there. It seems new cars have so many new options that my current car doesn’t have. I hear people say good things about Volvo and Subaru.
We have owned a number of Volvos over the years and have been very happy.
I currently drive a Lexus CT200 hybrid and love it.
@Fallgirl How are the maintenance costs? I wonder what makes Volvo so popular.
See lots of Volvo’s and Lexus SUV’s in this area.
We have owned Honda (3), Toyota (3), Subaru (3), Mazda (1…a minivan that I loved),Nissan (the other minivan…which I also loved) and Volvo (3) and had great luck with all.
Had a Dodge Caravan which was not my favorite car.
The last couple of cars that I have had that I loved are both discontinued. A Saturn Aura and a GM Envoy. Right now driving a Kia Sorrento (2014 model) I like it a lot but don’t “love” it. Considering a Honda Pilot next.
Our Caravan sucked. The Odessey was much better.
I’ve had a 2011 Hyundai Santa Fe for about 3.5 years now and had no problems with it. Only expense has been tires and oil changes, and a new battery last summer.
We normally run cars into the ground. I may not do that with this one, but only because I think I will want something smaller before then. Empty nest and all.
@raclut We also have 3 Subarus, that the kids drive, but they’re newer. No problems yet, but until we’ve had them at least 8-10 years, I can’t give an opinion. One Forester is 6 years old. Another Forester is 2 years old. Our Impreza is 4 years old.
My Odyssey was a piece of junk, but I think that was an exception. Honda stood behind it and replaced the transmission and the motor after it had gone off warranty.
Our repeat buys were:
3 Corollas - all good, knock on wood.
2 Lexus RX vans - both made us happy.
Had a Mazda van… Not a piece of sunshine. 
(autocorrect was trying to change “van” to “can” - a tin can it was, indeed!).
Toyota Prius. On our 2nd one. Our college daughter is driving our first one…a 2001 which we bought used for $6,000 with 90,000 miles on it. It now has 230,000 miles on it. Still looks and drives great. We did replace the hybrid battery at 180,000 miles. That cost $1900. Other than that, we have only done routine maintenance.
We bought a new prius last year. It was $21,500 for the Prius III (mid range trim package). We just crossed 15,000 miles yesterday and have averaged 52 miles per gallon on those miles.
Last year consumer reports said that Prius’ had the lowest maintenance cost of mid size sedans. Between the two of them, they have definitely been our most reliable vehicles.
Going on Subaru #5 now and loving it. Currently: 2014 Forester with manual transmission. Definitely not a head turner, but functionality was more important to me. The car is comfortable on road trips, relatively fun to drive (with the manual), gets good mileage, and is decent off-road… jack of all trades vehicle!
I only wish they would sell the manual transmission with turbo engine.
We had an Acura years ago that was a workhorse. No problems. Loved that car. Bought used, cheaper than Lexus.
It has been our experience that Japanese luxury brands are more reliable and cheaper to fix than German cars.
H has a Hyundai now (very sad as he used to like older luxury vehicles). It’s been very reliable.
Ford F-150
My favorites ever are my Mazda CX-9 and my Nissan Maxima.
Four Honda Accords, one Honda Civic, one Toyota Corolla, two Honda Odysseys all purchased new since 1973. Five Toyota 4Runners since the late 1980’s. All were fantastic except the transmission on the 2008 Odyssey had a bad reputation so we dumped it fairly early. One Tacoma has 216k miles and drives and looks fairly new. It’s only the American cars I don’t want to recommend.
I’ll add Toyota Camry hybrid to the mix. We had a 1st generation Honda Civic hybrid and it was good, but a bit small. We wanted something a bit bigger and nicer than that or a Prius. We bought a used 2008 Camry hybrid a few months after the Japan earthquake when there were waiting lists for some Toyotas that are made in Japan. It was and is a lovely car and gets great mileage too. No problems at all. I don’t like the Camry redesign they did in 2013 so it feels even nicer to have one of the older pretty ones.
I had Volvo, Mercedes, and BMW. I have loved every BMW series, from 300 to X5 and X3. Aside from the car itself, the service and additional perks from BMW were all better than Volvo or Mercedes. My mom has a high end Mercedes, and she is paying for maintenance, on call service and many options in the car. Whereas, I have all of those extras on my BMW for free. I like how peppy BMW is, it just goes when I step on the pedal. I had Volvo’s two seater sports car, which was just oxymoron, it just had no pick up.
D1 had a Mini Cooper. She cried the day she had to give it up. It was her happy car.
To me, a car is more than just to get me from point A to point B. I want to be happy when I step inside my car.