<p>We live 15 miles from my DDs’ school. It was great when she finally got her license at 17. We decided to get her a new, reliable car to drive herself and her sister to school. We didn’t want to take the chance of her car break down when we are not around, especially at night. We pay for all insurance and gas. Here are our rules of giving her a car, 1) no drinking, 2) only one passenger other than her sister in the car, 3) no driving after midnight (NJ law), 4) she is to pay for any traffic violation, which she already got one. But giving her a car is more of a convenience for us. We are going to miss it when she goes to college next year. I don’t believe we’ll let her bring the car up to college. The car is under our name, but she is listed as the driver for the insurance and it has doubled.</p>
<p>My brother bought himself a car when he was 16. He was always a saver.</p>
<p>My boys pooled their money (younger one was only 13) and bought half of a car–we bought the other half. Older one drove it for 2 years, younger one has had it for three. The could have afforded their own car–but not one with airbags etc. Our money paid for safetly.</p>
<p>It’s doubtful that any bank will lend you the money.</p>
<p>The insurance will probably kill the deal.</p>
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<p>Cheers, good for you! I was wondering when somebody would mention that. New drivers are at greatest risk. Driving an old/unsafe clunker (no airbags, no ABS antilock brakes, badly designed headrests and on and on) just adds to the problem. Let’s invest in the kids’ life and limb, and save someplace else.</p>
<p>My son carefully saved for his car from jobs and gifts. Then, it turned out, insurance was a lot less if it was in my husband’s name, on his policy. So … he bought his father a car. No abs, but handles well and aidbags. We do insurance and maintenance, and drive it when ours are being worked on. We, too get the college student away from home and not driving discount.</p>
<p>Like a couple of the othe posters, I would rather have my son driving than some of his friends.</p>
<p>I strongly agree with having your kid drive the SAFEST car available - not the old clunker. Bad drivers need good protection!</p>
<p>too funny ucla dad.</p>
<p>I do get cranky when I have to wait over 10 seconds to pull out into the road as 3 or 4 cars line up during a Montana rush hour or rush 10 minutes anyway LOL</p>
<p>We’re another family that needed Car#3 for S to drive for <em>our</em> convenience. We started by giving him H’s used vehicle – lots of miles, but relatively recent model – and when that died a sad death (couldn’t pass emissions again, too much $$$ to repair) we added a newer vehicle purchased for him to our ‘fleet’. He hasn’t taken it to college tho … my H likes to drive it on weekends!</p>
<p>It’s <em>our</em> car – and we pay for the upkeep and the insurance. S pays for the gas. Most of it anyway.</p>
<p>There is a difference between an old clunker and an old dependable. Our older kids both have a car at their colleges, both cars have over 100,000 miles but are fairly well maintained. After Thanksgiving break my son’s car did break down unexpectedly on a major highway 40 miles north of his college. He did just what my husband or I would have had to do - He called AAA, had the car towed to a service station and then found someone that had room in their car to pick him up on the way back to college. And now he has another skill under his belt. While I want to smooth the path for my kids, I see no reason for it to be totally bump free. When I was in college in the late 70’s my car was a vw bug that I bought for $100. When it needed fixing I found a garage and paid for the repairs. I don’t even remember that being a big deal.</p>
<p>I find this frustrating…
Husband just bought himself a new car, and despite my suggestions otherwise, sold his old one (smaller SUV, well over 100,000 miles, but it ran well enough). Son has his permit, and will get his license in the spring. Why H. couldn’t have held onto the old one until son left for college in August I don’t know. He says once cars pass 100,000 miles the transmission can go at any time (like a ticking time bomb?!) I doubt the sale price of a few thousand would have been that much different about a half year down the road. Son will almost never get to use my car, and Dad needs his. Don’t know where he’ll be working this summer, or if he’ll be taking a class at the CC about 25 minutes from here. Mostly, am disappointed that he will miss the chance to gain better driving experience before heading off to college. From then on, it will be driving in summer only. Am somewhat comforted in hearing from previous posters whose children didn’t drive until much later…</p>
<p>I learned to drive the summer after I graduated from college. I had to learn because I’d gotten a grant to drive around the country photographing firestations! I think my parents must have been chewing their nails thinking about their novice driver taking off on her big adventure.</p>
<p>An old “dependable” can easily turn into an old “clunker” , and too often it is at the worst possible time. My friend who got one of these old lemons for her son, found that it was a terrible purchase. He was commuting so he needed a car. Something would break down always at the worst possible time, and too often Mom or Dad ended up involved in the repair situation. Not a good use of time. She ended up buying a new car for her son, the following year, and though there is that higher insurance and monthly payment, there has not been any trouble. I always buy new because I don’t know a thing about used cars, and have found that my new cars are nearly completely breakdown free if I just keep up the maintenance (almost on schedule). That means a lot to me. I keep a car until it starts becoming unreliable, and some have been with me at the 200k mile level and beyond. But by then I know the car, and that can make a difference from buying someone else’s oldie. We tend to finance over 3 years, and have kept our cars for at least 5 years, some for much longer than that. My son bought a used car that was not a cheapie, so it too is financed, but he has done well with it in terms of reliability. He had wanted to buy a klunker for $1000 from a “friend” and both my husband and I discouraged this purchase because I’ve heard of more headaches about this sort of thing than I have praises of what a deal it was.</p>
<p>i really recommend most of you leasing your kids a car. it doesn’t have to be nice - but you could lease a kia or a hyundai for like $200 a month with little to nothing down. benefits include that all maintainence is usually included (i.e. oil changes and stuff) plus almost everything is under warranty for the duration of the lease. </p>
<p>Driving around in a junker is fine, but i don’t see the point in spending $4000 on a used car that will eventually and most probably need repairs (they always do) when you could have a brand new economy car for 200 a month that will be much more reliable.</p>
<p>also, while maybe your kids don’t have a few thousand dollars in savings, i’m sure most of them could get a part time job that pays $200 a month if you want them to pay for it.</p>
<p>The way I see it is we need four cars right now, why should our kids have the newer, better ones? We cannot afford four new cars. If a car is going to break down, why should it be with me instead of with my throughly capable 19 year old son or just as capable 21 year old daughter? Both have cell phones and AAA coverage. My husband and I had never gotten a new car until 7 years ago, and we would not consider that extravagance for our kids. They can make the decision about a car payment and a new (or newer) car when they can afford it - most likely after they graduate college.</p>
<p>cpt,
Your story is a valid argument for a newer car if everytime there is a problem you need to have someone else fix it - and the newer car is not a lemon. But if you have someone like my husband, who has rebuilt cars and is comfortable fixing them, then there is not as much anxiety owning cars past their prime. My sons car had a driver side power window that would slowly come down as he was driving. My husband and son took off the inside panel, diagnosed the problem and called around to get the part. It was going to be $350 new but he found the same part from a junkyard for $50. They replaced it and it was as good as new in just a few hours.</p>
<p>I think there is alot to be said for knowing how to maintain your own cars and how to basically diagnose problems. Both of our kids know how to change the oil in their cars, how to put air in the tires, how to change a tire and how to call AAA. </p>
<p>p.s. cptofthehouse - If you would put some space in the middle of your posts they would be much easier to read.</p>
<p>Kathiep,</p>
<p>if vanity is keeping you from getting your kids a new ride, at least look at it economically. a 10 year old car that costs 3-4 grand is going to easily have $1000+ of repairs and maintence in a year. So why spend the same amount of money to have a used car when you could have a new car. Also, when you lease a car, your kids can actually make the money to pay for it over time. you won’t have to front the money and have to worry about them paying you back.</p>
<p>also, I don’t care what anyone says, but a new Kia or a new Hyundai isn’t exactly posh - and I definately wouldn’t consider it “spoiling” a kid.</p>
<p>if you feel that strongly about not giving your kid a “new car” why don’t you get a new car and give them your old ones. my parents did that for me and my sister in high school - and then we both got new ones junior year of college when the ones we had were just too expensive to keep.</p>
<p>We just bought my 17 year old son a used Jeep Grand Cherokee with about 100,000 miles on it for about $9,000. There’s no way my son has that kind of money, nor will he in the foreseeable future, but it helps us for him to have a car to reduce the endless carpooling and schepping. Our insurance JUST ABOUT DOUBLED when we added a teenage boy driver and 3rd car to our previous 2 adults, 2 cars policy.</p>
<p>I always come across all these people my own age who get all self-righteous about, “yeah well I bought my car with my own money!”…looks like I might know a lot of liars.</p>
<p>As for me, I’m from NJ and the only car you drive here at 16 has ‘student driver’ written across the back. My dad has to drive all over half the state for his job, so he goes through cars pretty quickly. He bought a new one a couple years before I got my license, and then when I turned 17 he gave that one to me and bought himself another new one. It’s still under my dad’s name and I’m still on my parent’s insurance, and it was paid off when I got it. </p>
<p>My parents told me that if I had a car, I had to use it to go out and get a job and then it was my responsibility to pay for the upkeep and the gas and the insurance. “Public transportation” around here means one lonely bus that goes up and down one major road through the county, so I wouldn’t have been able to work without being able to drive. Considering my insurance was a little under $3000 per year with several discounts, and I never made more than $4000 or so per year at my part-time job, they never actually ended up making me pay for the insurance.</p>
<p>Okay, I admit it, I’m a worrier. I worry about car crashes. I’ve been in one (rear-ended with a 60MPH impact, my toddler in 5-point harness got a broken neck, but daughter in the back seat suffered only minor injuries – thank you Volvo), and both my older sons (and in fact my dad) have had accidents because of mechical failures. Am I the only pessimist who reads government crash stats? The leading cause of death for ages 4 through 33 is car crashes. Look at “vehicle survivability” stats (e.g. <a href=“http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/Rpts/2006/809952.pdf)%5B/url%5D”>http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/Rpts/2006/809952.pdf)</a>, where it’s reckoned that if a new car has a survivability of .995, a ten-year-old car is rated at .721 and a 20-year-old car at 0.079. Skydiving is riskier (yeah, I’ve got one of those too), of course. But driving an old clunker has got to be next.</p>
<p>uh, jags - our kids have one of our old cars or one of my parents old cars. I’m not sure what you mean when you say, vanity thing you are talking about. As for $1,000 in repairs per year - where did you come up with that figure? If one of the kids cars needs that much in repairs it’s time to buy another (used) car. My husband and I have been driving and buying cars for 30 years, I think we can figure out what works best for our family. And if you met my daughter you would know that she can speak for herself. If she thought she “needed” a new car we would hear about it. We’ve never had that conversation.</p>
<p>My husband and I both had used cars that we bought ourselves for twenty years. Not one car for twenty years, but a new (used) car every few years. Six years ago we got our first new new vehicle. </p>
<p>Actually, my son probably could buy himself another car if he chose to, but he’s satisfied with the one he has. He put in new speakers and cd system anyway so I don’t think he plans on getting rid of it soon.</p>
<p>BTW, guess which car spent more time getting fixed last year? the 1996 jetta, the 2001 tahoe, the 2006 cobalt or the 1991 dodge spirit? You guessed it - the 2006 cobalt! It’s in the garage right now waiting for my husband to come home and fix it.</p>
<p>OK…the OLD car we bought our kids was a Volvo. They’ve had airbags for years. I never worried about safety (I did worry about my kids driving…another story). In fact, I loved the car so much that <em>I</em> liked driving it a lot more than my van.</p>
<p>Well said, kathiep. There is nothing wrong with driving older, well maintained cars. As I said before, there are 4 cars in my driveway and the newest is 9 years old. My husband and I did buy our two current cars new in 1992 and 1997 but have maintained them carefully and I know they will last us quite a while longer (just ask our regular mechanics). We did not always buy new- my husband and I scraped together money to buy our first used car nearly 27 years ago and I think it was held together by rust! But if you ask either of us, it was our favorite car of all. The cars that our sons drive are old but one was given us by a family friend who owned it from new (and gave us all the service records for the past 16 years!) and the other one was left to us by my late father who had it 15 years so we have information on that one too. And we also agree if a major repair is needed, it will be time to move on to another car. In the meantime we have kept our insurance costs as reasonable as possible given we have 17 year old and 20 year old sons. We can forgo the Comprehensive and Collision insurance on these older cars since we do not have to carry it as demanded by leasing and auto loan companies. </p>
<p>If one takes the time to research car model reliability and find out as much about the car as possible (have your mechanic check it out) one can find very good older cars for very reasonable prices. </p>
<p>Our sons also have AAA cards and cell phones and know how to use them (dead batteries, locked keys in car etc). Back in the day we did not even have cell phones to help us if our cars broke down! </p>
<p>In the end, every family has to do what is right for them. In our family, an older, well maintained car is fine. Our sons can get themselves a new car someday when they can afford it (and the insurance to go with it). They will appreciate that first new car so much more when that day comes, just as my husband and I did all those years ago.</p>